Is your club ready to kick off a successful season? June is the perfect time for club admins to get ahead of the game and prepare for busy fall and winter schedules. Whether you manage a hockey program, volleyball league, or baseball club, a little early planning can go a long way. 

We’ve created a helpful pre-season checklist designed to make things easier for clubs using Crossbar. Follow these steps to ensure your club is ready to deliver an organized, stress-free season for your coaches, players, and parents.

Lock in Your Season Structure 

The foundation of a smooth season lies in early planning. Before registration opens or tryouts begin, make sure the basics are covered. 

Key Steps: 

• Set dates for tryouts, practices, and games. 
• Confirm facility availability, including rinks, courts, or fields. 
• Finalize season fees, age groups, and refund policies. 
• Identify and confirm coaches, volunteers, and age-group coordinators. 

Pro Tip: Crossbar makes it easy to design custom, season-specific registration flows for each sport, division, or level. This ensures registrations align with your pre-set plans. 

Set Up Registration 

By mid-June, many top-performing clubs are already prepping for a July or August registration launch. Early planning allows for a polished process that reduces questions and errors later on. 

Key Steps: 

• Create branded registration pages tailored to your sport and programs. 
• Offer flexible payment plans or split payment options to reduce friction. 
• Customize forms to collect waivers, medical details, uniform sizes, and more. 
• Enable waitlists or registration caps for divisions or teams to manage demand. 

Pro Tip: Use Crossbar’s registration builder to customize forms for your program’s unique needs. Simplify the sign-up process for parents and boost registration success!

Build Your Team Framework 

Once registrations start flowing in, it’s time to start building teams. Proper organization during this step will save you countless headaches as the season progresses. 

Key Steps: 

• Sort athletes by age group or skill level, then assign them to teams. 
• Add key staff members (coaches, managers, or volunteers) to teams. 
• Track notes for tryout evaluations or highlight returning players for easy reference. 
• Generate clean, shareable rosters that sync automatically with your club’s schedule. 

Bonus: Crossbar’s mobile app keeps rosters updated in real-time, reducing support emails from parents requesting team details.

Schedule Facilities and Events 

Avoid facility scheduling conflicts by reserving your venues and time slots as early as possible. Coordinating everything now ensures your season runs seamlessly later. 

Key Steps: 

• Block dates for tryouts, evaluations, practices, and scrimmages. 
• Add recurring events, tournaments, or blackout dates to the calendar. 
• Share live calendars with parents, staff, and players for better visibility. 
• Sync multi-team or multi-location schedules to streamline planning further. 

Pro tip: Keep your team in sync by using Crossbar to track player availability and schedule updates in real-time. Simplify communication and stay organized all season long!

Plan Your Communications 

Clear, early communication is critical to a successful season. By planning your messaging now, you can reduce the flood of last-minute questions from parents. 

Key Steps: 

• Develop pre-season emails, including welcome messages and reminders. 
• Share team assignments, practice schedules, and payment deadlines via email. 
• Target messages based on status, team, or role to ensure information reaches the right audience. 
• Send alerts and updates instantly through email or mobile notifications. 

Did You Know: Crossbar’s built-in email tools reduce reliance on external platforms like Mailchimp, simplifying your communication process. 

Test and Refine 

Before you launch registrations or other season activities, take time to run a pre-launch test. Catching potential hiccups now will save you time and energy later. 

Key Steps: 

• Test the registration process on desktop and mobile devices to ensure it’s user-friendly. 
• Confirm that your payment provider (e.g., Stripe) is active. 
• Double-check email templates, waivers, and pricing details before going live. 
• Pretend to be a parent and walk through the entire process from start to finish. Identify anything confusing or unclear, and make adjustments. 

Pro Tip: A smooth registration process in July sets the tone for a stress-free August, giving you more time to focus on other pre-season priorities. 

Take the Season Off Your Plate 

Running a sports club doesn’t have to be a chaotic, stress-filled whirlwind. Thousands of hockey, baseball, volleyball, and lacrosse clubs trust Crossbar to centralize their operations and streamline their workload. From registration and scheduling to communication and membership management, Crossbar simplifies everything you need to run a successful club. 

Book a demo today and see how Crossbar can set your season up for success before registration even opens!

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