Five Reasons Why Our UI Designer Position Rocks!

Company News, Product News

We’re hiring. In fact, we’re hiring for one of the most important positions in the company – the UI/UX Lead Designer.

This position is an amazing opportunity for the right person. We’re looking for an ambitious designer to drive design and UI for LeagueApps

Here are five reasons why this position rocks:

If you’re a passionate UI Designer/Developer and the highlight of your day is a sports highlight, check out our job posting here: We’re Hiring a Lead UI Designer/Developer. And if you know of friends who are designers, do them a favor and share this post!

New Release adds Tools for Registration Pricing, Admin Payment Terminal, Reporting, and More!

Product News

LeagueApps MVPs, we’ve got a great new release for you! This one takes another step in providing greater flexibility for managing your sports programs your way.

Specifically, we’ve included updates that give you greater registration pricing flexibility, better financial reporting, an admin payment terminal, registration notifications, and bunch of additional updates to help you manage more efficiently. Read on to learn about these updates.

Admin Payment Terminal

We’ve heard from a lot of our partners that they often need to collect credit card payments manually — either over a phone call, in person at an event, or even by fax or mail. We’ve now made it easy for you to do this with the addition of the Admin Payment Terminal.

The Admin Payment Terminal allows you to click on any member’s unpaid (or partially paid) invoice and submit the payment right from the manager console. Take your iPad or other tablet to the games, and accept payments in person. Or, easily take payments over the phone. It’s super easy now!

» Check out our video and our help article on using the Admin Payment Terminal.

Reporting Tool for Payment Transactions

We understand that keeping a close eye on your incoming payments is critical to your business. To support this important need, we created a new reporting tool that allows you to create, save and run reports against your payment transactions. To access this new reporting tool, go to “Reports > Transactions”.

This tool allows you to modify a host of different filter and search settings, relating to the date range, program details and payment type information. You can then “save” any combination of filter settings as a “saved report” that can be easily accessed later. For example, you could create saved reports to see payment volume by sport in which you’d have a different report for each sport. Or, you could create reports by time frame. The uses for this tool are limitless.

» Check out our video and our help article on using the Reporting Tools.

Registration Pricing Flexibility — Early Bird and Late Fees

We made a few updates to the registration pricing settings. These updates will help you maximize your registration revenue by fully leveraging the timeline of your registration period.

First, we made an important adjustment to the Early Bird pricing feature. It will now charge a player the full fee amount if the player has not fully paid before the early bird time period has expired. This is a big distinction from how this feature has been working to date. Up until now, a player could register during the early bird period, and be invoiced the early bird amount, but not pay until after the early bird period has expired. In these cases, the player was still paying the early bird amount. Going forward, a player will be charged the difference if they do not fully pay during the early bird period.

We added a new pricing setting that allows you to charge Late Fee prices. This new setting works exactly like the existing Early Bird setting, except that it is applied later during the registration period. Under the Registration Options for any program (or under the site default registration settings in Settings > Registration), the Late Fee price settings are located under the section named “Additional Fees and Payment Types”.

To enable Late Fees, you specify when you want the late pricing to start taking effect (in the number of days after registration begins), and the respective fees to be charged for each registration type. Once enabled, any players who register after the “late period” begins will be invoiced this specified amount.

Registration Notifications

We added a useful feature to keep you in the loop as players register. You can new be email notified in real time whenever a new player registers for a program. This is super helpful if you want to keep real time tabs on who’s registering, or if you want to reach out and introduce yourself to new players. This setting is enabled in the Registration Options for any program (or under the site default registration settings in Settings > Registration). There is a new section named “Notifications”. You can specify to have these notifications sent to any level of admins you’d like to receive them.

Member Data Collection Improvements

Collecting and maintaining data on your members will make you a smarter organization, and better able to design programs that suit their needs. We made a few improvements to help you become more proficient with this task.

