Engage Sports Blog Youth Sports Matters

The keys to managing a great youth sport tournament are not as complex as you might think. To help peel back this onion, we reached out to Tim Brownlee, president of Diamond Sports Promotions to get his thoughts. Diamond Sports Promotions (DSP) was started in 2005 and is based in Normal, IL, which is located in the heart of Illinois about 2 hours from St. Louis. DSP runs about 70 high-school aged tournaments per year encompassing 800 to 1000 teams per year.  DSP is a very busy and well run program, and while their focus is baseball, their approach to running tournaments applies well to all youth sports. 

Recommendations for youth sports strength training are affected by the debate for and against that exists among the medical community, sports community and parenting community.  The argument against strength training, especially for kids under 12 years old holds that strength training, especially weight lifting, will damage growth plates causing injury and abnormal bone development. More recent studies suggest strength training, if done properly, has significant benefits including improved performance and resistance to injury. In this post we present more details on these arguments and specific recommendations from the Council of Youth Sports and Medical Fitness.

SnapChat has launched a service called Geofilters, which location-based image overlays that users can apply to their Snaps. According to this site, SnapChat has become a major force in social media with over 100 million users sending over 8 billion videos views per day. SnapChat geofilters represent a branding and marketing opportunity for youth sports organizations, especially those that operate their own facilities or run tournaments. Learn more...

If you are tasked with cleaning up a sports website, there are 6 key areas that will give your sports website a fresh new look with the minimum effort and time involved.  We have compiled these sports website design resources into a 1-page Sports Website Cleanup Checklist which you can download here.  Your website is the front door to your organization and should be warm, friendly and welcoming. It's often not necessary to make a complete service provider change in order to get the new look you want. Download our Sports Website Cleanup Checklist and start making your changes today! 

If you are attempting to evaluate the pricing for an online sports registration system you are probably finding a wide variety of pricing terms and perhaps feeling a bit overwhelmed and confused. Your total cost will include service provider charges applied across a wide set of parameters plus merchant charges for credit card clearing houses such as Paypal and Stripe. As such, determining the true cost differential between providers can be a challenging task. This blog, and the accompanying Online Sports Registration Cost Calculator serves as your guide for understanding the pricing practices for online sports management services.

Many coaches and association leaders look to share useful parents do's and don'ts at youth sports practice to help create a better practice environment. The challenge is sharing such sports parent behavior tips in a supportive and no accusatory tone.  We  have gleaned tips from experts and resources across the web to come up with some of the most useful tips for parent do's and don'ts as youth sports practices. If you have more, we'd love to hear your comments and suggestions.  

When looking for a listing of youth sports tournaments, the easiest thing to do is start with an internet search but there are also many other ways to find great tournaments.  

Here's a tip off...there are a least 4 key tournament management tips that youth sports leaders can learn from the 2016 NCAA basketball tournament. 

If you are new to managing a youth sports organization or a veteran, implementing effective management strategies and techniques is essential to operating and growing your organization.  Volunteer leaders often feel overwhelmed given work and other life commitments. A youth sports leader may wear many hats: leader, finance wizard, grounds crew, weather forecaster, cook and peacemaker - all in the same day. As online sports management service providers, we feel your pain. Let us help you through the process with our aptly named free ebook "Effective Management Strategies for Youth Sports Leaders.”

Youth sports participation statistics compiled since 2009 show significant losses and gains across a wide spectrum of sports.  The best available data stems from a multi year tracking study done by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association from 2009 to 2014 which is presented and discussed herein.