Stay-to-Play Hotel-Booking Requirements: Varsity Brands Lawsuit

[Anonymous]

Anybody here both a soccer parent and an antitrust expert, and know whether last year's Varsity Brands settlement, see here and here, has had (or should be having) any effect on the widespread practice of tournament "stay to play" requirements?

As an example, here's the requirement for (Virginia) Beach FC's 2025 Virginia Beach Spring Classic tournament:

Teams participating in the Tournament ARE REQUIRED to make all hotel accommodations using our tournament housing service.

The tournament housing service is a free service and enables the City of Virginia Beach to ascertain tax revenue and in turn, helps with future grants to build/improve soccer field/facilities development. We encourage your support of developing facilities for youth players. Some hotels will offer single-night stays - check the listing on the website for this information.

This sort of tying or bundling across unrelated markets (soccer tournaments and hotels) has always struck me as anticompetitive, but I don't know antitrust law well enough to really gauge. It feels like, surely, thousands of soccer parents would have challenged this if the theory had legs.

I also wonder what, exactly, "enables the [c]ity ... to ascertain tax revenue" is supposed to mean. Like, is Virginia Beach actually applying some sort of special, additional tax on tournament participants, beyond the standard hospitality taxes? Or is this just a weaselly way for the organizers to imply that's the case when it isn't?

[Anonymous]

I don't think so. Usually, there are many different hotel choices (i.e. different chains/brands) and price points in the stay to play tournaments, so you don't really see that only hotel brand must be booked and you don't see price fixing. With stay to play, the tournament uses a travel company, who gives teams different hotel brands and some variance in pricing. This isn't to say it can't ever be found to be an antitrust violation, but I just don't think it's likely. Also, note that the case you're talking about, it's a settlement in a federal district court case, not a court decision, and so the settlement is ONLY binding on the parties to the settlement. The settlement wouldn't even apply to other cases arising in the district.

[Anonymous]

If you can figure out a legal reason this is not allowed you will be a hero!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can figure out a legal reason this is not allowed you will be a hero!!!

not happening. It would be one thing if there was one club or organization running ALL of the available tournaments in a given area. But we all know this just isn't the case, especially int he DMV. Some tournaments are run by individual clubs, some by organizations, some by the leagues themselves. And as PP said, there is a choice of hotels and prices in these stay to play tournament. It's not like you're being forced to book the Ritz to play. In fact, the tournament OP is posting about is hosted by a club (Beach FC), which doesn't obviously have a monopoly on all soccer tournaments in the area. And when picking a hotel, there are a bunch of different hotel brands and price options, so it just doesn't seem like there is a colorable claim here (at least not for OP's tournament or any of the tournaments most of our kids play in here in DMV). And who wants to spend the hundred of thousands of dolors to test this weak theory? You'd be better of paying for the moderately priced hotel or just not playing.

[Anonymous]

We often stayed with relatives when possible at expensive soccer tournaments. Couldn't pay for hotels on top of all the other costs. Never got dismissed from a tournament ever for doing this.

[Anonymous]

As much as pay to play sucks, short answer is no for the reasons others have said and more.

[Anonymous]

It would only be an ATR violation if the soccer tournament had market power in the “market” for soccer tournaments and used that to leverage its ownership in hotels.

[Anonymous]

In travel hockey, we see more weekend games organized and hosted by other similarly rated teams outside of tournaments. So, say a city has two teams in your division - you fly there and play each team twice for a total of 4 games. Sometimes it's five games. No one wants to deal with stay-to-play anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We often stayed with relatives when possible at expensive soccer tournaments. Couldn't pay for hotels on top of all the other costs. Never got dismissed from a tournament ever for doing this.