(1) Option to prompt members to fill in missing required fields
From time to time, you may want to add a new member profile field (under Settings > Member Profile) to begin collecting some new information that you were not previously collecting. Now, when you do this, you can automatically prompt members to go fill in such new fields when they next login. A member who has any empty “required” fields will be automatically prompted to fill in these fields when they login. In order to enable this setting, go to “Settings > Member Profile” and toggle ON the control for “Prompt members to fill in any empty required fields when they login”.

(2) Birthdate added as “structured” profile field
If you have been collecting member birthdate using a custom field, you will now have a much better option. We have made the Birthdate a structured field that is part of the core member profile. It is broken into separate fields for Month, Date, and Year. This makes it easier to sort by birthdate / age on member export reports. This field is optional by default, but can be set to required if you like (under Settings > Member Profile).

(3) Member Feedback Form
We realized that the member feedback form built into your site was not asking members for their email address or name. This has been changed so that it will ask for this information now, if the member is not logged in. This is important so that you are aware who sent the message and you can get back to them.

Additional Improvements and Tweaks

We also made a bunch of smaller improvements, tweaks and fixes. These are all aimed at improving the quality and operation of the product.

• You can now leave the “Gender” field on a program in an “open” state, if you do not wish to specify the program as being either Male, Female or Co-Ed.
• Standings setting to allow winning percentage to be expressed in format “1.000″ verses “100%”. See “Settings > Standings & Scoring” to adjust this setting.
• Under program registration settings, when using “payment is shared by all players” setting, you now have the option to “force” this setting and not allow the captain to opt-out.
• Mobile app home screen icon properly uses customized graphic.
• Mobile app properly displays program standings by division, if divisions are used and enabled.
• Mobile app properly uses custom program labels (e.g., custom defined label for ‘Free Agent’, ‘Team’, etc).
• Resolved issue on “Officiating Schedule” in which incorrect games were appearing.
• Resolved issues associated with displays of cross-program games.
• Schedule Generator initiation operation resolved for some program types.
• Resolved issues associated with players registering after the registration close date.

LeagueApps Office Hours

In order to ensure a smooth transition, LeagueApps will be holding office hours from 2pm – 4pm EST on Friday April 19th. Please email support@leagueapps.com to schedule a 15-minute call with our partner management team. We’ll be happy to walk through the features with you and help you get familiar with the new settings and configurations.

Reach out to us if you have any questions, issues or want to schedule a meeting outside of the office hours listed.

O Canada! LeagueApps Offers Online Registration For Canadian Sports Organizations

Company News, Product News

There are so many great sports organizations and clubs in Canada that would be great LeagueApps partners, but until last week there was no ability for a Canadian organization to utilize LeagueApps to collect registration payments. The powers that be in the credit card processing world make it incredibly complex to create and integrate online payment solutions for partners outside of the USA. Luckily, our friends over at Stripe recently released the ability for a Canadian business to use a Stripe account to accept payments. A few tweaks to the LeagueApps platform and we’re all set to offer all of our payment and registration services to Canadian organizations.

If you are running a Canadian league and want to accept payments in Canadian dollars, we can help!

It’s simple to get started. You must use Stripe as your payment solution. Here are the steps to get setup:

(1) Create or Log into a LeagueApps account

(2) Go to the Manage Account section of the LeagueApps Admin console and under Payment Gateway you can signup for a Stripe account. Be sure to select CAD support as this cant be changed once a Stripe account has been created. Here is a support article explaining the Stripe setup process.

Note that member payments will be processed as Canadian dollars.

LeagueApps is eager to launch our first few Canadian partners this week including Regina Ultimate Flying Disc Club. RUFDC is committed to growing Ultimate in Canada and championing the “spirit of the game”.

Do let us know if you’re located north of the border and looking to use LeagueApps. LeagueApps is eager to partner with all kinds of Canadian sports leagues especially for ice hockey, curling and any sport that is uniquely Canadian!

