Background

Located in Lexington, Kentucky, the Lexington Youth Soccer Association (LYSA) offers recreational and competitive soccer to adults and children, as well as a new program for children with disabilities. Serving a population of approximately 300,000 people, LYSA averages between 2000 and 2500 athletes playing in two seasons (two seasons for both adults and youth) annually.

Challenge

While LYSA has a 16-member working board, the organization primarily relies on Registrar Lois Stephens, Office Manager Nina O’Leary, and a few other staff to shoulder the administrative duties. Up until a handful of years ago, processing the 5,000 registrations each year was accomplished manually. Players mailed in checks and registration forms, which would then be inputted manually into a desktop database file. It was time-consuming, frustrating and impossible to organize. “We would have stacks of checks piled up, waiting to be deposited,” noted Nina. “We fielded phone calls at all hours with requests for late entries and excuses for missing checks. We needed a change.” With such a small staff, it was obvious that automating registrations and payments was crucial to maintaining the success of the association.

Solution

Five years ago, LYSA began its search for web-based soccer league software. LYSA wanted a product that was hosted online; processed all registrations automatically; and stored information in a web-based centralized database accessible to multiple users. After several interviews, demos and conversations involving both the Board and the State, LYSA chose the LeagueOne and ClubReg systems from ActiveSports. Not only did Active’s soccer software offer the comprehensive functionality that LYSA needed, but Active itself was a stable company with years of experience in the industry. After receiving on-site and virtual training, LYSA launched online registration to adults during a summer season. As the staff and players became more familiar with the software, it was rolled out to each league.

Results

After getting the soccer registration software up and running, Nina recalls they immediately saw a drastic reduction in time spent on administrative tasks and chasing down payments. There were no more stacks of checks to deal with and parents were efficiently notified about important dates or outstanding paperwork and fees with the ClubReg email reminder tool. Parents enjoyed the convenience and control of being able to access their online accounts to update personal information, which was a huge time-saver for LYSA staff. It was also much easier for Lois to reconcile her data and report to the State on players and fees. Because Kentucky Youth Soccer uses LeagueOne, the State has real-time access to player data and reporting is more accurate.

It did not take long for players and parents to adopt online registration. Currently, registration for adult programs is now 90-95% online and children’s programs are 80-85% online. LYSA has even gone so far as to eliminate paper registration forms for adult leagues. Lois now has time to help board members with team creations, communicating team assignments to coaches and league directors, and other tasks that wouldn’t be possible without Active’s system. “When I think back to what we did, and all the paperwork… we don’t have to do any of that anymore,” says Nina. “This is so much easier—it’s all electronic now.”

Using soccer league software to help get things done better and faster, LYSA has maintained its player numbers for the past three years. For a do-it-yourself team like Nina and Lois, saving so much time and sustaining participation without increasing cost has been invaluable. Operating online is an affordable, efficient solution for LYSA and thousands of other sports organizations nationwide.

Field Findings from Nina O’Leary of LYSA:

• Invest in online programs—accepting credit cards and allowing families to update their own information will save you so much time that those two benefits alone will be worth it.
• With soccer registration software, you will not lose data. Payments are processed automatically and go straight to the bank. All information is submitted by the players themselves and is stored in a central database.
• Make sure both your association and the State have real-time access to player and financial information, so there’s no last-minute data entry required to make reporting deadlines.

Click here to request more information to find out if LeagueOne’s enhanced software features can help you manage your soccer league.