3 ways to stretch your sports organization’s dollar…

…that you may not have thought of yet

Even large, thriving sports organizations say our biggest club, which has over 19,000 registrations a year diligently  keep a close eye on all resources. Money always needs to be accounted for! Still, there are ways to make the job easier, and ease the pressure on your league s finances.

1. Think of your league as an enterprise

Your league is an enterprise. You want your enterprise to be well-run, attractive, and good to those it serves (players, their families and/or volunteers). Such a league attracts members, and attracting members is how you flourish.

How  do you start making your league more appealing and improve the way it’s run?

One critical way is to use the best possible tools for registration, scheduling and communications. You need  a system that is integrated, easy to use, and engaging. That way, you:

• Engage and build your player/parent base by communicating easily, often, and in a variety  of ways, so that your members  can access info in the way they like best.
• Spend less time entering and sourcing data from multiple systems. Ideally, your administrators should be using a platform where all tasks can be performed through one easy-to-use system. This will take the load off you/your staff/your volunteers, plus allow everyone to do a better, more consistent job.
• Stop inconveniencing  players and/or parents. Forcing parents to use one system to view schedules and another to make and view payments, and then to call an administrator to issue (even worse, re-issue) a receipt is confusing and inconvenient.

One more tip think about reporting. A platform with strong reporting  capabilities makes your admin’s work easier and more efficient. And with better reporting, you ll make better decisions.

In sum, don t think of your digital platform as a utility for your league think of it as a success lever!

2. Pull your focus away from budget. Start thinking about the net net.

Pull your focus away from budget, and towards the bottom line. Think about making better use of your resources. All of them. All the time.

When you focus on staying within budget, you tend to push your resources particularly your volunteer resources as hard as you can. You may waste or exhaust them.

Today s volunteers aren t the same as those of ten or twenty years ago. They have many, many demands on their time. Push a volunteer too hard, and you may decrease their motivation, or worse yet, lose them. Over time, you re wasting volunteer value.

As well, focusing on budget encourages you to neglect what may appear to be intangibles good communications with your players and/or their parents. But what s the cost to you, when an excellent player and/or an excellent volunteer or parent leaves your league, because they re not happy with how they re treated? And don t forget, the more valuable the player and/or volunteer, the more choices they have and the more people they can influence ¦

3. Aim to get more for  your money!

In the digital world, you have opportunities you never had before to stretch your organization’s dollar. Good software helps this happen, but…

How would you like to find great software that can not only decrease costs, but actually fully eliminates the costs of your digital platform? Wouldn t that be great?!

At SportSavvy, we now offer our full, best-in-class league management software platform registration, scheduling, team communications, reporting and more for free. It s been a long-term goal of ours to roll this out to every club, because we believe strong sports creates strong communities. And we ve done it by building partnerships with leading corporations who are eager to help deliver amazing software to clubs within our Corporate Social Responsibility initiative. In fact, SportSavvy was the first ever to offer a free complete sports management platform in North America, and we are only ones to provide a free complete sports management platform in Canada.

Does your current league management software help you get the most out of your time and money?

The final score

Running a sports league will always be a labour of love. It s an endeavour that I deeply and personally believe in; I ve been involved in sports all my life.

Still, there are ways you can make the job easier and the results better. The digital world has changed the way we run our leagues, and the opportunities we have. Make sure you re taking full  advantage!