Is Stay to Play Getting Worse?

[Anonymous]

I’m curious if other teams have run into this same situation with recent soccer tournaments.

Our team registered for the Visit Raleigh Girls College Showcase and followed the rules to book hotels through the tournament’s approved travel agency. We were told that our team wouldn’t be placed in a bracket until we booked our rooms, even though the field locations hadn’t been released yet. This is new. We've attended this tournament multiple times, and as far as I can remember, we've never had to book a hotel prior to being placed in a bracket. We had only a massively large area where our age group would potentially be placed. So, we picked a hotel more or less at random just to meet the requirement.

Once the brackets finally came out, we learned our potential fields are nowhere near our hotel. The tournament then encouraged us to rebook at a hotel closer to the fields. This is in itself frustrating because having to do another search for hotels closer to the fields for a group of 18 families is a splitting headache. But when we tried to move, the travel agency said we’d have to pay a $5 per room per night fee again since we were switching hotels, even though we only needed to change because of how the process was set up in the first place.

Between booking blind, having to deal with another search on the platform, and paying extra fees, the whole setup feels even more frustrating than ever.

Has anyone else experienced this? Were you able to get the rebooking fee waived or find a way around it? I've emailed the travel agency who responded saying the fees are nonrefundable (but didn't respond to my request to waive the new fees). The tournament hasn't responded to my email.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like the tournament has an issue with teams backing out if they dont get the games they want. Also it sounds like they dont have a lot of teams signed up.

[Anonymous]

It is annoying that teams are required to book hotels before field assignments. We are going to Richmond for the Capital Fall Classic and luckily our fields are 10 minutes away from the hotel. Other teams that we know have about a 20 min drive.

[Anonymous]

Yes it has been getting worse. Soccer tournaments like everything else are getting more expensive. They can't just raise the team fee because it will scare a lot of teams away, so they nickel and dime us with parking fees, stricter pay to play rules, etc. It will all come crashing down at some point because it's not sustainable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is annoying that teams are required to book hotels before field assignments. We are going to Richmond for the Capital Fall Classic and luckily our fields are 10 minutes away from the hotel. Other teams that we know have about a 20 min drive.

20 minutes is nothing. ECNL has hotels an hour away.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it's getting worse.

Stay-to-play is just another way for clubs to shift costs to families. Big clubs could unite and object to stay-to-play requirements that don't make sense, but there is no incentive for them to object, since the costs are paid by the families. Same thing for rising uniform costs, rising tournament fees, etc.

Tournaments are among the biggest waste in the landscape of waste that is travel soccer.

If they want extra matches, top U10-U12 teams should do two leagues per season and do many fewer tournaments.

Leagues, in general: are less expensive than a single tournament, require less travel, feature longer matches (especially because referees add more injury time to league matches), and are more likely to have the regular coach available and focused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is annoying that teams are required to book hotels before field assignments. We are going to Richmond for the Capital Fall Classic and luckily our fields are 10 minutes away from the hotel. Other teams that we know have about a 20 min drive.

the room blocks expire in one week, though. that was really agravating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious if other teams have run into this same situation with recent soccer tournaments.

Our team registered for the Visit Raleigh Girls College Showcase and followed the rules to book hotels through the tournament’s approved travel agency. We were told that our team wouldn’t be placed in a bracket until we booked our rooms, even though the field locations hadn’t been released yet. This is new. We've attended this tournament multiple times, and as far as I can remember, we've never had to book a hotel prior to being placed in a bracket. We had only a massively large area where our age group would potentially be placed. So, we picked a hotel more or less at random just to meet the requirement.

Once the brackets finally came out, we learned our potential fields are nowhere near our hotel. The tournament then encouraged us to rebook at a hotel closer to the fields. This is in itself frustrating because having to do another search for hotels closer to the fields for a group of 18 families is a splitting headache. But when we tried to move, the travel agency said we’d have to pay a $5 per room per night fee again since we were switching hotels, even though we only needed to change because of how the process was set up in the first place.

Between booking blind, having to deal with another search on the platform, and paying extra fees, the whole setup feels even more frustrating than ever.

Has anyone else experienced this? Were you able to get the rebooking fee waived or find a way around it? I've emailed the travel agency who responded saying the fees are nonrefundable (but didn't respond to my request to waive the new fees). The tournament hasn't responded to my email.

I would turn it over to your club admin to deal with as far as getting assessed that fee. This is ridiculous, to expect a team manager to deal with this level of incompetence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like the tournament has an issue with teams backing out if they dont get the games they want. Also it sounds like they dont have a lot of teams signed up.

