Every season comes with new and exciting challenges – yet sometimes they can leave you feeling anxious or uneasy. We’re here to tell you that you’re not alone. Download our e-book to learn more about these concerns, how other baseball and softball organizers overcome them, and their top advice for others.

4 Solutions to Top Concerns for Baseball and Softball Organizers

Softball BC

MYAS

USA Hockey

Oklahoma Soccer

Louisiana Soccer

Alison Rossi

Because of the time-savings I’ve had with TeamSnap, I can spend more time with the kids. Before, 70% of my time was working on administrative tasks and only 30% of my time coaching the kids. Now, I would flip it, which makes a big difference.

In this on-demand webinar, TeamSnap CEO, Dave Dupont, shares his thoughts on the future of youth sports and how we can rebound from the impact of COVID-19 together. 

A Look Ahead: What TeamSnap CEO, Dave DuPont, Sees for the Future of Youth Sports

Tom Ovenden

Centralizing a lot of the club’s output was really important so there’s one place you can drive the engine forward from. I put a lot of our success on TeamSnap. It helped us keep everything in one place.

Every season comes with new and exciting challenges – yet sometimes they can leave you feeling anxious or uneasy. We’re here to tell you that you’re not alone. Download our e-book to learn more about these concerns, how other hockey organizers overcome them, and their top advice for others.

Addressing The 3 Key Concerns Of Hockey Organizers

Hockey Canada

US Lacrosse

Matt Duquette

After taking the time to figure out what we wanted to do, TeamSnap did it all. We saved tens of hours on registration alone. Parents said that it was so much easier than last year.

We make life easier for sports admins and we do it by bringing everything into one integrated solution. During this on-demand webinar we’ll share why thousands of sports organizations rely on TeamSnap and provide a demo of our Clubs & Leagues integrated solution.

Back To Sports With Teamsnap

Back to Sports with TeamSnap


# The Belles Lacrosse Club trades a registration nightmare for a dream 

Just outside Philadelphia, Kennett Square is known for more than its proximity to the City of Brotherly Love.
Producing roughly 60% of the country’s mushrooms, it more than deserves its nickname as the Mushroom
Capital of the World.

A relatively new club with 140 players ranging from 11 to 17 years of age, the Belles Lacrosse Club provides its players
the opportunity to grow as athletes and individuals, all while fostering a love for the game.

> “At the lower levels, it’s really about lacrosse as a sport and building team concepts. They want to win, obviously, but it’s
> about creating a core group of kids who want to stay together and play the sport for years to come,” explains Eric Anthony,
> who volunteered to get the club up and running outside of his full-time work in financial services. “At the older ages,
> they’re working on recruiting efforts and getting kids ready to play in college.”

The 7-team club competes in top tournaments across Maryland, Delaware, and its home state of Pennsylvania.

### A change of ownership 

When the current club owners took over Belles Lacrosse, there was a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it. Knowing Eric’s experience with other lacrosse clubs, they reached out for his help.

“One of our biggest challenges was registration,” says Eric. They were importing from one form to another, reconciling fields in a variety of formats and manually validating entries. “It became a total nightmare.”

Communicating with players and teams was another challenge. “All of our communications were going through Gmail and there were always some recipients who never got the message.” Whether out of date or just incorrect, ensuring they had the right contact information was always a struggle. It made getting the word out on game day unreliable.

Dealing with separate tools for every aspect of running a club also created additional work and headaches. When Belles Lacrosse was looking to update its website, they explored their personal networks and countless vendors. Nothing delivered a hassle-free site backed by a dedicated support team.

### Enter TeamSnap 

The Belles Lacrosse Club needed an easier registration process, and that started with a single, integrated tool. From building custom fields to collecting and managing player information, it had to be seamless—so it had to be TeamSnap.

> “I’ve been using TeamSnap off and on for six years, first as a parent for my son’s lacrosse program, and now that I’m more involved, for three different clubs,” says Eric. “Before, with the registration process, it was frustrating. It was completely inefficient. Now, having a single registration point integrated with TeamSnap is huge.”

And Eric was thrilled to learn that TeamSnap integrates with the US Lacrosse registration database. “Having that integration—knowing they’re registered—is awesome!”

Managing registration through TeamSnap had other impacts. For one, it meant that player or parent contact information came straight from the source. “Using TeamSnap as a central point makes more sense because parents can update their information directly. So on a tournament day, we’re able to send a message to let players and families know where we’re set up, what field we’re on, etc … everybody is getting thatsame message.”

And that integration extended to other areas of the club, like the team website. “There are hundreds of web companies out there. Having the single point of integration—the schedule integration, the registration integration—I think it’s huge.”

### A great start is only the beginning 

Like many new clubs, Belles Lacrosse was starting from square one and had a mountain of administrative tasks to scale. Whether it was getting a registration process in place, porting player details from one format to another, or communicating last-minute schedule changes, before TeamSnap each step felt piecemeal and fragmented. “We were just starting out and put it together rather hastily. We dealt with what we had,” says Eric.

With TeamSnap for Clubs & Leagues, they now have a single platform to simplify everything from registration and payments to communication and scheduling. They’re also adding new TeamSnap products to manage their club, like using Website Builder to get their website up and running and TeamSnap Tournaments when they hold their first-ever charity tournament next year.

> “Going forward, it’s going to be a lot simpler with TeamSnap. The single point of integration is going to be great. We’re pulling directly from the TeamSnap registration site into the TeamSnap page or league. It’s huge.”


Belles Lacrosse Club


# For the Bulldog Ball Club, bringing in TeamSnap means bringing in more revenue 

With 1,000 players, 50 rec and travel teams, and yet more teams in after-school programs, the Bulldog Ball Club is a big club in the big
city. And if its size wasn’t enough, it’s also a multi-sport club. Baseball and basketball are the largest programs, but it also organizes flag football, softball and soccer programs.

