Question to Coaches and Organizations? Team Fee's refund?

TheSoftballZone

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I was talking with a parent that has paid over 2K plus in Team fee's. The team is already going to miss three tournaments in April and maybe two more tournaments in May in the best case scenario. The organization/team they are with was planning on playing a total of 11 tournaments with a two week brk at the end of June and beginning of July due to vacation. We were discussing what would be a fair refund based on tournament missed only. I told him if it was my team or organization I would subtract the goods and services already received. Then take the tournament fee's on tournaments missed and refund it.

Teams, Coaches and Organizations how do you plan on handle refunds on teams fee's?
 

Passion4theGame

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I am curious about this also. I am currently Coach a team for Bo Jackson Elite Sports. As a coach you have no control over your team funds. Each player $1750 per. Now that being said we only get $8800 to spend on tournaments, friendlies, and camps. So that’s our budget out of that money. The rest of the funds go to BJES for time spent in the Dome (6 times this winter) uniforms, helmets, bat bags, insurance, etc. I am curious how they will handle this because they made it clear to me and my parents in a meeting they are a business first.

let’s just say I have spent 2 season with this organization and this will be my last. I made that decision in the fall after some stuff but that’s a completely different situation.

I am hoping they do the right thing for the families and athletes.

my guess with the BJES they will roll the money into an account for the Athletes to use at their facility on lessons and cage time. Problem is they have no instructors for softball. They have all left to better themselves.
 

jayflyer98

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First, I am still hoping and praying this damn virus goes away and our girls can safely hit the fields again. We plan on maybe adding a couple events in July and August if the end of May and June events are cancelled. We would certainly refund parents the amount we get back from TDs if the entire summer is a wash. If the summer is a wash, I would hope my 11 players will stick together and we could use that money for Fall 2020 and towards 2021 events which would make out next season fees super low. We already ordered uniforms. Bags and helmets were provided in the fall. Wouldn't it be great to not have the drama of tryouts?? Use uniforms for more then one season...
 

TheSoftballZone

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First, I am still hoping and praying this damn virus goes away and our girls can safely hit the fields again. We plan on maybe adding a couple events in July and August if the end of May and June events are cancelled. We would certainly refund parents the amount we get back from TDs if the entire summer is a wash. If the summer is a wash, I would hope my 11 players will stick together and we could use that money for Fall 2020 and towards 2021 events which would make out next season fees super low. We already ordered uniforms. Bags and helmets were provided in the fall. Wouldn't it be great to not have the drama of tryouts?? Use uniforms for more then one season...

That funny, didn't really think about how this will effect tryouts.
 

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First, I am still hoping and praying this damn virus goes away and our girls can safely hit the fields again. We plan on maybe adding a couple events in July and August if the end of May and June events are cancelled. We would certainly refund parents the amount we get back from TDs if the entire summer is a wash. If the summer is a wash, I would hope my 11 players will stick together and we could use that money for Fall 2020 and towards 2021 events which would make out next season fees super low. We already ordered uniforms. Bags and helmets were provided in the fall. Wouldn't it be great to not have the drama of tryouts?? Use uniforms for more then one season...


We just had this talk earlier this week. Tryouts will definitely be different. I am in the same boat hoping all players move together to another organization as planned.
 
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That funny, didn't really think about how this will effect tryouts.

Sorry my brief soapbox about "tryouts" and then I will leave it alone since I do not run a team or organization. Why do tryouts get earlier and earlier every year? Some teams were hosting tryouts in late June. Late June with 5-6 weeks of schedule still remaining! And why the need to have 100 girls at your organization tryouts when the 14/16/18u teams are maybe looking for 2-3 players tops?

And this rush to be the first weekend in August for tryouts and then sit dormant until late Sept/early Oct for tourney or friendly play? Don't the girls improve in live game situations that a "friendly" or countless practices does not address?

I am the only USSSA state director in the Great Lakes who does not run an All State Games because of the insistence of teams in Ohio that they hold tryouts in the 1st or 2nd week of August like clockwork. All of the other states run All State Games which the girls enjoy and probably remember more than the season because of it is basically an all-star event and then they host tryouts more towards the middle/end of August with starting back up around the 2nd to 3rd week of Sept.

We could run themed events at the end of the season which are strictly fun type events that the girls would love. When I played and ran slow-pitch, we called them festivals and some teams played them for several years if it was the only event they played all summer.