BIG Updates with Tournament Brackets, Divisions, Canadian Currency and More!

Product News

We’ve been working super hard to make the product better and better. This latest release includes a few great new features as well as a host of smaller improvements that will make your life easier as you manage your sports programs.

• #1: Tournament Brackets: Just in time for NCAA March Madness, we’ve released a super snazzy tournament brackets feature!
• #2: Divisions: One of our core product themes is to continually improve FLEXIBILITY… and, the introduction of “Divisions” will give you a great deal more flexibility in structuring and organizing sports programs YOUR way.
• #3 Canadian Currency Support: Running a league in Canada? If so, you’ll be happy to learn that we’ve added support for accepting transactions in Canadian dollars for our friends up North.
• #4 A Slew of Smaller Improvements: As always, we’re committed to continually improving the quality of the product, and that means making smaller improvements with every product release.

Read on to learn more about these updates…

Tournament Brackets

Host your own March Madness! :)

The new tournament brackets feature is seamlessly integrated with the existing program game scheduling feature. It’s a CINCH to create a new tournament for any number of teams. And, you don’t even need to have a “perfect” number of teams (i.e., 4, 8, 16, 32, etc).

Here are the key things to know about this new feature:

• Easily generate a ‘single elimination’ tournament with visual brackets right on your program schedule.
  • Choose teams to be included in the tournament from the existing teams on the program.
  • Use any number of teams.
  • Specify the seed rank for each team.
  • Specify the start date, location(s) and game time(s) to be used.
  • Generate and save entire tournament brackets in under a minute.
• Update game scores and have winning teams automatically advance to the next round.
• Tournament games are displayed on all schedule views for members to see.
• Visual brackets display is available from the program schedule.

To get started with tournament brackets, go into the schedule section for any one of your programs and click the “Generate Schedule” button. You’ll then be able to choose “Tournament Brackets” as the schedule type, and you’re off to the races. Let us know if you have any questions!

Organizing Programs into Divisions

You now have even more flexibility for structuring and organizing your sports programs. The new Divisions feature allows you to subdivide any program, assign teams to different divisions, and display standings broken out by division (see below screenshot).

The great thing about the Divisions feature is that it allows you to set up your programs in so many more interesting ways. You can now subdivide a program based on location, game dates/times, skill level, or whatever you’d like. Divisions are contained within the same parent program, so the pricing and registration settings are all based on the parent program settings.

Here are some of the important details about the Divisions feature:

• Create and manage multiple “divisions” within your sports programs.
• Assign teams to/from divisions, in the manager console. To do this, access the “move” control on the “Program Teams” page in the console.
• Optionally display program standings broken out by divisions (i.e., teams are ranked within each division).
• Display divisions on public facing website views for program profiles and team profiles.
• Customize the label used for “division” on public facing website views.

To get started with divisions, follow these three quick steps:

• #1: Setup Preferences
  • For any program in which you’d like to use divisions, go into the “Program > Settings > Preferences” for that program, and click the option to “enable” divisions. In this program preferences section, you can also edit the custom label used for “Division” on public-facing web views.
  • If you want your program standings to display rankings by division, then go to the site wide standings settings under “Settings > Standings & Scoring”, and make sure the option is enabled to allow divisional rankings (see option labeled “If divisions are enabled for a program, rank teams by division”).
• #2: Create and Edit Divisions
  • Next, under the program’s “Settings” tab, click on “Divisions” and add/edit some divisions.
• #3: Assign Teams to Divisions
  • Go to the program’s “Teams” tab, click the “move” control for any team to move it into a desired division. You can assign teams to divisions after they are registered in your program.

After these steps, you’re all set and your standings display will be broken out by division. As you get started with this feature, let us know what questions you have.

Canadian Currency Support

If you are running a Canadian league and need to accept payments in Canadian dollars, we can help!