Its goal, according to full-timer Andrea Johnson, who oversees their after-school programs, is to offer “as many programs for as many kids as possible. And they have to be quality programs.” When it comes to managing such a large organization, the need to simplify is apparent, even with a full-time staff. “There are six of us, so it’s a pretty small office. We all do a lot of things,” says Andrea.

### A huge headache 

When you have as many players and year-round programs as the Bulldog Ball Club, registration can be a daunting undertaking. The existing process was to create forms in SurveyMonkey, export them to Excel, copy them into Google Sheets and create teams and class lists from there. The challenge, as Andrea describes it, was that everyone signed up on different forms. “You couldn't have one form because you have 50 or 60 different options, and you don't want parents to have to scroll through that.”

What’s more, staying on top of who’s paid and who hasn’t was another struggle, since nothing was integrated and an option to collect payments wasn’t built into registration. “It didn't force everyone to pay before they got to the checkout. So, we would get their information regardless, and a lot of people were slipping through without paying.”

Yet another area where the existing process was taking its toll was communication. The information was all there, but it was all over the place, which didn’t help when they needed to get news out in a hurry. “If there was a rainout or a location change, you had to go into the right Google Sheet, copy all the emails into Gmail and send it out.”

> The whole process was a “huge headache” that left everyone wondering, “How can we make this easier? How can we make this better? How can we streamline and simplify and automate as much as possible?”

### Enter TeamSnap 

The Bulldog Ball Club had been using TeamSnap for Clubs & Leagues for its travel teams when Andrea came on full time. “It was going well, and when it became clear that I was going to have a more active role, I said, ‘I am NOT going to do after-school registrations the way we’ve been doing it. It’s going to be on TeamSnap. End of story.’ So we brought everything over.”

From collecting registration information and payments to dealing with Mother Nature, TeamSnap’s integrated platform has made an enormous difference. “Things change so frequently with the weather. We’ve had such a rainy season this year, and we’re able to make a couple clicks and inform a group of 20 people that their location’s been moved or game canceled. And if it’s been moved, they have a map they can see and navigate. It’s huge!”

### Doing more in less time 

The scale and variety of Bulldog Ball Club’s programs meant that jumping from tool to tool and managing independent spreadsheets was unmanageable. That’s why TeamSnap has made such a difference.

> “The amount of time we saved makes it beyond worth it,” says Andrea. When two staff members left, the efficiencies and time savings the club got from using TeamSnap made up the difference. “We had eight full-time staff members and now we have six. We've essentially replaced two full-time employees with TeamSnap.”

One other benefit: TeamSnap’s integrated payments makes it easy to collect money up front and on time. “We're capturing more of the revenue that we're bringing in—not by an increase in the number of players, but an increase in our ability to see who’s paid and who hasn't. On our old registration platform, you could have figured it out, but it was not easy. This is so straightforward!”

For the Bulldog Ball Club, the ability to bring everything under one platform to collect registrations and payments, and to communicate with parents on game days, has saved the club both time and money. They’re continuing to bring more and more programs onto the platform and rolling out new products in the upcoming seasons.

“I love TeamSnap. That’s it!” says Andrea.


Bulldog Ball Club


# Catonsville Youth Soccer takes back the reins of registration 

Just to the west of Baltimore lies the small town of Catonsville, Maryland, where community plays a strong role and history runs deep. With its large array of parks, it’s no surprise that there's a dense soccer population eager to take to the field.

Catonsville Youth Soccer is just one of the many sports offered by the Catonsville Rec & Parks Council, with soccer accounting for 1,400 of their 5,000+ participants. These participants range from four to 17 years old, across 16 different sports and activities, including traditional sports such as soccer, baseball, and lacrosse to non-traditional organized activities like square dancing and frisbee—all with the goal of engaging the community.

> “We want to keep the community active in a forward way,” says Natalie Powell, who does computer system validation by trade, but also serves as the President of the Catonsville Rec & Parks Council. “The whole purpose is to keep the kids involved and active. We want to give them something to do, so when they go to school, they know somebody; when they go out in the neighborhood, they know somebody. Overall, just to bring everybody together.”

### Tacking back the reins 

With registration just a few days away, Natalie knew she didn’t have much time to waste. “We were under contract with another solution, and they could not configure the registration the way that we wanted. And they weren't meeting timelines. So I needed something really quick, really fast,” says Natalie. It was crucial that she find a solution that gave her full control to quickly get registration across the finish line. She couldn’t risk having to go back and forth with a provider just to set up, configure and give approval on the registration form.

Also, as someone who configures software for a living, Natalie knew that there had to be a better way of handling certain registration cases, such as giving parents the option to register their kids for the recreational league, while also opting in to try out for the travel program. “We didn’t have the control. The solution provider we were using, as massive as they claimed to be, wasn’t able to do very simple things
for us, like the way we wanted to set up registration,'' says Natalie.

> “I was able to purchase the league, configure my registration—very intuitive—and go live in a matter of an hour and a half. It was awesome!” — NATALIE POWELL

### Enter TeamSnap 

Natalie knew that many of their individual teams were already using the TeamSnap app for rostering and scheduling, which made the transition that much smoother once she decided to move forward.

> “All those rosters, teams and schedules fell into the league, which is really great for me, because then I can schedule something globally,” says Natalie. Even the teams saw a huge financial benefit with Catonsville Youth Soccer investing in the all-in-one solution. “It works out better
> for the teams because the organization is picking up the cost; it's actually less expensive per team per season.”

