Subscription Websites and Running a Sports Club Online
Whether you are running a football club, cricket club, rugby club, golf club or any other sports club, you will probably encounter two common challenges.
1) Collecting membership fees
2) Sharing information with your members
An online subscription website will handle these challenges ... and many more.
Let's take a look at how a subscription website can improve the way a sports cub is managed and how it can simplify administration.
1) Collecting Membership Fees
Collecting membership fees is one of the most frustrating and time-consuming chores of running any sports club.
I run a small youth football club with 300 players between the ages of seven and sixteen. Every year, we have to collect £80 from each player. This is currently done by the manager of each team who then hands the cheques to the club’s treasurer. This is complicated by some parents who ask if they can pay monthly, instead of annually.
The whole process is inefficient, boring and causes great antagonism amongst the managers.
A subscription website enables sports club members to pay their fees via the website. The process is fully automated and it is easy to keep a record of who has and has not paid. It also enables a sports club to have different payment plans, e.g., monthly and quarterly.
2) Sharing Information with Your Members
Another huge problem for most sports clubs is sharing information with their members and players in a timely way. This could be contact details, fixtures, team selections, rule changes, appointments, results, club events ... and much more.
The additional complication is usually that this information comes from a wide range of people, including the Club Captain, team managers, administrators, guest teams, members, fixture secretary and many others. Having to gather, compile and distribute this information is a time-consuming and costly headache.
However, with the sports club online through a subscription website, all of these contributors can be given access to their relevant bit of the website and add the information themselves.
Some of the information can be on public pages, such as fixtures and results, whilst other bits of information, such a member names and contact details, can be in a members-only area.
Gathering and sharing information becomes a doddle.
Many Other Benefits
The above to problems are highlighted because sports club administrators from football clubs, rugby clubs, cricket clubs and golf clubs have indicated to us that they are the most challenging issues.
However, a subscription website can bring many other benefits to most sports clubs. For example:
- A shop can enable members to buy clothing, books, equipment, etc. This is convenient for members and can become an important revenue stream for the sports club.
- Members can buy and sell stuff from each other via online classifieds.
- Members can contribute their own thoughts and feedback in forums. This creates a strong sense of community.
- Photos and video clips from games or events can be shared.
- Maps and directions to other clubs can be listed.
- The site can be used to market the sports club to new members.
If you run a football club online, rugby club online, cricket club online or any other sports club online, contact us and hopefully we will be able to help you make your life much easier.