Best Practices for Sports and Social Organizations

Out of nowhere, I grew a sports and social organization to over 20,000 participants and $750,000 in revenue in less than four years.

The club is known for its customer-friendly attitude, a unique array of fun and exciting events, provides value for each person they touch, and operates a profitable stream of revenue.

We have run sports leagues, tournaments, clinics, camps, and competitive games for children up to adults in their 40's and 50's. We've planned social entertainment, parties, concerts, and more.

The point of the following white paper and how to guide is to share the culmination of my successes and failures and the sports and social organizations we have been involved with. The objective of providing you with this information is that you become better at what you do and how to succeed in the sports and entertainment industry.

Why Do People Play?
To understand the customer and vendor landscape of the sports and social world, you must understand the underlying principles of why people "play".

Play is amusing interaction with people, animals, or toys, often in the context of learning or recreation. In theory the concept of play if difficult to tightly define. Some people use the word play as a contrast to the other parts of their lives: sleep, eating, washing, work, rituals.

As Johan Huizinga defines in Homo Ludens, the notion of the Magic Circle as a conceptual space in which play occurs. It's the state in which the various actions in play have meaning such as kicking (and only kicking) a ball in one direction of another, using physical force to impede another player (in a way which might be illegal outside the context of the game). A good book to check out on play theory is Man, Play and Games by Roger Caillois.

What it takes
A successful sports or social organization or business cannot exist without locations to play. Venues such as facilities.