Although Natalie had looked around at alternative options, the level of responsiveness and support with TeamSnap really stood out for her. “I looked around, obviously, at a couple of other things. And the fluidity just wasn't there. The communication wasn't there.”

Most importantly, Natalie was able to get registration out on time, with full control. “I was able to purchase the league, configure my registration—very intuitive—and go live in a matter of an hour and a half. It was awesome!”

### Soccer and beyond 

Using TeamSnap for registration has given Catonsville Youth Soccer the level of control that they desired and allows them to provide registrants the option to manage everything they need via one form.

Catonsville Rec & Parks Council has now extended the registration solution to their full array of sports and activities, and they are taking advantage of TeamSnap’s invoicing solution to collect varying dues on a team-by-team basis. It gives Natalie the ability to drill down and send invoices to a whole team, to an individual player or even exclude a player on scholarship.

The control and ease-of-use that Natalie now has with TeamSnap has given her a sense of comfort. “I used to have anxiety without it because I had to rebuild the entire platform every year,” she said.

> “I guess the best way to explain it to people is: who trained you to use Facebook? Nobody. You just figured it out. Similarly, I didn’t need training to use TeamSnap, I just figured it out because it is that intuitive.”


Catonsville Youth Soccer


# The Diamond Softball Club cuts one-off products for TeamSnap’s all-in-one platform 

When a previous travel club disbanded, several of the coaches came together to form the Diamond Softball Club. In the years since, the eight-team club has grown from 30 to 120 players and uses softball as a platform to develop strong, confident, independent women, as well as to grow the sport by allowing them to play year-round.

“We really try to get the kids to own this club. I tell them all the time, ‘This is yours. We’re here to keep it going and we’re here to give you opportunities to grow and play the game you love,’” says Alison Rossi, who directs the club outside of her fulltime work in technology. “It’s really a place for them to belong to a community of strong women playing the sport that they are passionate about. We win a bunch of tournaments, too.”

While supported by a team of about 15 volunteers, this traveling softball club’s socalled ‘back office’ is managed by Alison and her assistant director.

### Point solutions need not apply 

When it came to managing the club, Alison may have had several tools to do everything, but she didn’t have that one tool that does everything.

“Before TeamSnap, I had like 16 different systems. And as one person running a club, it was a complete nightmare. Because I work in technology, I knew that we had to find something that we could grow into, adding features as everyone adopted the tool. We started with email and communication, added rostering and uniform size management, and then integrated the website into the full solution.”

One of the clearest examples was communication. If you needed to reach everyone in the club, that was one distribution list. If you needed to reach a specific team, that was another. All of these were managed by different coaches and in different places. And once you had the right list, you still had to figure out the right way to address it.

> “Our first year, we were sending out mass emails and you would have to Bcc someone or the whole group or you could copy everybody—and then everybody would have everybody’s contact information and the email threads would go on forever. We also tried text messages. Coaches had their own apps. Everyone was in their own little world. Everyone managed their own team distribution lists.”

For Alison, getting a simple email out was anything but simple. It was a logistical nightmare.

### Enter TeamSnap 

What the Diamond Softball Club needed was a single tool that could tie everything together, one that would be used by everyone, for everything. Before that could happen, it had to be adopted.

“I needed to make sure that the tool was easy enough from a coach’s perspective that it wasn’t going to slow them down at all. I needed it to be really easy for them to use. I work with a bunch of volunteers, so how do I make sure that a coach doesn’t just go off and use their own system?”

A tool that would get in the way or take time from coaching simply wasn’t an option. By delivering an integrated platform, TeamSnap for Clubs & Leagues made life easier for Alison and her coaches by consolidating different lists, apps and methods into a single, all-in-one solution.

> “TeamSnap had to become our system of record. As soon as we went live, coaches had to communicate on here. Kids were going to communicate on here. Everybody was going to use this. I had to have one place where I could get everything. I wanted TeamSnap to be the engine that helped us grow. And it’s worked!”

### Everything lives in TeamSnap 

As the Diamond Softball Club has learned, when you bring together an all-in-one tool, a single system of record and an engine for growth, you get more than efficiency or simplicity. You get time.

“To say that it’s a time savings is a complete understatement. If I needed to send out a communication that was organization wide, I could do it. If I needed to just send it out to a group of parents, I could do that, too. If I have one parent that I need to reach out to, all of their information is in the system. I could call them right from the app. All of that saves me a substantial amount of time. And it makes a big difference for me. Everything is seamless. Everything lives in TeamSnap.”

For Alison, as well as for most of our users, the reward is bigger than spending less time on administrative work. It’s about what she can do more of as a result.

> “Because of the time-savings I’ve had with TeamSnap, I can spend more time with the kids. Before, 70% of my time was working on administrative tasks and only 30% of my time coaching the kids. Now, I would flip it, which makes a big difference.”


Diamond Softball Club


# Elite Athletic Training finds the right fit for registration 

Founded during the gold rush in the mid-1800s, Golden, Colorado is a beautiful, outdoorsy city at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. A stone’s throw from Denver, Golden is best known as home to the largest brewing facility in the world, Coors Brewing Company.

Elite Athletic Training & Consulting is a baseball and softball club and training organization started by a former baseball pro who spent six years with the Minnesota Twins organization. Shortly after opening, Chris Taylor, a former Division 1 player and marketing communications professional, came on board to help Elite Athletic scale to 15 teams and over 150 players, ranging from 8U to 18U.

Chris shared that Elite Athletic has a very niche focus: “We want to train and develop kids not only as players but also as people.” This is a primary goal that often seems to get lost in the world of sports. “Culture around baseball or softball has drifted into just play games, play games, play games, without the instruction and skill development that we feel the kids need to be successful players later on in life or become successful members of society.”

