Operations management for sports leagues, teams, and clubs
4.3/5 (118 reviews)Consisting of a suite of integrated application solutions, SportsEngine is a cloud-based operations management platform for sporting organizations. Built to support the needs of teams, clubs, associations, leagues and tournaments across all popular youth sports, SportsEngine also connects coaches with athletes and parents. Supported by a native SportsEngine mobile app for iOS and Android devices, team organizers can communicate scheduling, updates and messages directly to members while accepting RSVP's when establishing player availability.
The main SportsEngine platform then extends to span a number of key modules, including online registration to eliminate paper-based signups. Features here include a personalized experience to match the particular sport, while adding secure payment processing (PowerPay), background screening, member verification (Verify), financial tracking and reporting capabilities. With the SiteBuilder, teams can create responsive websites using inline editing and drag-and-drop widgets. Team, tournament (Tourney) and League applications facilitate calendar-based scheduling plus roster, round or season building respectively, alongside real-time score keeping and statistical tracking. In addition, People360 offers cross-session member management to provide a 360-degree view of registrants, while a Fundraising module integrates with RallyMe to generate crowdfunded donations.
Pros
SportsEngine is more than a website. It's team collaboration software, content sharing, volunteer management, financial management and more. I still use other software tools, but I wouldn't have to, and in many cases it's just a matter of taking the time to migrate to SportsEngine's better solutions.
I still use Ground.Work for collecting fees, because it's cheaper, but SportsEngine would be easier for me in the long run, if my board would let me switch.
Cons
There are some features of SportsEngine that I find unintuitive, like News and News Aggregators, but the functionality and support is there, which is far more than I can say for most competitors. I also think some collaborations with partners like Ground.Work or JotForm would make sense to reduce cost and complexity of the existing solutions within the SportsEngine suite.
Registration and player management has become much simpler and more streamlined since we switched to SportsEngine, with everything being 100% online. It has made our processes simpler and faster to work through, from rostering to invoicing and even processing refunds. As a Club Admin and parent, I also find the website to be very user friendly for both sides.
Pros
I like the fact that everything is migrating into one location, taking away the need for using/visiting multiple websites to complete necessary tasks.
Cons
There is a lack of some functionality that our organization had with our previous software (Blue Sombrero), which makes some tasks impossible to do without big workarounds (if at all). One example of this is the ability to transfer players between programs without parents having to complete a whole new registration.
I am a long long long time user/patron of their product and I have had the best time dealing with their team of account managers and techs. The single best attribute of any company is their ability to take criticism and turn it into a change and a positive experience for the user/customer. They've grown and evolved. Most companies don't, let's be honest. I actually enjoy the interactions with them. I've grown to know some of the individuals that work there over the years and seen then not only excel but also be appreciated by the powers that be. They take a team approach to their employees. They also have fun with the sporting events like the Pond Hockey Tournament that they co-sponsor. SportEngine is a community not just a supplier/provider.
I will likely always be an advocate and customer of theirs as long as they continue to evolve and nurture their relationships as they go.
Pros
What I enjoyed and valued most about SportsEngine's sites and software is ease of use and versatility. For someone who is tech savvy (one way of saying it) or someone who is functional at best on a computer this company has something for you in their product. You can easily modify and populate a website for the barely functional individual... or you can rock an excellent sports site with tons of integrations and modifications that are all accessible at your fingertips.
Cons
What I like least is so petty and idiosyncratic that it's barely worth mentioning. I would change things like adding anchors in texts on one page that can be linked from another page. Silly but it's small and maybe not worth fighting for. I would also like to see an appointment app that is solely SportsEngine and not a third-party integration that you add code from another site. Wish list.
As the Webmaster and Registrar, my personal benefit has been the ability to remove myself form the day-to-day changes to the website. In our old site (we had for 6 years), the page content had to be edited in HTML (web page base language) to work the way we needed it to work. As a result, I (the webmaster) was the only person with the qualifications to make those changes. With SportsEngine® I've been able to empower a good number of the board members so that they can make changes to an area of the site, post news, and send league wide communications. Not only does this reduce the workload for me, but allows the board members to get information out in a more timely manner. The 2nd benefit for us is the 'responsive design' templates. We found that the majority of our users interact with the website and league information on a mobile phone. Without responsive design it was impossible to interact with many parts of the old website. This factor was key for us looking into the future to create a sustainable website and tools. We certainly did not want to change websites again. Another key benefit that we hoped would deliver the expected results was the integrated mobile app. The app is free to all members, and is focused on the TEAM rather than the websites focus of the LEAGUE. We've been pleased to find that adoption of the app was rapid, and that families really leveraged the app as their daily platform for all things related to the team. We also unexpectedly found that we could leverage the apps built in notifications to reach parents with important league information (rain outs, field changes, game reschedules) where they may not read or simply ignore the same information in email form.
Pros
So many pro's it will be hard to list them all. The ease of use is tremendous which makes it possible for most of the board members to contribute to the site during all cycles of the board year. Because the help documentation is so thorough getting new members up-to-speed and able to manage their own communication streams takes little time and does not require the league to have a 'webmaster guru' to support everyone. Another nice element is that that the site is 'data driven', meaning that all of the news, text, documents, etc. that are added are stored in a database so that you can change templates based on you're personal preferences without loosing any of the content you've created. The registrations work extremely well, and with the rostering functions make adding players to teams a simple and thorough process that can easily be handled by anyone who can use email. Dibs is an essential tool for managing volunteer hours and commitments and continues to evolve - as does every part of the platform - to make a larger impact over time. The other key feature for our league has to be the integration with the SportsEngine® app. One the season gets into full swing, parents and players utilize the mobile app for game times, practice times, league news, and team messaging. With the RSVP features, the app has become the key tool for our team managers, and team staff. There are many more pros that I could list, but there is a limit to what I can write!
It's doubled the size of our club in three year. The new site seems to project more confidence but it also appears very high in search engine results for our area, so we have more exposure. It's dramatically reduced the time we have to spend getting information to people or collecting information and fees.
Pros
Once setup, it is easy to prepare for each season by making any changes to past registrations and duplicating them for the next season. It's radically reduced the amount of cash and checks we handle -- almost every transaction goes through the website now.
Cons
Some may find the initial setup tricky but Sports Engine offers a service for setting up your website, and rates that are really good if you compare with having an web design agency doing the work.
Pricing includes a dedicated success coach – request a free quote via the SportsEngine website.
Below are some frequently asked questions for SportsEngine.
SportsEngine offers the following pricing plans:
Starting from: US$69,00/month
Pricing model: Free, Subscription
Free Trial: Available
Pricing includes a dedicated success coach – request a free quote via the SportsEngine website.
SportsEngine offers the following features:
SportsEngine has the following typical customers:
Mid Size Business, Small Business
SportsEngine supports the following languages:
English
SportsEngine has the following pricing plans:
Free, Subscription
SportsEngine supports the following devices:
Android, iPhone
SportsEngine integrates with the following applications:
Facebook, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Mailchimp, Twitter
SportsEngine offers the following support options:
FAQs, Forum, Knowledge Base, Online Support, Phone Support, Video Tutorials
I've been with these guys from the beginning with multiple sports and clubs. They keep improving, keep listening and are generally fun people to work with. I think there's room for improvement in their product and they keep doing that, which is what I appreciate the most. They're also far ahead of their competition in terms of support and engagement with their user community.