It’s simple to get started. You need to use Stripe as your payment gateway. Here are the steps to get setup:

• (1) Create or Log into a LeagueApps account

(2) Go to the Manage Account section of the LeagueApps Admin console and under Payment Gateway you can signup for a Stripe account. Be sure to select CAD support as this cant be changed once a Stripe account has been created. Here is a support article explaining the Stripe setup process.

Note that member payments will be processed as Canadian dollars.

Now, once your members submit payments, they will be processed as Canadian dollars.

Additional Improvements to Improve Quality

We made a bunch of additional improvements in this release to improve quality. Here is a summary:

• Resolved an issue with setting invited and directly joining team player registration status to “reserved” when the team is already paid by captain.
• Resolved issue so that live programs with closed registrations do not show up under the public-facing ‘registrations’ tab.
• Game reminder subject line displaying “tomorrow” only when appropriate.
• Team schedule showing “L” only when outcome is in fact a loss.
• Locations page “programs” filter now working correctly.
• Tweak to ensure that free-agent custom label is properly used on member dashboard.
• Resolved issue related to quotes being used in custom labels.
• Resolved issue related to rendering member details page in manager console.

We hope that you find some value in these updates. If you have any questions about what’s included in this release, please contact our account management team and we’ll be happy to assist you.

New Registration Updates Boost Flexibility!

Product News, Release Notes

Good day, LeagueApps partners! We just made a bunch of updates to the product, and wanted to give you an overview of what’s included.

These updates add a lot more flexibility into the registration system, allowing you to customize more parts of the process. In fact, you’ll see more and more improvements coming in this area over the next few months as we focus on building greater flexibility, extending capabilities and increasing quality within the registration system.

We invite you to try out these new features, and experience how they can benefit your league.

Customizable Registration Confirmation Message

You can now create your own custom message to be displayed to your members once they have completed registration. This message is displayed on the post registration confirmation page, as well as the post registration confirmation email that is sent to the registrant. This feature is great if you want to provide your own tailored instructions for new registrants, such as any special registration requirements you enforce.

You can create and edit your custom registration confirmation message under Registration Options, near the bottom of the page.

Automatically display ‘Registration Next Steps’ to each Registrant

Your registrants often still have outstanding registration requirements they must complete, even after they have finished the initial registration process. For example, they may still owe some fees, or they may need to accept the online waiver, or they may need to add more players to their team roster (if they’re a team captain), etc.

We realize it’s a hassle to have to remind your registrants to complete these steps, so we added some intelligence into the product that will automatically remind them on your behalf.

Now, each of your registrants will be automatically presented with a list of ‘Registration Next Steps’ that they need to finish in order to fully complete their registration. These next steps are automatically determined and displayed, based on the registration options of the program, and the registrant’s role and current status.

Capacity Rule for Max Free-Agents

You can now specify a capacity rule to enforce a maximum number of free-agents allowed to be registered in a given program. This new capacity setting exists in Registration Options, under the “Program Capacity Rules” section. By specifying a value in this setting, your program will stop allowing free-agent registrations once the limit has been reached.

Admins can still “override” the capacity limit, if they choose to do so, when manually registering free-agents in the Manager Console. There is a checkbox option to “Override capacity limit rules” that enables this. When the capacity limit is overridden in this manner, a note is automatically appended to the registrant’s “player note” which indicates that this was done intentionally (for later tracking purposes).

New “Additional Team Fee” Pricing Option

We added a new fee option that you can choose to include on team registrations. This is similar to the existing “processing fee” setting, but with a few differences. This fee is referred to as “Additional Team Fee” and is editable in Registration Options under the “Additional Fees and Payment Types” section. This fee is always payable by the captain (even if the regular team fee is being shared across players), and the label used for the fee is customizable under Program Preferences.

There are many uses for this new team fee setting, two of which include “Team Sponsor Fee” and “Forfeit Bond”. We hope you can make use of this new fee option in your process.