### Needing a better fit 

Going into 2019, Chris knew that there had to be a better tool to help them manage their organization. They were using ZenPlanner, which was great for gyms and fitness studios but was built around a different type of business than Elite Athletic. “We were able to do registrations, but for the documents that I needed to collect, such as financial agreements or the player Code of Conduct, I was having to collect via paper or PDF and track it in a spreadsheet.” For Chris, this led to many questions that were difficult to answer without clear tracking and visibility.

It was crucial for Chris to find a tool that would deliver a great experience for all involved. “With our past solution, you were able to register and sign waivers, but it was cumbersome for the parents, as well as for me, when going through the setup process.” This was the perfect chance for Chris to find an easy-to-use, all-in-one solution, “This gave us an opportunity to streamline everything. We actually had to use different software for team management, but it wasn't being utilized. The coaches weren't using it because they didn't find it useful.”

### Enter TeamSnap 

With his needs clearly laid out, Chris took a look at the options he had beyond his existing solution. “I looked at some of the other solutions that exist, but they were just not the right fit. It was one of those things where I was probably going to either stay where I was or make that switch to TeamSnap.” For Chris, there were just a few key questions to answer before making the decision, “Does TeamSnap take away the hours I was having to spend chasing stuff down and make me more productive, and can it replace this other tool that had been getting increasingly expensive?” The simple answer was yes.

Chris has been extremely pleased since making the switch and his members have also felt the benefits, “I had one of the parents say, ‘Hey, this was way easier than what we were using before, hopefully, it's easier for you to set up too.’” Again, the answer was yes.

> “For me, setting up the registration forms is significantly faster than what I was doing before. I like the ability to pass on transaction fees so we're not eating the costs, and the document collection process has been super easy.”

### Refine and grow 

Chris has taken a learn and refine approach. First, he rolled out TeamSnap registration with their training programs, then tackled his high school teams, and has since begun using it to collect club registration for their upcoming season.

Registration has always been a stressful process for Chris, but TeamSnap has allowed him to rest a little easier.

> “There was always that anxiousness around whether the form is going to get completed, that it is correct when it goes out to folks and that it’s easy for them to use. I don't want to get seventeen emails back saying I can't figure out how to register my son.
> I haven't gotten very many of those since switching.”


Elite Athletic Baseball

# Hotspurs Soccer Club Collects $50,000 in Unpaid Payments with TeamSnap 

The Steel City, otherwise known as Pittsburgh, is full of hardworking sports enthusiasts who show up strong and wave their terrible towels. They love their sports, but even though almost 40,000 kids play soccer in Pennsylvania West it does not (yet) have a reputation as being a soccer hotbed.

Tom Ovenden hopes to change that. He founded Pittsburgh Hotspurs Soccer Club in 2015 when he was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. After moving to the United States from England, he had the opportunity to work with a few different companies in the sports space but was ready to take on a venture of his own and build his own soccer club. In just a few short years, he and his team of coaches and staff have grown the organization to 50 teams and around 700 players ranging from 7 to 18—all to meet Tom’s and his wife Chrissy's vision of growing soccer in Western Pennsylvania.

> “Our goal is to create an all-encompassing program that supports everything from foundational grassroots to adults, and have a level for every player,” says Tom. “We have ambitions to think outside of the box and grow the club to be more than your standard soccer program, into a place where families can feel a part of something and have a facility to create a really strong soccer platform.”

### Leaving Money On the Table 

In the early days, Tom worked with a web developer to build a way to collect payments via their website, while still collecting registration forms and documents manually. Naturally, they were having an extremely difficult time matching up what people had paid and what they still owed. As Chrissy puts it, “it was very challenging!”

There was no direct connection, leaving them with tens of thousands of dollars uncollected. This is when Chrissy decided to tackle the problem directly.

### Enter TeamSnap 

Knowing that they needed a system to streamline everything, Tom and Chrissy’s first instinct was to go with TeamSnap. “It was just natural,” says Tom. “We had a lot of teams using the TeamSnap app so we figured we might as well give them the first shot.”

Other companies wanted a shot. “Other solutions were all over me. I told them if I moved over all of my parents would think I'm crazy because everyone loves TeamSnap so much. There's just no point.”

It was important for them to find the right tool to help run their business and not let external factors impact their decision.

> “I can't really have someone like a governing body dictate which software platform we should use,” says Tom.

Thankfully, Hotspurs Soccer went with their gut.

TeamSnap instantly helped with matching and ensuring payment collection. “Using TeamSnap has completely streamlined everything, especially with collecting payments,” says Chrissy. “Last year, there was probably less than $1,000 outstanding, so going from almost $50,000 left on the table to something very minimal is really great!”

Chrissy, who manages all things payments and financials for the club, was able to organize the numbers to provide better visibility. “It's really helped us forecast our cash flow, being able to put in the exact dates that the installments will come through, and knowing the amount of money coming in each month. This is a huge benefit.”

### Continued Growth 

Hotspur Soccer Club’s relationship with TeamSnap continues to grow, and a big part of that is credited to customer support. “We were blown away by the customer service and how quickly you get a reply if there ever was an issue, as well as how regularly there were product updates,” says Chrissy. Tom added that their account manager, Marika, is “almost like a member of our family.”

Asking parents to print out and sign documents can almost triple the amount of time that it takes for them to register and put in their credit card information, so Tom worked with their account manager to figure out a better way to handle this during registration. “Next year, we will just set up a waiver and have them put in their initials as that is legally binding. We'll take paper completely out of the picture.” The support and ongoing communication allow the club to improve its processes each and every year.