Okay {rant off}. I just had to get that off my chest. Back to the topic at hand. :)
 

TheSoftballZone

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Sorry my brief soapbox about "tryouts" and then I will leave it alone since I do not run a team or organization. Why do tryouts get earlier and earlier every year? Some teams were hosting tryouts in late June. Late June with 5-6 weeks of schedule still remaining! And why the need to have 100 girls at your organization tryouts when the 14/16/18u teams are maybe looking for 2-3 players tops?

And this rush to be the first weekend in August for tryouts and then sit dormant until late Sept/early Oct for tourney or friendly play? Don't the girls improve in live game situations that a "friendly" or countless practices does not address?

I am the only USSSA state director in the Great Lakes who does not run an All State Games because of the insistence of teams in Ohio that they hold tryouts in the 1st or 2nd week of August like clockwork. All of the other states run All State Games which the girls enjoy and probably remember more than the season because of it is basically an all-star event and then they host tryouts more towards the middle/end of August with starting back up around the 2nd to 3rd week of Sept.

We could run themed events at the end of the season which are strictly fun type events that the girls would love. When I played and ran slow-pitch, we called them festivals and some teams played them for several years if it was the only event they played all summer.

Okay {rant off}. I just had to get that off my chest. Back to the topic at hand. :)

Mike I agree, when I was still Coaching we didn’t even have tryouts except to replace 3 or 4 girls. We never had a tryout with more then 10 girls and we had tryouts in the middle of September. I'm thinking because more and more teams want to play fall ball and then indoor ball everyone want tryout done before September.
 
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Mike I agree, when I was still Coaching we didn’t even have tryouts except to replace 3 or 4 girls. We never had a tryout with more then 10 girls and we had tryouts in the middle of September. I'm thinking because more and more teams want to play fall ball and then indoor ball everyone want tryout done before September.

Ricky, this summer might end up changing that trend just to circumstances beyond everyone's control.

Most tournaments do not start back up in Ohio until late Sept. Indiana and Illinois start back up just after Labor Day weekend. Further south is the same way. We are always behind the times it seems in Ohio. :)

I'm going to keep working on changing the culture with teams in regards to events to play in. This All-State Games is a great program and it will get implemented in 2021. Indiana had close to 1000 girls play in theirs last summer during the first weekend of August. Kansas runs theirs as a Mo/Kan games and has over 1000 girls. They even divide it up into A/B and C teams.
 

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I have been coaching for over 15 years and have been on ofc for years and enjoy reading everything but I rarely post or reply to anything but i want to share my 2 cents on this topic. Our team fees are only $600 due to the fact that we have a large fundraiser every year. With what’s going on in the world with all the uncertainty i decided not to order uniforms 6 weeks ago when i normally would have( I had already ordered bags and helmets) i told all the parents that if we end up having a season that i could get us 2 different shirts at the last minute and we can just wear black pants. By doing this I am able to refund $200 per player of their fees. I also told everyone that whatever we get back from cancelled tournaments that will be split evenly between everyone.
The reason I wanted to post to this topic was for a different reason though, if tournament directors are keeping $100+ from every team in tournaments will it be listed on here? So that coaches can no what tournaments to avoid in the future? 3 years ago we played in a big pgf event in Virginia where it was $895 a team to enter and they had something like 100 teams enter and on Saturday we played really well and made it to Sunday and our next opponent was the Beverly bandits and my girls were really looking forward to playing them because we don’t go to many events where they play at and the umpire from our last game overheard me talking and told me that they were expecting rain Sunday and if they got rain for even 5 minutes the T.D. Would cancel the Sunday games so that he didn’t have to pay $100 a game for 2 umps. Sure enough we got a little rain overnight and he cancelled, we even went to both ball parks on Sunday and took pictures of all the fields and they were completely playable and we sent them to him and he gave us some song and dance about being worried if someone slipped and got hurt. He also wasn’t going to wait around because there could be more rain later in the day. Things like this situation should be posted so coaches and organizations can make decisions on which tournaments to enter.
 