Option to Omit Reassignment of Unpaid Team Fees to Captain

Those of you who utilize the option of allowing team fees to be split amongst players will appreciate this new setting. Once the specified deadline is reached, any remaining unpaid amounts are automatically reassigned to the captain to be paid. You now have the option to turn this automatic reassignment on or off.

So, now you can effectively allow team fees to be shared amongst players while leaving any unpaid balances in the hands of the team players to eventually pay. This setting is managed in Registration Options under the ‘Who is responsible for making team payments?’ section.

Customize Label used for “Captain”

You can now customize the label used for the “Captain” role. This complements the existing ability to customize the labels used for “Team” and “Free Agent”. For example, any league that prefers to use the term “Manager” will benefit from this addition.

Updated Registration System Help

We realize that a lot of the settings in the registration system can take some time getting acquainted with. So, we wanted to make it much easier to understand what these settings do and how they work. As such, now you’ll notice a growing number of helpful tooltips and help blurbs sprinkled throughout the manager console. In particular, check out the registration options page.

Additional Tweaks and Fixes

We made several additional tweaks and fixes. Here are a few examples:

• Improved the clarity of credit card payment failure messages presented to members.
• Tweaked discount code redemption to support intended behavior.
• Fixed issues with custom profile field creation.

We hope that these additions will benefit your league. If you have any questions about what’s included in this release, please contact our account management team and we’ll be happy to assist you.

LeagueApps New Automated Billing and Invoice System

Feature Highlight, Product News

LeagueApps took a page out of it’s own playbook as we recognized that a more advanced invoice and payment system is needed for our sports organization partners and customers.

LeagueApps is proud of our policy that our partners collect 100% of the registration revenue directly from their own payment solution provider. This even includes processing fees that some partners add to their registrations. This policy helps leagues pick the best payment solution for their needs and collect all of their revenues directly without interference from a third party. LeagueApps sends an invoice to our partners at the end of the month after all transactions, refunds, credits and volume discounts have been processed so that the total monthly fee can be calculated.

Starting in February (for January 2013 invoices), all LeagueApps partners will be able to track and pay their monthly invoices to LeagueApps from within the admin console. League partners can also add their billing information for automatic recurring payments (like you can do for a cell phone or cable bill).

The benefits this provides for our league partners include:

• Convenience with quick access to billing details and payment options
• Monthly email notification with all invoice and transaction information
• Automatic monthly payments help budget and avoid outstanding invoices
• Easily review past invoices

The bottom line is that however you were tracking and paying your invoices to LeagueApps is now easier and more convenient. Please check out our help site articles for all the details on the invoicing and automated billing features.

The LeagueApps teams is excited as this feature allows us to spend less time on administration and bookkeeping and more time building a great platform for our partners.

Please reach out to LeagueApps if you have any questions regarding the monthly billing process, your invoice history or would like to learn more about this process.

Product Update: Manager Console Improvements and New Reporting Tool!

Product News

It’s that time again – to let you guys know about a bunch of improvements we just added to the product. Our team has been hard at work making these changes, based on your continued and valued feedback. Check out the release notes below. There are a few changes you’ll want to make sure you’re aware of.

Streamlined Console Navigation

We want to make your life easier, so we cleaned up the UI navigation inside the manager console. You’ll now have a lot less “clutter” as you perform your day to day management tasks. Please take a moment to check out the new navigation structure, and make sure you’re familiar with the location of all the features.

• Most pages are in the same section as they were before — but now there are simple pull down menus from the main navigation bar. Simple.
• Note that two pages DID move: the “Manage Members” page and the “Manage Invoices” pages used to be under “Reports”; They were both moved under the “Manage” tab. We thought this made more sense.

Reporting Tool

We added a new reporting tool to help you stay on top of your programs. Check it out under “Reports > Registrations”. This first version of the reporting tool allows you to pull data from your registrations, across all your programs. We’ll be adding support for additional data sets as well, such as invoices, transactions, members, etc.