And as the club opens up new locations, and introduces adult programs, TeamSnap will be at the center of it all. “I put a lot of our success on TeamSnap, really. It helped us keep everything in one place,” says Tom. When working for other companies, it always frustrated him that there were so many spreadsheets and tools needed to run the company. “I felt like centralizing a lot of the club's output was really important so that there’s one place that you can drive the engine forward from.”

For Hotspurs Soccer Club, that engine is TeamSnap.

Hotspurs Soccer Club

How Do We Live Up to our Mission

Inside TeamSnap for Sports Organizations

As a sports administrator, we recognize rapidly changing technology creates another challenge for your organization's success. We connected with Anthony Bruno, former CEO of SportsSignup and a long time board member of Adirondack Youth Hockey Association, to hear what he has to say about technology for sport admins.

Is It Time To Change Your Sports Registration Provider?


# With TeamSnap, Lake Hills Soccer Club Finally Has Software the Coaches Actually Use 

Just across Lake Washington from downtown Seattle, Bellevue is regularly named one of the best places to live in America. Its residents are a hearty, entrepreneurial bunch, who work and play hard, not letting winter rain stop the fun.

With almost 1,000 players, ages 5-18, across 65 recreational and 25 club select teams, Lake Hills Soccer is a big club with bigger goals, relying on myriad volunteers to create a great experience for the kids.

> “We’re passionate about providing opportunities for all the kids in our community to learn and love the sport of soccer,” says Amy Hunt, one of only two employees and a longtime registrar and administrator. “Some kids continue as rec players, some move onto our select program, and others advance to a premier program. We’re very focused on the needs of each individual player.”

### A door closes, another door opens 

In July of 2017, Hunt received a troubling email from Korrio, the club’s software platform provider – Korrio was shutting its doors in two months.

“I was sad and anxious and kind of resentful, because I suddenly had to lead the emergency search for a new platform,” says Hunt. She had been involved in the club’s last transition, from Bonzi to Korrio seven years prior. It had not gone smoothly, confusing parents, coaches and administrators alike.

This time, Lake Hills Soccer Club was resolved to up their game.

> “We wanted something that was growing and improving and responsive to customer feedback, and I got that vibe from TeamSnap right away,” says Hunt. “We wanted something attractive that would put a good face forward for our organization.”

They also wanted an app that families and coaches would actually use.

“When we were researching platforms, we saw companies claiming to have an app and communication tools, but I talked to other clubs who admitted that their coaches don’t use them and don’t like them. It’s not a huge selling point if your app isn’t going to be used by anyone.”

### Enter TeamSnap 

Short on time, Lake Hills turned to sister club Eastside FC for advice. “They had already done a lot of the due diligence and chosen TeamSnap,” says Hunt. Within days, Lake Hills Soccer Club seamlessly transitioned their Korrio account to TeamSnap.

> “Support was great about any little questions I had, whether talking directly to account manager Beth or just popping a question into chat. It was so easy, and I was really happy with how few bumps there were in the road.”

They built a newer, mobile-friendly website with TeamSnap’s Website Builder, putting a professional face on the organization. “The WordPress platform is easy to use and has some cool features and tools.” says Hunt. “I’m not trained in any way, it was just easy to learn by doing, and it’s been easy to use and update.”

Despite the short deadline, the transition to TeamSnap went incredibly smoothly.

“It was such a relief to get everyone, all my teams, all my players transitioned over — so easy. And the coaches were so excited about it, that made me feel good that we had made the right decision.”

### No more duplicated work 

Since switching to TeamSnap, Lake Hills Soccer Club saves hundreds of hours every season and finally has a platform that everyone uses. Says Hunt:

“It makes it a lot easier for me to interact with the coaches about who is actually on their team. Before, I was sending a spreadsheet to every rec coach. They had access to see their roster in Korrio, but most of them wouldn’t use that. So I was sending them spreadsheets, and when a new player joined, I was sending another spreadsheet. Now, they actually use TeamSnap.”

Parents and families are also loving TeamSnap. With kids from all over the world, including many families who are not native English speakers, having a platform that is powerful without being complicated has made a world of difference.

> “TeamSnap is attractive, easy to use, and simpler for parents whose first language isn’t English,” says Hunt. “The registration forms are just so bright and wide open, and really easy for people who struggled on other platforms.”

Thanks to TeamSnap’s reporting tools, Hunt has also streamlined her own processes, reducing the time it takes to process registrations and track payments. She knew TeamSnap would be easier for families, but she was thrilled to learn it was also easier for herself. “It changed my workflow, and that was a nice surprise,” she says.

After a year, Lake Hills Soccer Club is running much more smoothly and saving money with TeamSnap. Hunt only wishes they’d made the move sooner.

“A lot of coaches were already using TeamSnap before we switched, paying for it themselves. My job at heart is to support our volunteers so they can focus on soccer. Anything that makes it easier and more fun for them is my personal goal.”


Lake Hills Soccer Club


# TeamSnap’s connected platform helped Lexington Christian Academy connect its 24 sports programs 

Like many sports organizations, one of the main goals of Lexington Christian Academy’s athletic program was to get as many players involved as possible. According to Zac Barnhart who oversees the technology behind LCA’s athletic program, “We’re very big on trying to get as many students to play a sport or multiple sports. We have about 75% of our students playing one sport or another at the school.” With programs ranging from football, soccer and volleyball to basketball, baseball and lacrosse, LCA offers 24 different programs and serves 400 players from elementary through high school.

### 24 programs and as many tools 

If you asked LCA’s coaches what their biggest challenge was, it’d be communicating with their players and sharing out the schedule or last-minute changes. If you asked LCA’s athletic department that same question, it’d be that each team seemed to have their own way of addressing that challenge. “Before TeamSnap, everybody was using their own platforms. And some teams didn’t really use anything,” explains Zac.