I think in past years, the ECNL teams have attended this showcase, but they're going to an ECNL tournament in Kansas City instead. The College Cup is in Kansas City this year, too. I assume Kansas City is where most of the better college coaches will be. This must mean attending the Raleigh showcase is less of a draw for the rest of the teams, and maybe there are fewer teams attending this year for that reason. Why go to a showcase if the right colleges won't be there to see you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is annoying that teams are required to book hotels before field assignments. We are going to Richmond for the Capital Fall Classic and luckily our fields are 10 minutes away from the hotel. Other teams that we know have about a 20 min drive.

Our hotel is 45 mins away from the field, and we're already driving 5 hours to get to the tournament in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is annoying that teams are required to book hotels before field assignments. We are going to Richmond for the Capital Fall Classic and luckily our fields are 10 minutes away from the hotel. Other teams that we know have about a 20 min drive.

Our hotel is 45 mins away from the field, and we're already driving 5 hours to get to the tournament in the first place.

Oof, unlucky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious if other teams have run into this same situation with recent soccer tournaments.

Our team registered for the Visit Raleigh Girls College Showcase and followed the rules to book hotels through the tournament’s approved travel agency. We were told that our team wouldn’t be placed in a bracket until we booked our rooms, even though the field locations hadn’t been released yet. This is new. We've attended this tournament multiple times, and as far as I can remember, we've never had to book a hotel prior to being placed in a bracket. We had only a massively large area where our age group would potentially be placed. So, we picked a hotel more or less at random just to meet the requirement.

Once the brackets finally came out, we learned our potential fields are nowhere near our hotel. The tournament then encouraged us to rebook at a hotel closer to the fields. This is in itself frustrating because having to do another search for hotels closer to the fields for a group of 18 families is a splitting headache. But when we tried to move, the travel agency said we’d have to pay a $5 per room per night fee again since we were switching hotels, even though we only needed to change because of how the process was set up in the first place.

Between booking blind, having to deal with another search on the platform, and paying extra fees, the whole setup feels even more frustrating than ever.

Has anyone else experienced this? Were you able to get the rebooking fee waived or find a way around it? I've emailed the travel agency who responded saying the fees are nonrefundable (but didn't respond to my request to waive the new fees). The tournament hasn't responded to my email.

I would turn it over to your club admin to deal with as far as getting assessed that fee. This is ridiculous, to expect a team manager to deal with this level of incompetence.

Our club admins don't get involved in any hotel conversations. It's all left to the team mom/dad. Do your admins get involved in this stuff?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes it has been getting worse. Soccer tournaments like everything else are getting more expensive. They can't just raise the team fee because it will scare a lot of teams away, so they nickel and dime us with parking fees, stricter pay to play rules, etc. It will all come crashing down at some point because it's not sustainable.

Yes, and why attend a tournament this far away if you're not planning on playing in college? It just doesn't seem to be a good use of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it's getting worse.

Stay-to-play is just another way for clubs to shift costs to families. Big clubs could unite and object to stay-to-play requirements that don't make sense, but there is no incentive for them to object, since the costs are paid by the families. Same thing for rising uniform costs, rising tournament fees, etc.

Tournaments are among the biggest waste in the landscape of waste that is travel soccer.

If they want extra matches, top U10-U12 teams should do two leagues per season and do many fewer tournaments.

Leagues, in general: are less expensive than a single tournament, require less travel, feature longer matches (especially because referees add more injury time to league matches), and are more likely to have the regular coach available and focused.

I don't think playing in two leagues is possible, but I agree that there are plenty of teams locally that we could play against. Many of the ECNL-RL teams could easily play against at least the bottom half of the ranked GA teams. The ECNL teams could easily play against the top half of the ranked GA teams. All of this faraway tournament travel seems unnecessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it's getting worse.

Stay-to-play is just another way for clubs to shift costs to families. Big clubs could unite and object to stay-to-play requirements that don't make sense, but there is no incentive for them to object, since the costs are paid by the families. Same thing for rising uniform costs, rising tournament fees, etc.

Tournaments are among the biggest waste in the landscape of waste that is travel soccer.

If they want extra matches, top U10-U12 teams should do two leagues per season and do many fewer tournaments.

Leagues, in general: are less expensive than a single tournament, require less travel, feature longer matches (especially because referees add more injury time to league matches), and are more likely to have the regular coach available and focused.

I don't think playing in two leagues is possible, but I agree that there are plenty of teams locally that we could play against. Many of the ECNL-RL teams could easily play against at least the bottom half of the ranked GA teams. The ECNL teams could easily play against the top half of the ranked GA teams. All of this faraway tournament travel seems unnecessary.

Not to derail the thread too much, but our ECNL club does this over the winter with friendlies against a lot of the local GA teams. Tournaments/Showcases are a different beast all together.

Back on topic, I don't know if stay to play is getting worse, but our team stayed in the same hotel back to back years for an ECNL event and the price was almost 40% more than last year for the same hotel on the same weekend. Total rip off