Here’s an overview of the features included in the reporting tool:

• Filter/sort across entire data set (i.e., pull aggregate data sets from ALL programs).
• Render reports in tabular listing view, including all customized data fields.
• Export to CSV, including all customized data fields.
• Create “saved reports” for subsequent ‘one-click’ report runs.

This reporting tool will serve as a time-saving resource to league partners as they address many common business scenarios, such as:

• Generating t-shirt orders.
• Identifying late registrations.
• Analyzing cross-program registrations; by sport, program status, etc.

Officials Assignment Support

We added some flexibility into the feature that allows you to assign officials to games. Now, when you assign an official, the team is shown as well — allowing you to effectively assign teams to officiate games.

Also, when your members login to your site now, they have a separate “Officiating Schedule” link under their own schedule. This shows them all the games that either they, or one of their teams, is assigned to officiate. So, now your members can easily see which games they must officiate!

Designer Resources

We’ve been working with many of our league partners as you get your sites designed and launched. We LOVE designers. They make LeagueApps look good and work well. We want to help make the LeagueApps design process as smooth as possible. A lot of the common questions and issues that arise are now being documented in a special section of the support knowledge base — we call it “designer resources”. Check it out!

Launch Dashboard

For those league partners in the process of completing your launch process, this new addition should come in handy. We’ve added a special new “launch dashboard” into your manager console. This keeps track of all the steps being completed, special due dates, and progress made so far. The page also explains each of the steps, and contains helpful reference links to help answer any questions that arise. Our goal is to make your launch process go smoothly and quickly, and we believe this new feature will help do just that.

Privacy Policy Page

We added a new default content page to your site that contains a “privacy policy”, and linked to it from your member signup page. This is a web best practice and will help ensure that your site is adhering to widely accepted Internet usage guidelines.

There is a simple privacy policy statement added by default. You can edit this to your own custom privacy policy statement by navigating to “Content > Pages” and selecting the page named “Privacy Policy”. We recommend that you check this out and make sure you’re happy with the privacy policy posted.

Additional Items

There are a number of additional items addressed in this update, including a number of issues/bugs reporting by league partners. Check them out:

• Extended character limit for content page “titles”. Supports better SEO.
• Addressed an issue with saving sub-locations to games.
• Added a “warning” message when attempting to create programs before the default registration settings have been set.
• Extended size limit for team “headline” field.
• Content page editor now allows the “article” tag in HTML.

Launch Setup Packages

Product News

LeagueApps aims to alleviate the administrative and management burden for local sports organizations. We recognize that sports organizers are at the pulse of their local sports communities and we want to be their teammate. LeagueApps mission is to make organizing sports more efficient, organized and most importantly SAVETIME!

LeagueApps is excited to offer Launch Setup Packages. These packages support our partners in the initial setup, training and launch stages. This will enable efficiency and time savings from the very start of the relationship with LeagueApps. Nobody wants to hear us tout efficiency only to then ask you to do a bunch of work setting everything up. Like any new technology, there is a FUD Factor (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) with implementing a new digital solution. That is ok. It’s now the job of the LeagueApps launch team to be FUD busters!

The different Launch Setup Packages are outlined below and cover all of the major steps for launch including payment solution, program creation, site settings, custom content pages, design and integration options, launch audit and site testing. Most importantly, we’ll provide personal and customized training sessions so our partners are comfortable with the control panel.

LeagueApps has developed multiple packages to ensure we meet the needs, timing and budget of all organizations. Here is the breakdown.

Full Launch Setup Package

This is the ideal package for the busy sports league organizer who wants a quick, efficient setup with a specific launch date. Our team will also ensure that all organizers are fully trained on how to use LeagueApps.

