Let’s be honest, managing a recreational sports team is not an easy task. People forget, run late, and even in the age of social media and smartphones, people fail to communicate. We are all human, and humans make mistakes. If managing a team was easy, the head coaches and general managers of pro teams would not make the millions they do today.
This reality is encapsulated in the management of the typical amateur sports club. It is incredibly difficult for captains, coaches, and managers to coordinate a group of players that often fail to RSVP to games or forget to record their workout numbers. The headaches that come with mass communicating, tracking performance, and last-minute schedule changes are essentially inevitable.
Fortunately, odds are that you are not a scorned NFL GM with a social movement devoted to your termination, but a regular club manager looking to minimize the frustration and maximize the efficiency of running your club. New team management software, AthleteTrax, is specifically designed to curtail these headaches and ensure that club operations run as smoothly as possible.
A 2012 startup, AthleteTrax was started by a team of George Washington University students weary of poorly organized club sport organizations. AthleteTrax is entirely free software that consolidates the entirety of administrative operations: a real-time calendar, simplified mass texting and email, performance tracking, fundraising, and deals on gear and travel. By centralization club operations, the time spent tracking down individual players to pay dues, updating workouts, and announcing other team news can be cut in half.
After signing up, AthleteTrax automatically creates your own team profile and allows your team members to create unique individual profiles as well. Say goodbye to the conglomeration of Facebook, email, team websites, and other mechanisms used to organize your club; in just minutes, AthleteTrax can become the ultimate hub for team operations. Furthermore, AthleteTrax operates through cloud data. Therefore, everything on your team and player profiles can be accessed from a computer or mobile devices.
AthleteTrax’s first primary function, real-time scheduling, gives players and coaches an interactive calendar, automatic email and text message reminders for events, an RSVP function, and a to-do list management feature. Rather than a coach sending out email after email with changes in dates and times, a simple change to the real-time schedule will instantly notify the team through email and text. There is no longer a need to keep track of individual player’s emails or texts in regard to attendance; the calendar will display who will or will not be at the game.
AthleteTrax also eliminates many of the headaches associated with group text messaging and general announcements. AthleteTrax allows you to send a text to the entire team, while still allowing them to reply individually. Team message boards can be created for announcements and updates, and similarly to the calendar, team members will receive instant notifications with each new post.
In relation to performance tracking and improvement, players can easily record their lifting numbers, mile times, etc., right in the weight room or on the track with their mobile device. AthleteTrax software also includes centralized video capabilities that grants any player or coach the ability to post videos in real-time. This is an excellent asset to display game film and new exercises. With their workout information, their personal records, and team videos conjoined into one app in the palm of their hand, coaches and players can act more efficiently throughout training sessions.
AthleteTrax’s numerous partnerships further separate their management software from their competition. After registering your team online, exclusive discounts become open to you and your club at select hotels and athletic retailers. For example, AthleteTrax and World Rugby Shop recently forged a partnership that grants AthleteTrax users 10 percent off items online. Any coach or manager knows reducing costs and saving money can be essential to keeping the club running smoothly.
On a similar level, AthleteTrax provides fundraising assistance for your club. Following registration, each club may start a fundraising campaign. Your club will be prominently displayed on their website and AthleteTrax will organize email blasts and Twitter shoutouts to introduce your club to an audience significantly larger than most average clubs reach through local fundraising. For your own personal benefit, AthleteTrax recommends perks and giveaways, such as t-shirts or other gear, as incentives to donate.
Although a relatively young company, the effectiveness and practicality of AthleteTrax has taken off rapidly since their inception two years ago. Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Jon Halpern, reports that hundreds of teams on levels ranging from youth to adult have already registered with AthleteTrax to simplify the hectic process of team management. AthleteTrax is especially popular among AAU basketball teams.
As AthleteTrax continues to emerge as the premier team management program, expect their number of partnerships to grow and their influence in the sports world to increase. Five-Star Basketball, a nationally recognized youth basketball development organization with many esteemed alumni (Michael Jordan, Isaiah Thomas, and Lebron James, to name a few), has partnered with AthleteTrax to improve their performance tracking within their camps.
Ultimately, AthleteTrax software is catered to your needs as the operator of a sports team. It is fast to set up, simple to use, and entirely free. Try it out and let us know what you think.