It’s an all too-common challenge for multi-sport organizations: lack of visibility across programs, coaches siloed within their own tools, and an inconsistent experience for players and parents, many of whom play more than one sport. LCA needed a way to manage across programs, easily message specific teams and have a consolidated view of the players all the way up the organization. For Zac and his colleagues, turnover made the problem worse as accounts were passed down or lost altogether. It didn’t make sense to keep operating that way.

> “Our coaches and administrators used to have trouble with the time it took to send a message or schedule a game through their apps. TeamSnap’s made communication and scheduling a whole lot easier."

### Enter TeamSnap 

When asked why LCA needed a solution like TeamSnap, the answer was that bringing everyone under one tool
and one account was essential to running 24 different
programs season after season. “It was a way that we could centralize and control all of it,” describes Zac. “And so that when whoever was in charge of an account moves on, we still have the account. We can easily get into it.”

LCA looked at some of the other tools its coaches and team managers were already using, but found TeamSnap was the best option. “TeamSnap was more streamlined and easier to use,” says Zac. That makes a big difference when you are trying to convince people to adopt a new tool, whether paid staff or part-time volunteers. It says a lot about LCA’s choice of tools that these teams have chosen to dump their previous apps and join TeamSnap.

### A whole lot easier 

As the administrator for all of these programs, Zac’s found that there hasn’t been much need for training or support. “It’s really easy to learn.” That goes double for coaches and team managers. “They're able to figure out how to put people on teams, how to make their schedules, all that kind of stuff,” Zac explains.

As a JV and varsity coach himself, he appreciates that he can see both teams under one account but easily see one or both schedules. When it comes to communication, “instead of having to send a message to everybody that's just meant for one group or the other, I can send something out to just a set group of people. It’s really easy
to do.”

With TeamSnap for Clubs & Leagues, LCA has a centralized platform that’s made it easy to get everyone on board and up and running. The athletic department now has the control and visibility needed to run its programs, all in a package that makes life easier for team managers, coaches and administrators, like Zac. “They used to have trouble with the time it took to send a message or schedule a game through their apps. TeamSnap’s made communication and scheduling a whole lot easier.”


Lexington Christian Academy

Meet Greg Ludke


# For the Mother Lode Rugby Club, _TeamSnap for Clubs &amp; Leagues_ is the real engine behind organized sports 

Founded in 1995 as the Oak Ridge Rugby Club at Oak Ridge High School, the Mother Lode Rugby Football Club was formed when the club opened up to players from additional schools and grades in the area. Since then, the club has grown from a single team of 18 players to six teams with over 140 boys and girls.

While it was TeamSnap’s position as Rugby NorCal’s preferred partner that brought the sports management platform to the attention of Mother Lode Rugby, club president Tom Fennell was already familiar with the app.

“My son joined a soccer team last winter and they were using Gmail or something. The parents were like, ‘You should be using TeamSnap. It’s so much better!’ There wasn’t any hesitation jumping into TeamSnap because people liked it.”

### Time for change 

From managing club registrations and schedules to setting up coaches and parent volunteers, Tom’s hands were full. But before TeamSnap, the tools that were meant to help him do more in the little time he had actually added to the problem. It was time for a change.

One of the biggest hassles was updating registration forms. “We were using SportsEngine,” says Tom. “You make comments and say, ‘We'd like to see this in registration’ and you send it all in. Then you wait two weeks.” Even basic edits or troubleshooting meant going through SportsEngine, a requirement that dragged out the time needed just to get up and running.

If getting the season set up was a struggle, then so was managing it day to day, especially when administration fell on one person's shoulders. “I needed this to be the year where I didn't do everything, so I had to bring in other people.” Whatever tool Tom and Mother Lode Rugby were going to use had to have a way to designate roles and be easy enough to use that Tom wouldn’t have to spend more time training his team.

One more concern that was top of Tom’s mind was communication. In some cases, parents and players would have to drive over an hour to get to a game, so being able to get the word out to everybody about last-minute changes was particularly important.

> “A couple of years ago, we had a game canceled the morning of. People were on their way to the game and they're calling us saying, ‘The city just closed the field on us.’ I had to call somebody with admin privileges, wake them up, get them to log on and send out an email.”

### Enter TeamSnap 

When it came time to set up registration for the season with TeamSnap, Tom was able to do everything on his own, without having to wait days or weeks.

> “Registration was really easy. I put it together myself. I had some pretty gnarly stuff to put in there, and it was easy,” says Tom. So easy, in fact, that when questions did come up, Tom fielded them himself and helped everybody through registration without going through support.

When it came to empowering team managers to take on more responsibility, Tom was eager to see what they could do. “I told them, ‘I made you a team manager. Can you figure this out?’ And everybody was able to handle it really well.”

And when there was something that affected the entire club, being able to communicate instantly from anywhere was paramount. Whenever there was a field closure or cancellation, Tom could do it all from his phone. “I got alerts and messages out, instantaneously.”

### Doing more in less time 

TeamSnap’s registration tool makes it easy for Tom to create new registration forms and tackle any issues that pop up, all without having to reach out to support. Not only that, the entire process is notably shorter. According to Tom, “Just for registration alone, turnaround is two weeks quicker.”
While Tom is able to do everything on his own, his goal is to hand more control over to his team managers. WithTeamSnap, managers can run schedules and announcements, all while giving him visibility into the entire organization.

Whether it was Tom or one of his team managers sending the message, the fact that they can do it anytime, anywhere makes a big difference.

