I recently attended a soccer tournament for my son.  It was a tournament with over 100 teams.  Like a lot of tournaments there was the usual excitement of the tournament.  But as the tournament wore on, I noticed an underlying tension.

What was the tension?  Confusion.  Teams didn't seem to know what time they were playing.  Teams didn't know what field they were playing on, or what time they were playing.  There was equal confusion on who they might be playing if they won or lost.  Parents found themselves waiting around for results to be posted.  They also found themselves trying to find tournament officials who could answer their questions.

I decided to find out what was going on so I finally found the tournament director.  While there were a number of factors that were contributing to the confusion, I found one factor very interesting.  The tournament director was keeping the entire tournament on paper.  Paper registration. Paper payment.  Paper results.  Paper postings.  This slowed everything down and contributed to the confusion.  The tournament director said that while he worked with computers every day he refused to keep the tournament on the computer.

On the one hand, I can understand his old school approach to running a tournament, but that was until the semifinals.  When we came to the semifinals, we wandered from field to field.  We also found ourselves standing by ourselves.  When we sought out tournament officials, a sad tale emerged.

There were two teams that our team could have played in the semifinals.  Both of those teams showed up to read the paper postings.  Apparently, both read the paper results the same.  Both read the results and determined they were NOT in the semifinals.  Both went home, although one of those teams should have been in the semifinals and should have a shot in the finals.  Our team ended up with a forfeit and a coast into the finals.

Think of the heartache for the boys and their coach who missed this opportunity.  Online registration and online management of the tournament could have easily avoided this mistake.  It pays to manage your team, your league, and your tournaments online

William High is a freelance writer.