Why does every youth sports league insist that I download some crappy app for messaging?

[Anonymous]

These apps use up my phone's resources. More importantly, they use up MY resources because they bombard me constantly with pointless messages, they don't let me search, they don't let me organize the messages in any way, and they don't let me see the messages in a queue with other messages that create a to-do list for me. I also have no confidence that these app developers are creating apps that properly protect my privacy and phone security.

Email does all that. Email is free. Email is on every phone and computer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These apps use up my phone's resources. More importantly, they use up MY resources because they bombard me constantly with pointless messages, they don't let me search, they don't let me organize the messages in any way, and they don't let me see the messages in a queue with other messages that create a to-do list for me. I also have no confidence that these app developers are creating apps that properly protect my privacy and phone security.

Email does all that. Email is free. Email is on every phone and computer.

k old person

[Anonymous]

Get used to it.
In my experience, it happens in high school sports as well.

[Anonymous]

coaches get paid to sign up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These apps use up my phone's resources. More importantly, they use up MY resources because they bombard me constantly with pointless messages, they don't let me search, they don't let me organize the messages in any way, and they don't let me see the messages in a queue with other messages that create a to-do list for me. I also have no confidence that these app developers are creating apps that properly protect my privacy and phone security.



Email does all that. Email is free. Email is on every phone and computer.

Shut up boomer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:coaches get paid to sign up.

No, we don't. Although I suppose it's possible the leagues do?

Relax, OP. There's only like two or three of them out there. They're useful for things like scheduling AND communications. And it helps prevent communications and messages get lost among your other e-mails and text messages.

[Anonymous]

I have two kids in multiple sports and I appreciate the two different apps I have to use for them. My email gets dozens of messages a day, even tho I have different accounts for shopping. Sports emails would get lost.

DH, OTOH, hates the apps. Most of his complaints are about the overly frequent messaging that some parents like the “game updates” that one parent does for one team…we’re all here, why do you need to post updates every 3 minutes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:coaches get paid to sign up.

No, we don't. Although I suppose it's possible the leagues do?

Relax, OP. There's only like two or three of them out there. They're useful for things like scheduling AND communications. And it helps prevent communications and messages get lost among your other e-mails and text messages.

Yeah, but it's amazing how despite only having a few options they really know how to strech you thin over them.

I think the real answer is that it's a way to make sure everyone is on the same page with communicating. No worries about the coach having everyone's cell number for texts or every email getting through spam catchers. It's on parents to sign up to the app, it's on the coach to put into the app.

It's one of the many things in our lives that are ostensibly about using technology to simplify things but instead have created a complicated set of irritating problems and compatibility issues. And it costs someone a lot of money. I think teams actually pay to get on them, but I'm sure some teams and coaches get a kickback or something for picking one app over the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:coaches get paid to sign up.

No they do not. Team managers sign up and add the coach. Teamsnap is the better one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:coaches get paid to sign up.

No, we don't. Although I suppose it's possible the leagues do?

Relax, OP. There's only like two or three of them out there. They're useful for things like scheduling AND communications. And it helps prevent communications and messages get lost among your other e-mails and text messages.

Yeah, but it's amazing how despite only having a few options they really know how to strech you thin over them.

I think the real answer is that it's a way to make sure everyone is on the same page with communicating. No worries about the coach having everyone's cell number for texts or every email getting through spam catchers. It's on parents to sign up to the app, it's on the coach to put into the app.

It's one of the many things in our lives that are ostensibly about using technology to simplify things but instead have created a complicated set of irritating problems and compatibility issues. And it costs someone a lot of money. I think teams actually pay to get on them, but I'm sure some teams and coaches get a kickback or something for picking one app over the other.

Agree. People thought having a dedicated app would be better, but it's worse. An email from a coach is never going to be marked spam. An email from one of the sports app websites might be marked spam, but only once; if you flag it as not spam, that won't happen again. You can even set up a filter to handle them in a particular way. it's also easy to make an email group for all the parents. Having an integrated, flexible, powerful communications platform like email is a lot better overall, but people have gotten used to the siloed style of messaging through apps that they don't understand this anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids in multiple sports and I appreciate the two different apps I have to use for them. My email gets dozens of messages a day, even tho I have different accounts for shopping. Sports emails would get lost.

DH, OTOH, hates the apps. Most of his complaints are about the overly frequent messaging that some parents like the “game updates” that one parent does for one team…we’re all here, why do you need to post updates every 3 minutes?

Tell your DH that he can revise the notifications on the app so he doesn't receive the game updates. And not every parent is at the game.

[Anonymous]

If the teams would ensure that they send all essential info via email, I wouldn't care if they used the apps to duplicate that info and to allow for chit-chat about the team. Then I could disable notifications on the app and get all the info I really need, like game times and locations, through email.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:coaches get paid to sign up.

No, we don't. Although I suppose it's possible the leagues do?

Relax, OP. There's only like two or three of them out there. They're useful for things like scheduling AND communications. And it helps prevent communications and messages get lost among your other e-mails and text messages.

other way around. The leagues pay or the apps. I just wish there was one standard app. Most of my kids' teams use teamsnap, but some use leagueapps (by far the worst of the bunch) and one uses sports engine.

[Anonymous]

I just wish they would all use team snap. Then it can be in one place. One team had us sign up for two apps and then couldn’t get the game schedule right on one of them.

[Anonymous]

+1000000

Absolutely hate having to wade through every minor question a parent has. Then other parents ask questions. Then Band app is blowing up with constant notifications.

Email was much easier to search as well.