Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of tournaments, ask your club to look for other options. The loss of revenue will most likely send a message to the organizers.

+1 we had a great experience at Columbia Cup. Good fields, well organized, nothing cancelled.
There are a lot of Bethesda and Arlington teams playing in it - it’s worth the drive.

I’m that PP, and this is my kids first year in travel and tournaments so I’m not going to pretend to know the politics in nyouth soccer (not do i ever care to be that invested in 10 year olds playing a game)
I do know that we’re bit a SAC team, and a quick scan of my son’s age group across all divisions shows sac in first place in one bracket and theee sac teams not going to the finals in their brackets. So seems reasonably fair to me. I’m guessing if your kids tel lost handily to a sac team maybe you’d think there was some rigging going on.

But most importantly, my kids team got to play 2 games yesterday and 1 or 2 games today on good fields against good competition, and that’s really my priority.
So if other clubs of little kids are looking for a good end of season tournament to just go and play some good games, I’d recommend it.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is U12. They changed the games so they only played 1 game on Saturday (with 2 games and the final on Sunday). And then just cancelled the whole thing.

I feel so bad for the teams that travelled here and paid for hotel rooms.

Most tournaments if they realize there may be very few games played and many out of town teams, make a call on Thursday before people travel and within the window that most people can cancel hotel rooms. The weather was not a surprise nor were the field conditions this year (or from experience prior years on these fields).

My daughter is U12. They changed the games so they only played 1 game on Saturday (with 2 games and the final on Sunday). And then just cancelled the whole thing.

I feel so bad for the teams that travelled here and paid for hotel rooms.

If I’ve got anything to say to our club and coach it’s to never participate in this tourney again. What a total crock. Wast of time and money.

Anonymous wrote:The whole point of these tournaments is to make money. Did you not know that?
Renting turf fields costs money so shy would they do that? They have your money and they’re not obligated to give it back to you, cancellations or not.

Are we starting to realize the whole point of youth travel sports now?

Yes, tournaments make money. But the world is not so black and white. We have older kids in multiple sports at high levels; not every tournament is poorly managed. There are some tournaments that care about the experience. There are some tournaments that keep the size that they can manage, put $ in the right places. Yes, there are some tournaments that charge a lot to do this.

It's not like this was a surprise to Bethesda; the fields were barely playable last year. They calculated that it does not matter at the younger ages. And it's a real shame, for the BSC club itself, whose parents volunteer many hours, whose kids look forward to it. (The volunteers are good - btw - this is a club leadership issue).

We don't have expectations of playing in college; but our kids love their sports, their teams, their friendships, their mentors/coaches. Sports has been a great development for them - so while I don't like a lot of youth sports focus on the money, we take the good and bad. But while I have lost track of the number of "high level" tournaments we have been to cross all the sports, Bethesda simply ranks the worst for the U13 under.

Anonymous wrote:The whole point of these tournaments is to make money. Did you not know that?
Renting turf fields costs money so shy would they do that? They have your money and they’re not obligated to give it back to you, cancellations or not.

Are we starting to realize the whole point of youth travel sports now?

Many of us already know this, which is why I think it is important for people to post negative reviews about this tournament and offer suggestions on how it could be fixed. Let's be clear, this is a great tournament for U14 and above, who play all of their games at the SoccerPlex or other high quality fields. However, for U13 and below, if BSC continues to insist on playing games on subpar fields like Muldoons, Summer Hill, etc., then parents should tell their clubs to skip this tournament and spend their tournament dollars elsewhere. If teams start skipping the Premier Cup, then BSC will have a business decision to make about (a) whether it is willing to have a smaller tournament and less overall revenue or (b) whether it is willing to spend a little more to rent higher quality fields and turn a higher profit by expanding the size of the tournament.

The current status quo, however, is unacceptable, and teams in the U9-U13 age brackets should be skipping this tournament unless things change. This is true for both boys and girls clubs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of tournaments, ask your club to look for other options. The loss of revenue will most likely send a message to the organizers.

+1 we had a great experience at Columbia Cup. Good fields, well organized, nothing cancelled.
There are a lot of Bethesda and Arlington teams playing in it - it’s worth the drive.

The SAC tournament is rigged in favor of SAC teams.

The whole point of these tournaments is to make money. Did you not know that?
Renting turf fields costs money so shy would they do that? They have your money and they’re not obligated to give it back to you, cancellations or not.

Are we starting to realize the whole point of youth travel sports now?

Bethesda rapidly expanded this tournament over the past few years boasting of its size . Not only are the fields a complete mess, many of the other aspects are subpar. Compared to the true premier east coast tournaments, The tournament has minimal ref standards with refs often not knowing the rules for the age group. (Won’t get into quality of refs). The explanation is that the tournament is so large that you will get low quality. Fields are not marked either

Maybe instead of expanding the size of the tournament and increasing marketing, they should focus on a quality experience.


I did notice that some of the better DMV teams skipped this year in some of the younger age groups, so word is getting out. For all the teams that traveled, truly sorry.

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of tournaments, ask your club to look for other options. The loss of revenue will most likely send a message to the organizers.

+1 we had a great experience at Columbia Cup. Good fields, well organized, nothing cancelled.
There are a lot of Bethesda and Arlington teams playing in it - it’s worth the drive.

Summer Hills Farm was much worse than what I expected.....and my expectations were pretty low to begin with. Shame on BSC for selecting this place and shame on Summer Hill not spending a few dollars to make this place bearable.

There are lots of tournaments, ask your club to look for other options. The loss of revenue will most likely send a message to the organizers.

DD is so upset they will only get to play 2 games and no final. So how will they give out the trophy’s or will there be no trophy’s this year? I feel really bad for the ppl that traveled long distance to attend, you be we will be asking our club to skip it next year. Piss poor planning.

None of my kids play, but that sounds terribly frustrating, OP. Have you shared your concerns with the organizers?

A significant black eye for this tournament and BSC, as they have had to cancel multiple games and entire age groups due to poor field quality. Given the number of years BSC has hosted this tournament, I am surprised they had no backup plan, especially when Plan A has always been to host a bunch of games on crappy grass fields that are not primarily designed for soccer and become mudpits when it rains (Polo Grounds, Summer Hill, Muldoons). There are numerous turf fields in the DMV area, and you would have thought a “premier” tournament would secure quality fields for the boys and girls who participate in this tournament and, in some cases, travel significant distances to attend the tournament. I would be rip-s*** if I had driven down from NY, PA or some other states, only to have my kids play one game or, at best, two games, all because BSC insisted that games be held on horse pastures and polo fields. What a joke. Tell your team to skip the Premier Cup next year and go to another quality tournament that supplies quality fields for the participating teams.

If you have a son attending next weekend’s tournament, you better pray for sun and no rain for the next week, or else the same thing will happen next weekend.