Has anyone actually ever seen a tournament enforce this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can figure out a legal reason this is not allowed you will be a hero!!!

not happening. It would be one thing if there was one club or organization running ALL of the available tournaments in a given area. But we all know this just isn't the case, especially int he DMV. Some tournaments are run by individual clubs, some by organizations, some by the leagues themselves. And as PP said, there is a choice of hotels and prices in these stay to play tournament. It's not like you're being forced to book the Ritz to play. In fact, the tournament OP is posting about is hosted by a club (Beach FC), which doesn't obviously have a monopoly on all soccer tournaments in the area. And when picking a hotel, there are a bunch of different hotel brands and price options, so it just doesn't seem like there is a colorable claim here (at least not for OP's tournament or any of the tournaments most of our kids play in here in DMV). And who wants to spend the hundred of thousands of dolors to test this weak theory? You'd be better of paying for the moderately priced hotel or just not playing.

My issue is more with the booking agency fees and the hotel rates you get through them. When your paying a fee to them and a higher rate for a room than if you were to go directly to the hotel and book.

[Anonymous]

No one enforces stay to play, and often the room blocks are indeed less expensive that booking through the normal channels. But DS plays showcase baseball and we've probably traveled to 50 tournaments over the past 3 years and none of them actually enforces this. Also plenty of kids only travel for 1 or 2 games or will drive 3 hours back and forth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can figure out a legal reason this is not allowed you will be a hero!!!

not happening. It would be one thing if there was one club or organization running ALL of the available tournaments in a given area. But we all know this just isn't the case, especially int he DMV. Some tournaments are run by individual clubs, some by organizations, some by the leagues themselves. And as PP said, there is a choice of hotels and prices in these stay to play tournament. It's not like you're being forced to book the Ritz to play. In fact, the tournament OP is posting about is hosted by a club (Beach FC), which doesn't obviously have a monopoly on all soccer tournaments in the area. And when picking a hotel, there are a bunch of different hotel brands and price options, so it just doesn't seem like there is a colorable claim here (at least not for OP's tournament or any of the tournaments most of our kids play in here in DMV). And who wants to spend the hundred of thousands of dolors to test this weak theory? You'd be better of paying for the moderately priced hotel or just not playing.

My issue is more with the booking agency fees and the hotel rates you get through them. When your paying a fee to them and a higher rate for a room than if you were to go directly to the hotel and book.

That happened to us last month. At NCFC, it was cheaper to book directly through the hotel than the rates we got from the agency. Over 40 dollars cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We often stayed with relatives when possible at expensive soccer tournaments. Couldn't pay for hotels on top of all the other costs. Never got dismissed from a tournament ever for doing this.

Has anyone actually ever seen a tournament enforce this?

Yes I received an email from ECNL that i hadn't booked the minimum number of rooms, which is 6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can figure out a legal reason this is not allowed you will be a hero!!!

not happening. It would be one thing if there was one club or organization running ALL of the available tournaments in a given area. But we all know this just isn't the case, especially int he DMV. Some tournaments are run by individual clubs, some by organizations, some by the leagues themselves. And as PP said, there is a choice of hotels and prices in these stay to play tournament. It's not like you're being forced to book the Ritz to play. In fact, the tournament OP is posting about is hosted by a club (Beach FC), which doesn't obviously have a monopoly on all soccer tournaments in the area. And when picking a hotel, there are a bunch of different hotel brands and price options, so it just doesn't seem like there is a colorable claim here (at least not for OP's tournament or any of the tournaments most of our kids play in here in DMV). And who wants to spend the hundred of thousands of dolors to test this weak theory? You'd be better of paying for the moderately priced hotel or just not playing.

My issue is more with the booking agency fees and the hotel rates you get through them. When your paying a fee to them and a higher rate for a room than if you were to go directly to the hotel and book.

That happened to us last month. At NCFC, it was cheaper to book directly through the hotel than the rates we got from the agency. Over 40 dollars cheaper.

Or worse, when the hotel options available are crap and you can stay somewhere much nicer for the same amount. Unfortunately some tournaments try to enforce this dumb policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We often stayed with relatives when possible at expensive soccer tournaments. Couldn't pay for hotels on top of all the other costs. Never got dismissed from a tournament ever for doing this.

Has anyone actually ever seen a tournament enforce this?

In other sprints absolutely. Volleyball is very strict about it. You get dropped from tournaments if you don’t book the required blocks. In soccer, bigger tournaments like Jeff cup do as well.