Is Stay to Play Getting Worse?

[Anonymous]

Its like $1200 or more for a team to play 3 tournament games. How is that not plenty of profit per team?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t do any of that foolishness. We get the hotels that are most convenient to us. We already get fleeced enough for a child to kick a ball

That's great you're the one screwing it up for the club, but the club generally has to meet a minimum requirement for the "stay to play". If everyone on your team did that, you don't play, so since you are such a special butterfly, you can explain to the kids why they won't be attending the tournament (and you might lose out $$$ on that hotel reservation that now can't be cancelled).

Cool story. Can you cry harder? I may change my actions if so

I'm just telling you what your team isn't telling you. Yes you can be special and book your own accommodations. If everyone does that - you don't go. Do it enough, the team won't want you around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t do any of that foolishness. We get the hotels that are most convenient to us. We already get fleeced enough for a child to kick a ball

That's great you're the one screwing it up for the club, but the club generally has to meet a minimum requirement for the "stay to play". If everyone on your team did that, you don't play, so since you are such a special butterfly, you can explain to the kids why they won't be attending the tournament (and you might lose out $$$ on that hotel reservation that now can't be cancelled).

Cool story. Can you cry harder? I may change my actions if so

I'm just telling you what your team isn't telling you. Yes you can be special and book your own accommodations. If everyone does that - you don't go. Do it enough, the team won't want you around.

We had a couple of parents that would do VRBOs together (probabaly ghey) then would invite the team over for team lunches. It was comical watching the parents go between being angry at them for not booking the hotel, to annoyed they werent invited to book the VBRO, then finally laughing at the VBRO because it was in such a crappy part of town that one of the parents booked at the hotel everyone was staying at because they heard gunshots at night. 🤣

Vacation Rentals can be really nice but you have to go all out if you plan to invite the team over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its like $1200 or more for a team to play 3 tournament games. How is that not plenty of profit per team?

Have you ever run an actual tournament? Look at some 990 documents (IRS filings for non profits) for clubs and tournaments. As an example WAGS listed their tournament revenue at $637,000 which sounds great except the tournament expenses were $720,000. Fields cost money. Referees cost money. Trainers and insurance and marketing and software and tents and documents cost money. Trust me no one is getting rich off these things.

[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.

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its like $1200 or more for a team to play 3 tournament games. How is that not plenty of profit per team?

Have you ever run an actual tournament? Look at some 990 documents (IRS filings for non profits) for clubs and tournaments. As an example WAGS listed their tournament revenue at $637,000 which sounds great except the tournament expenses were $720,000. Fields cost money. Referees cost money. Trainers and insurance and marketing and software and tents and documents cost money. Trust me no one is getting rich off these things.

They wouldn't do them if they weren't making money off of them. The expenses probably included a large payment to the tournament director.

[Anonymous]

It's a pain in the @ss for sure. I'm only familiar with the girls ENCL side and it can be a pain - we were at the mercy of the "pay to play" at the younger years, but as our DD's have gotten older, the club is pretty flexible with allowing the older girls to do their own thing. The hotel that we got stuck with in Seattle my DDs first playoff year was about 45 minutes from the fields and in a pretty sketch part of town.

Because we aren't doing team travel, we are able to book the hotel room requirements fairly easily with the younger ages.

Was great in SD for playoffs this year - our DD's team pretty much all split up into a few different VRBO/Airbnb and had a great time. So much nicer chilling at a house that you can do breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hit the pool, whatever than being cooped up in a hotel.

There has also been a few times that we bought out our room block requirement and then went and stayed where we wanted.

[Anonymous]

There is no way our club would put up with this. This is a nonsense tourney... why in the world would you put your team thru all the baloney and expense. We would have pulled our registration immediately.

[Anonymous]

Update: the tournament promised to remove the extra fees for. Problem solved! But it took 4 emails and one phone call. Shouldn't be this difficult, but I'll take the win. Now we need to work on fixing the overall setup of forcing teams to book rooms before even knowing where they'll be playing. It's just a waste of time to have to search and book more than once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Update: the tournament promised to remove the extra fees for. Problem solved! But it took 4 emails and one phone call. Shouldn't be this difficult, but I'll take the win. Now we need to work on fixing the overall setup of forcing teams to book rooms before even knowing where they'll be playing. It's just a waste of time to have to search and book more than once.

Glad it worked out for you (despite it taking all that extra unnecessary work).

[Anonymous]

Its good you posted about it in case anyone else is dealing with the same fees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its like $1200 or more for a team to play 3 tournament games. How is that not plenty of profit per team?

Have you ever run an actual tournament? Look at some 990 documents (IRS filings for non profits) for clubs and tournaments. As an example WAGS listed their tournament revenue at $637,000 which sounds great except the tournament expenses were $720,000. Fields cost money. Referees cost money. Trainers and insurance and marketing and software and tents and documents cost money. Trust me no one is getting rich off these things.

Nobody disputes that it costs money to host a tournament. The complaint is the lack of transparency. Just make the entry fee all-in and stop obscuring the actual costs with stay to play, parking fees, entrance fees etc. Teams can then make the decision whether to participate or not.

My most recent annoyance is with the mandatory number of nights required to stay to play. My kid doesn't have a game until 3:00 or 4:00 PM the first day, I am within 2 hours driving distance and I have to pay for the prior night for a hotel? GTFO.