In the full launch setup package, our partners can practically sit back, relax (or go to the gym) and we’ll configure and launch the LeagueApps solution! We’ll schedule an initial launch call to review the organization’s needs, develop a launch plan and confirm a launch date. From there, we’ll manage all aspects of the launch process an determine the most optimal settings. We’ll even get our hands dirty making sure payment solutions, domain, and design are setup properly.

• Initial Launch Setup Call with dedicated LeagueApps launch manager
• Custom launch plan with confirmed launch date
• Live online training sessions (up to 5 hours)
• Create all initial programs and optimize default settings
• Facilitate and support design partners
• Develop basic content and create custom pages
• Setup call with merchant broker to receive best credit card rates
• Enable custom URL
• Facebook Integration Application
• Complete site audit before launch
• SEO Optimization audit (Page URL’s, page titles, meta tags, content)
• Mobile site design customization

Basic Launch Setup Package

The basic launch setup package is for organizers that are adamant about diving into LeagueApps on their own. This option is best for leagues that do not have a specific launch date and plan to take their time getting familiar with LeagueApps platform.

In the basic launch setup package we’ll act as a wingman providing our guidance, expertise and support. The LeagueApps team will be available by email or scheduled conference calls to point you in the right direction. We’ll also check-in before a site goes live to audit site settings and resolve any lingering items.

Organizations that chooses the basic launch setup package will have the option of upgrading to a full launch setup package at anytime to access the focused resources and support of the LeageuApps launch team to get a site live.

• Initial Launch Setup Call with LeagueApps launch team member
• Basic launch plan
• Live online training sessions
• Design assistance and consultation
• Setup call with merchant broker to receive best credit card rates
• Enable custom URL
• Facebook Integration Application
• Complete site audit before launch

Self-Serve Launch

The beauty of LeagueApps is that a partner has the ability to setup and launch their complete site on their own. It’s free to test out the platform, create an account and play around with our features and tools. If you are in the early stages of forming a sports organization you should feel free to have at it. The LeagueApps help site has over 50 articles that document all of the features and functionality. Remember, you can always upgrade to a basic or full launch setup package at anytime.

Introducing Mobile Sites for Local Sports Leagues!

Product News

The LeagueApps team is super excited to announce the introduction of Mobile Sites!

Mobile is quickly becoming the most popular way that people use the internet. Local sports leagues NEED to be ready for this inevitable trend in order to stay in synch with their members.

LeagueApps launched Mobile Sites in order to empower local sports leagues to recognize the benefits of mobile TODAY. Leagues can now leverage mobile to drive member engagement, facilitate real-time mobile communication, and ultimately foster a happy member community! This is just the beginning. LeagueApps is committed to delivering more and more mobile solutions as part of the LeagueApps mobile roadmap.

Why Local Sports Clubs NEED Mobile

It’s no secret that mobile is the future.

Already,30% of league partners’ internet traffic is coming from mobile devices.  This trend will continue — and it’ll move quickly.  Average smartphone usage TRIPLED in 2011 (source).  In fact, mobile internet usage is predicted to surpass desktop internet usage by 2014 (source).

What’s really interesting for local sports clubs is WHAT people DO on mobile.  Did you know that 91% of mobile internet usage is for social activities, compared to just 79% on desktops?  (source).

We’re going to make sure our league partners are ready to capitalize on this explosion in mobile internet usage.

Benefits for League Partners and Their Members

The new Mobile Sites product makes life easier for your members, which is in turn great for you.  Check out some key benefits:

Increased member engagement
Gives your members a significantly enhanced mobile experience that keeps them more connected and engaged with your league.

Real-time mobile communication
Allows you to stay connected with your members by tapping into a direct line of communication — right to the mobile device. Reach them “in their pocket”.

Keep your members happy!
Mobile information delivery prevents common issues such as missed cancellation notices, game forfeits, etc.

