Published Aug 27 on Soccer America’s Grassroots Soccer Biz.
Is your soccer tournament better off this year than it was last year? How do you know? Unless you measure against goals and benchmarks, you really have no way of knowing. While you may have more money in the bank, was it because you sold more t-shirts or was it because the teams increased over last year. Or maybe your schedule was tighter. Or maybe your team numbers increased over last year, but you somehow found yourself with less money? How could that be?
Unless you are running your soccer tournament like a business with financial tools such as profit and loss (P&L) statements, budgets, cash flow projections, revenue and expense reports and other measurement tools like rankings and surveys, you really have no way of knowing. Because the goals of each soccer tournament vary from event to event, there are no right and wrong measurements, but here are a few things to measure as you move through the various phases of your soccer tournament.
1. Project and watch cash flow
Starting with day one to day 365, you should have cash flow projections. Day one is defined as the day after this year’s tournament and the start of next year’s tournament cycle. (you didn’t take the day after your tournament off, did you?) You will probably wish to divide up the cash flow projections into months, but project out on the same income and expense cycle as the previous year so that you can compare cycles year to year. As an example, Labor Day may fall in the same month each year, but the number of days preceding it in September may be different year to year. Now, comparing your cash in and out for the previous year, are you operating a more positive cash flow each month? While a more positive cash flow is important, don’t give up asset purchases for short-term cash goals.
2. Track profit performance as a percentage
Always measure profitability as a percentage rather than a dollar figure so you will have an accurate yardstick year to year. Keep in mind that the soccer tournament business has a cycle. You may have a run of three incredibly profitable years and then the next two may dip down a bit, then move up. Once you have a longer history, you will be able to predict profitability and plan inventories (like concessions, shirts, etc) accordingly.
3. Know your demographic metrics
How many times have you had a tournament where one year you have far too many of one age group and then next year, you are struggling to get a division together for that same age group? Did you check the overall birth rates in your local area or from areas you pull from? Or maybe a league installed a new age-based requirement? If you are able to predict the flow of players year to year, you are better prepared to either market to them or prepare a smaller division and focus your attention on the more populous ages. Age is just one metric you can use, but there are many others, including travel costs from certain regions, school schedules, league requirements, state association rules, etc. The point here is to know your target market; don’t just shotgun out your marketing and see what sticks.
4. Measure happiness
Revenue is what happens when people buy things. Profitability is what happens when happy people are eager to buy your soccer tournament experience. MEASURE HAPPINESS. Most of the teams competing in your soccer tournament will not take home trophies, so only a fraction of happiness can be attributed to winning. The majority of teams will judge your soccer tournament on whether or not they had fun.
While measuring fun is a very elusive metric, the three big factors appear to be a) hotel quality, b) food quality and c) respect. Hotels and food are fairly straightforward to measure and control, but measuring and influencing respect is slippery. It all comes down to the attitude of the volunteers, the HQ tent, the flow at registration, the way the coaches were talked to, the way the referees controlled the game and how much of your “frugality” was exposed during the tournament.
Encourage teams to give you feedback, whether that is directly via email or gathered through ranking and feedback systems such as GotSoccer, TICO Scores or bulletin boards like Back of the Net. Then, when “unhappiness trends” appear, DO SOMETHING to fix it. Don’t ignore it. If a few are willing to complain, many more are willing to just keep silent and simply not come back.
A soccer tournament is a business. While your goals may be to give the soccer community a fun experience, you need to be able to stay in business to accomplish that goal. These are just some of the measurements you should be using for your soccer tournament, but is by no means a complete list. Knowing more about what makes your event profitable within your niche or target market area is your competitive advantage that you should be honing with each season. But, you can only know how far you have come by knowing where you have already been.
Share your thoughts and what else you measure by commenting!
The Thanksgiving weekend used to be a quiet weekend, where you could relax and reflect, without having to worry about your spring soccer season.
Carol Maas, co-director (with Jim Paxton) of the 
It is Sunday evening after the tournament and your photographer said they would post the photos from the weekend after the tournament. So, “where are they?” your teams are asking. It is after the tournament, the teams have all gone home and they were promised photos after the tournament.
Meet Sarah Scheidel. She graduates in 2010 and is top in her class. She is probably a pretty good soccer player. I don’t know much about Sarah, but I know that her profile will stand out from the pile of other profiles that her teammates will have submitted. 
