SIDELINE STUDY
Ormond Beach Soccer Club: Spring Cup Tournament
hris Waugh, owner of Sideline Event Management, developed a strong relationship with Ormond Beach Soccer Club (OBSC) while serving as the GPS Florida Tournament Director. Through this connection, discussions began about hosting an end-of-season tournament. After finalizing a partnership in February for a May event, there were 9 to 10 weeks to bring the tournament to life.
Background
OBSC is devoted to teaching the game of soccer to area youth players. Located in the Daytona Beach area, OBSC provides recreational, developmental, and competitive youth soccer opportunities to enhance character, community, and love for the game of soccer.
Ormond previously ran a tournament during MLK weekend for a number of years. With the departure of the former DOC the club needed some help with their tournament. After OBSC and Chris reviewed the tournament calendar, the decision was made to relocate the tournament later in the spring season. As there were a number of clubs in central Florida hosting large events on the same weekend in January, the May date was proposed.
The timeline for this event was tight! With only 10 weeks to promote the event and secure vendors our work was cut out. During the time leading up to the event, we worked closely with several board members to discuss logistics for the weekend.
The Sideline Impact
SIdeline Events is here to help clubs save time and increase their profits from running tournaments.
sanctioning
Sideline navigated the complex sanctioning process for approval by FYSA and completed all the post-event reporting for the event.
partnerships
Sideline used their relationships with vendors to provide services at the tournament, such as event t-shirts, photos, and food trucks that enhance the overall revenues associated with the tournament.
marketing
Sideline provided email marketing across our network of contacts via email campaigns. Sideline created the event logo and developed a unique tournament Snapchat filter.
Scheduling
Sideline managed all team registration and communication pre and post-event, worked with a referee assignor and built competitive brackets based on knowledge of the Florida competitive landscape
2016 Numbers
TEAMS
0
GAMES
0
CLUBS
0
2017 Numbers
TEAMS
0
GAMES
0
CHAMPIONS
0
2017: Managing Growth
After our first year hosting the event at OBSC and an unbelievable inaugural year of the partnership, we were able to develop and grow the tournament by 60% (51 teams). This led to some issues at the facility.
In December 2016, the city parks department condemned all the light towers across the park after Hurricane Matthew, a Cat 5 hurricane that went on a path of destruction along the east coast of Florida.
As a result of increasing the number of teams attending the event, we needed additional time on the fields each day, spilling over into the evening. So, we came up with a solution. We decided to use some of the baseball outfields at the complex to host our smaller games. Therefore, we could use their original locations for larger 11v11 games.
Feedback
“Working with Chris was a great experience. He tells us the plan and gets to work. He worked with GPS running our Spring Cup event, and it was such a positive environment leading to a floorless tournament. We had a regular meeting where Chris would travel to Ormond and provided us with frequent updates. When the event started, Chris was onsite managing all aspects of the event, and we were there to support as members of OBSC.”
Rob BowlingOrmond Beach SC President 