Features Overview

Every LeagueApps account includes its very own mobile web application that is optimized for viewing on smart phones and other mobile devices.  Just like the standard website, the mobile site is customizable to match your league’s branding and look & feel.  When your league members visit your site on their mobile device, they’ll now be redirected to your optimized mobile site.

Here are a few of the things your members can do on your Mobile Site:

• Check schedules and game details such as date/time, location and teams.
• View game results, program standings and other program details.
• Browse profiles of teams, rosters and individual players.
• Experience the mobile site in their league’s customized look & feel.
• iPhone users get quick access via an app icon on their home screen.
• View real-time organizer announcements (coming Sep 2012).
• Communicate with teammates (coming Sep 2012).
• And many more to come!

It’s easy to go in and customize your league’s Mobile Site.  Login to your Manager Console and under “Mobile” in the right column, click the “Edit Settings” link.  If you’d like to dive deeper into the available features, settings, and other pointers, check out our online Knowledge Base document ”Using Mobile Sites.”

LeagueApps Mobile Roadmap & Vision

Mobile is a major part of the LeagueApps product strategy.  We view Mobile as being one of the core “channels” that sports organizations use to engage and communicate with their members to go along with Web, Social Media and Email.

This initial release of Mobile Sites is only the beginning, and we’re excited about all the great mobile features and products we’ll be bringing to our league partners.

Members will be able to receive notifications, register for programs on their mobile phones, snap photos at games and easily share with their friends and fans, engage with other participants in friendly banter (or trash talking) from their phones, and the list goes on and on. Organizers will be able to monitor and manage leagues via mobile, collect mobile payments “at the field”, updates scores, and more.

If there is a mobile feature you find particularly interesting for your organization, let us know!

Hi, I’m Jeff. I just met you. This Is Crazy. Call me, Maybe?!?

Product News

Hi, I’m Jeff. It’s about that time for me to write my first official blog post! As the Director of League Partnerships at LeagueApps, my role is to build relationships and learn from some of the most passionate and innovative minds in local and recreational sports. I’m excited to be in an industry where I can combine my passions for sports, technology, and connect with people who share my passions. It’s a sweet gig and if I can’t play pro ball, this might just be the next best thing. An important part of my job is reaching out to league organizers and becoming well versed in the challenges and thrills that come with running a local sports organization. This is critical for LeagueApps to understand how to build the best product and address the needs of league organizers and their members. I then share this knowledge with the entire LeagueApps team so we can directly solve your needs as well as build better products for our partners. I’m proud, confident and excited with the technology our team is developing and I believe it will change the future of local sports (that’s why I’m here!).

The most rewarding part of my role has been the relationships I have built with so many great people. What begins as conversations about league management has quickly grown into friendships and discussions about our families, friends, traffic patterns, long term goals, passions & interests (either for you or for me), and even strategies for how we can prepare for the pending Zombie Apocalypse (you know who you are!). I have discussed obscure methods for curing a hangover, when you left your kids bottle out too long, and even was convinced that I should tone down my criticism of Lebron James (this was a particularly good discussion and compelling case!).

Many of these relationships have blossomed into partnerships. Some, not yet partnerships, are just good worthwhile conversations with folks I can converse about the direction of local sports organizations and how to improve the experience for both league organizers and their members. I always eager to learn about your business and might even be able to share some knowledge I’ve picked up from the dozens of conversations I have each week.

We want to understand your needs, want to get to know you, and have some awesome products for you and your members. Even if our LeagueApps product is not exactly right for your organization right now, we promise to do our best to provide value and share industry insights. At the very least, you can ask me about one of my most interesting sports experiences at Yankee stadium (as long as you are not from Baltimore!)

So the next time myself or one of my colleagues at LeagueApps hits you up, please consider sharing a few minutes of your time. We’re calling you because we believe your organization is aligned with our mission: to help create the best organization, management platform and member experience for our partners.

So drop us a note or call us, maybe, at (800) 257-3681. Ask for Jeff or you can talk to Mike, DJ or Brian.