> ”Communication has been great. It’s instantaneous. I do it all on the mobile app, which I didn’t on SportsEngine. I would have to log onto the website and zoom in and manage stuff. Now, anytime I have to change a practice or something, it takes five minutes instead of 15 or more.”

The partnership with Rugby NorCal has introduced many clubs like Mother Lode to TeamSnap’s intuitive sports management technology, helping them prepare for the season and manage day-to-day operations. Whether switching from another tool or consolidating individual apps, many are discovering that the ability to do more with TeamSnap frees them up to do more of what they love.


Mother Lode Rugby Club


# North Bay MHA Saves Time, Money with TeamSnap 

North Bay Ontario, is a small city with a big heart, sitting squarely on the shores of Lake Nipissing. Its residents are passionate about quality of life, year-round festivals, and hockey. Lots and lots of hockey.

The North Bay Minor Hockey Association has almost 700 players, with 36 house teams playing in six divisions, and 10 travel teams. The season runs from September to March, with tryouts in May and registration in June. For a small staff without a big budget, North Bay MHA has to make the most of every dollar.

> “We’re passionate about providing the best possible experience,” says Matt Duquette, who works at a bank during the day, but spends most of his free time as the club’s secretary and treasurer. “We want the kids to have fun at all levels.”

### The day the site died 

One day, before moving to TeamSnap, their previous technology provider took down North Bay’s website during an office move. It was embarrassing and a bad experience for everyone. “Communication was poor, support was poor, and this was the last straw,” says Duquette. “We started looking for a new system.”

As they evaluated their needs, two key problems surfaced: first, registration was all manual. North Bay MHA had to staff an office, collect checks, go to the bank, enter every player into their system, and then re-enter everything into Hockey Canada’s system. It was a logistical nightmare.
Communication with members was also a struggle.

> “Before, we’d put registrations and tryouts on our website and hope people looked,” says Duquette. “We’d email coaches and ask them to email the team. We’d post on Facebook. It was a shot in the dark, hoping we’d reach everyone.”

For the biggest association in North Bay, it wasn’t acceptable to operate this way. “I’m a volunteer trying to juggle a lot of balls at once, says Duquette. “We had multiple systems that didn’t work together, and poor ease-of-use. We had to do better.”

### Enter TeamSnap 

“We already knew about TeamSnap,” says Duquette. “Our coaches had been using it to run their teams for years.” But when the MHA board did a deep dive into everything TeamSnap has to offer, they were thrilled and surprised to learn about TeamSnap’s robust feature set for clubs, leagues and associations.

> Says Duquette: “After taking the time to figure out what we wanted to do, TeamSnap did it all.”

Setup was a breeze, thanks to several calls with the TeamSnap onboarding team and live chat. The North Bay staff quickly set up registration, customizing it to their specific needs. They added divisions and teams and built out their new website using easy editing tools and great documentation.

They also discovered new opportunities. “Once we dove in, we got really excited,” says Duquette. “We had no intention of doing installment payments for registration this year, but after reading a help article we realized that we could do it right away.”

The staff was nervous about learning a new system, but quickly went from apprehensive to excited. “Every time we learned something new we were like, ‘This is so cool. This is even more cool!’”

### Big dreams, big results, big savings 

Implementing communication and registration through TeamSnap saved North Bay MHA hundreds of hours, and families loved how much easier it was to register right from their computer or phone.

> “We saved tens of hours on registration alone,” says Duquette. “Parents said that it was so much easier than last year.”

Thanks to these newfound efficiencies, North Bay MHA was able reverse rising costs and drop down from two to a single paid employee, reinvesting the savings into programs for the kids. Feedback from coaches has been nothing but positive. Having access to everything from rostering to schedules to knowing player availability has made their jobs easier.

And as for communication, now Matt can just click and choose exactly who he needs to send a message to, in an organization of 700 players and their families. “It’s phenomenal,” he says.

Looking back, making the switch to TeamSnap seemed like a challenge for a small-town operation with big dreams, but Duquette realizes it was the obvious move. “It was a no brainer,” he says. “We would do it again in a heartbeat. TeamSnap has been worth every penny.”


North Bay MHA

Our Customer Success Team

Every season comes with new and exciting challenges – yet sometimes they can leave you feeling anxious or uneasy. We’re here to tell you that you’re not alone. Download our e-book to learn more about these concerns, how other football organizers overcome them, and their top advice for others.

Tackling The 5 Key Concerns Of Football Organizers

Rugby NorCal

Tom Fennell

Registration was really easy. I put it together myself. I had some pretty gnarly stuff to put in there, and it was easy.

Every season comes with new and exciting challenges – yet sometimes they can leave you feeling anxious or uneasy. We’re here to tell you that you’re not alone. Download our e-book to learn more about these concerns, how other soccer organizers overcome them, and their top advice for others.

Tackling The 5 Key Concerns Of Soccer Organizers

Natalie Powell

I was able to purchase the league product, configure my registration—very intuitive—and go live in a matter of an hour and a half. It was awesome!

In this on-demand webinar, we’ll talk to Prime Soccer Club’s Nelson Medina and Solar Soccer’s Nick Rundell about how they're engaging parents and players during this time.

TeamSnap Roundtable: Engaging Players and Parents

In this on-demand webinar, we’ll sit down with South Carolina United’s Lisa Stevens, Wrentham Youth Soccer’s Alyson Turner and AC Brea Soccer Club’s Matt Morse to discuss the current challenges that clubs are facing and share ideas for how to meet them.

TeamSnap Roundtable: Navigating Current Challenges

In this on-demand webinar, we’ll discuss ways to rethink your game plan for this season with virtual programs, customer communications, and donation opportunities.