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I have been coaching for over 15 years and have been on ofc for years and enjoy reading everything but I rarely post or reply to anything but i want to share my 2 cents on this topic. Our team fees are only $600 due to the fact that we have a large fundraiser every year. With what’s going on in the world with all the uncertainty i decided not to order uniforms 6 weeks ago when i normally would have( I had already ordered bags and helmets) i told all the parents that if we end up having a season that i could get us 2 different shirts at the last minute and we can just wear black pants. By doing this I am able to refund $200 per player of their fees. I also told everyone that whatever we get back from cancelled tournaments that will be split evenly between everyone.
The reason I wanted to post to this topic was for a different reason though, if tournament directors are keeping $100+ from every team in tournaments will it be listed on here? So that coaches can no what tournaments to avoid in the future? 3 years ago we played in a big pgf event in Virginia where it was $895 a team to enter and they had something like 100 teams enter and on Saturday we played really well and made it to Sunday and our next opponent was the Beverly bandits and my girls were really looking forward to playing them because we don’t go to many events where they play at and the umpire from our last game overheard me talking and told me that they were expecting rain Sunday and if they got rain for even 5 minutes the T.D. Would cancel the Sunday games so that he didn’t have to pay $100 a game for 2 umps. Sure enough we got a little rain overnight and he cancelled, we even went to both ball parks on Sunday and took pictures of all the fields and they were completely playable and we sent them to him and he gave us some song and dance about being worried if someone slipped and got hurt. He also wasn’t going to wait around because there could be more rain later in the day. Things like this situation should be posted so coaches and organizations can make decisions on which tournaments to enter.
Don't want to change the subject of this topic but I think posts are mentioned on here about negative experiences at Tournament but a very high percentage of coaches do not do any research on Tournaments and just sign up because another coach did or it's a high profile tournament but really don't know the rules or how it's run or reputation.
 
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Don't want to change the subject of this topic but I think posts are mentioned on here about negative experiences at Tournament but a very high percentage of coaches do not do any research on Tournaments and just sign up because another coach did or it's a high profile tournament but really don't know the rules or how it's run or reputation.

Dave, some of them come on here or on the OFC Facebook page and complain non stop and then are the first ones to sign up for fall events or next seasons tournament.

Some people will complain no matter what you do for them as I have unfortunately learned from hosting events for over 25 years (if you count my slow-pitch and baseball days). Slow-pitch was the worst. 12 teams play and 11 complain about everything right down to the way the grass is cut. :)
 

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Thank you Ricky for starting this thread. I saw your comments in another thread that led to you doing this and would like to share my opinion while referencing to comments made already in this thread and from 2 other threads that mentioned many of the issues being discussed. If some of the readers get a little lost reading my post, it's because I am referencing from the other threads and may not be giving everyone the proper credit they deserve.

We are in an unprecedented time in our country. A time that softball, like most all other sports, is experiencing like no other. Unfortunately, concessions will need to transpire. Everyone will need to determine what their pol;icy and protocol will be and come to an agreement if you didn't already have one in place. Not everyone will be totally satisfied but as the kids say it "It is what it is."

My opinion;
Tournament Directors should not be imposing their advertising and logistical costs to teams. It's the cost of doing business as somebody else touched upon. The entire premise is to draw attention to your tournament and there was never any guarantees anyone would sign up to play. Doing business comes at a cost and seed money is always a risk. If they already have a clause in the entry that a certain amount is forfeited regardless of any extenuating circumstances, well sorry about your luck to the teams that entered. I believe it would be an "act of good faith" for TD's to return all the money but it certainly wouldn't be required. If you are "green" to the ways of doing business and have no clause in place spelling out the circumstances of which would be your policy for returning some if not all the money, by not providing a tournament to play you really don't have much choice but to return all the money. You can ask the clubs to work with you but really shouldn't expect them to react favorably. To come to a mutual agreement would be a nice gesture the clubs should consider.

The cost of balls and the other things are simply on the tournament and I believe we all understand that. Even the TD that shared this tidbit realizes this but was simply trying to make a point that there are "expenses" and they can be costly. Perhaps you could return the balls/equipment but hey, we all know what that can be like without a pandemic present. Good luck!!!

Organizations for the most part are nonprofit. If the money/fees collected are not being used for the purpose they were intended it stands to reason organizations should be returning the money. If uniforms were already ordered, give them to the players. It was what you offered. Don't charge them for a product (uniforms or equipment) and not provide it. I suggest if you are still uncertain about any season play this year and you haven't ordered stuff yet, don't order anything. Keep your own costs to a minimum and forego the uniforms and equipment this season. Families may need that money for other entities. Send out individual questionnaires asking families how they would like to handle things.

This is one year we all need to make sacrifices. As a tournament Director or the representative of an organization, your character will be tested. Be that ethical person you preach to the players to be. Lead by example. I promise you, you will benefit greatly by doing the right thing now. It might cost you a few bucks but you will benefit in a positive manner later. We are "All in this together."
 

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Coaches contact my daughter Monday evening and called all the parents last night. What it sounds like for now they are planning on concentrating on fall ball and have already committed to stay off the diamonds or have any practices until June.
 
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