All,

 

Centralized registration is coming and ALL leagues will be required to use Sports Connect in 2025. My advice… do it now.

Why is this? Several features (some of which are in the email about the new “No boundary rules”) are coming, but there are new features in Sports Connect to be applied to leagues and players. Why a central registration? For several reasons:

 

  1. To track players better through the “no boundaries” phase of their career with Little League.
  2. To offer better support at tournament time with respect to player documentation (affidavits), rosters, and more
  3. Consistency in data coming in from League operations
  4. Better communications and marketing data
  5. More tools for leagues that don’t use anything

 

SportsConnect is going through some changes. It’s being improved, and more training modules are now available. There are three methos to get FREE training for League volunteers with online webinars, video training, tests, certifications, etc ALL FREE. I have URLs for these training resources, and will publish them in a few days..but with the new training resources SportsConnect will be a better tool than most others…. It has an automatic integration to the data center, and is the most fully featured tool out there for leagues to use.

 

The system will be used as it always has been… no difference at the league level would be noticed. Here are some answers to some of the questions that were asked and answered:

 

Q: Who gets the payments ?

A: The league does – as is normal. Payments deposit to your bank account as normal

 

Q: Will Waivers be connected to the players registration record for the whole time of their career with Little League

A: Yes, Datacenter information can and will follow the player and be available in SportsConnect, including “red shirt” waivers

 

Q: Do we still set our own fees?

A: Yes you set your own fees

 

Q: What about our own forms, questions, volunteer, etc?

A: Volunteer forms can now be done in Sports Connect, everything else can be your own and administered through SportsConnect.

 

Q: Can we do “in-person” registrations on paper?

A: Yes, but the data will need to be input into SportsConnect after the paper registration is completed. EVERYTHING has to be in SportsConnect before tournament time.

 

This is also one I am happy to see. Some of the features to be utilize will make tournament management easier, league management easier, and improve the quality of the data being developed by the leagues.

 

As I said above, implement SportsConnect NOW and be ready sooner rather later….

 

 

 

 

 

Regards

 

JP

 

DA WA5/13