TeamSnap Roundtable: Rethink Your Revenue Game Plan

In this webinar, TeamSnap’s GM of Sports Organizations, Greg Ludke, interviews Triple Crown CEO, Keri King, about the comeback of youth sports.

The Comeback: Interview with Triple Crown CEO, Keri King

The budgets of the more than 10,000 municipal park and recreation departments with sports programs have been decimated due to COVID-19, as have those of YMCAs and other community providers. The Aspen Institute asks: how can leaders best stabilize essential providers over the next 12 months?

The Recovery We Need Now


# West Hants MHA saved dozens of hours by bringing registration and payment options online 

Known for being the birthplace of hockey, West Hants and its Town of Windsor have a long history with the sport. It’s even home to Canada’s oldest hockey arena, Stannus Street Rink. The Town of Windsor is in the process of consolidation with the Municipality of West Hants which together are building a new sports complex as a replacement to one of the two arenas the Community operates.

When it comes to getting as many kids on the ice as possible, West Hants MHA is always looking for new ways to deliver on that goal. Whether launching a new recreational program, putting on a gear swap to help keep costs down or implementing a new 50/50 program to give parents a tool to fundraise to help offset registration and team fees. As an all-volunteer organization overseeing 300+ players across 16 house and travel teams, West Hants MHA has its hands full—and that’s where finding the right tools makes all the difference.

When West Hants’s registrar, Melissa Sheehy-Richard, heard about Hockey Canada’s partnership with TeamSnap at Hockey Nova Scotia’s AGM, she was all ears. “Immediately, my ears perked up and I was like, ‘Pick me, I’ll do it!’”

### Missing the boat 

For years, registration was done in person and on paper. Busy parents didn’t want to drive to the rink to fill out paperwork and write a check. They kept asking for a better process. “Everybody complained that we were still doing manual registration when other sports organizations offered online registration and everything else is online. Asking, ‘Why can’t West Hants get on the same boat?’” The parents weren’t the only ones looking for a better option.

Once registration was done for the day, West Hants’s work was just getting started.

> “We would come home and sort through all those pieces of paper, then enter them into HCR one at a time, screen after screen. Many times finding that parents didn’t fill out all the required information or we couldn’t read their handwriting. We needed to get everyone into the system fast because we were in tryouts and they needed to be insured.”

The experience was much the same once tryouts were over. Within a couple hours of the final tryout time, teams had to be built and coaches needed to know who their players were so they could share the schedule for tomorrow’s practice. This meant another late-night round of data entry as contact info for every player was ported over into the team’s newly-formed group email chain.

It wasn’t just that the process was time consuming. It meant a lot of additional work at every stage along the way.

### Enter TeamSnap 

By bringing everything online with TeamSnap, West Hants vastly improved the registration and payment process. Gone were days of showing up in person and braving the August heat. Parents could register quickly and from anywhere, a big win for the MHA’s 300+ families. Equally important were the many wins on the administration side.

Now when players showed up for tryouts or registered for the upcoming season, their Hockey Canada membership would be instantly verified with TeamSnap’s HCR integration and once all the teams were ready, those assignments could be directly shared with Hockey Canada, all without any additional data entry.

Managing their season used to require a separate tool and a time-consuming, tedious, error-prone manual process. Bringing everything under one roof has saved an enormous amount of time.

> “Before, it was three different people spending hours and hours doing the same thing over and over—for 300+ kids!”

### A game changer 

TeamSnap has simplified how West Hants manages registration, payments, rostering and even the handoff to coaches and team managers. Since it’s all tied to an integrated platform, everything’s connected, including communication. “When we have an association-wide email about tryouts or an update on our website or we need to contact division managers, we can easily do that. It’s been a game changer for us.”

From frustrated parents to overworked volunteers, everyone in West Hants MHA was ready for a change. So, how do the parents feel about the new registration process?

> “People love it! It takes a millisecond to register their kid and then they can pay with a credit card or select pay offline for e-transfer or cash payments.”

When it comes to the HCR integration and the hours saved, Melissa’s experience has been fantastic. “It’s just unreal. The link from TeamSnap directly to HCR has been magical.”


West Hants MHA

<a href="https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/" target="_blank" class="Link">Project Play</a> aims to help parents, coaches, administrators, educators and others build healthy communities through sports. During this one hour on-demand webinar The Aspen Institute’s Project Play initiative and other industry stakeholders including TeamSnap's CEO, Dave DuPont, explore what could lie ahead for organized youth and school sports. Read the recap <a href="https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/coronavirus-and-youth-sports/reports/2020/4/3/leaders-predict-summer-return-for-youth-sports-appetite-for-new-models" target="_blank" class="Link">here</a>.

Welcome to TeamSnap's resource library!

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4 Solutions to Top Concerns for Baseball and Softball Organizers

A Look Ahead: What TeamSnap CEO, Dave DuPont, Sees for the Future of Youth Sports

Addressing The 3 Key Concerns Of Hockey Organizers

Back to Sports with TeamSnap

Belles Lacrosse Club

Bulldog Ball Club

Catonsville Youth Soccer

Diamond Softball Club

Elite Athletic Baseball

Welcome to TeamSnap's resource library!

Type Show +

Sport Show +

Existing TeamSnap customer looking for support?

New: Customize your Health Check questions!

4 Solutions to Top Concerns for Baseball and Softball Organizers

A Look Ahead: What TeamSnap CEO, Dave DuPont, Sees for the Future of Youth Sports

Addressing The 3 Key Concerns Of Hockey Organizers

Back to Sports with TeamSnap

Belles Lacrosse Club

Bulldog Ball Club

Catonsville Youth Soccer

Diamond Softball Club

Elite Athletic Baseball

Type

Sport