Dozens of people responsible for youth soccer schedules across North Carolina starting screaming in unison. Why you ask? Because we just had another weekend of soccer rained out – the third weekend this season… so far. Travel teams are looking at 1-2 weeks before the end of season tournaments/seedings begin and many still have 3-4 matches left to play. We’ve postponed so many Rec matches, we’re going to have to start having teams play twice in one day or weekend (common for travel teams – but Rec? Not so much).So this Sunday, the 7th day, has been a non-stop ‘how can we reschedule all these matches’ fun fest.
North Carolina has been in a record setting drought, and all this rain has been sorely needed. But does it always have to rain Thursday through Sunday? Can’t we get the storms on Monday or Tuesday so the fields are ready for matches on Friday and Saturday?
Of course, making things even more exciting for us – we play most of our Recreation matches on Saturday mornings. We just found out today that one of our school districts needed to makeup a winter weather cancellation, and chose a Saturday in April to do it. So we just had to reschedule a fourth weekend of matches. The fun never ends!
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April 7th, 2008 at 1:06 am
we’re in the same boat (pun intended) here in Tennessee. The season was supposed to start back on March 10. Most teams have not played a single game so far this season. And lookout, it looks like another rainy weekend is waiting on us.
Also, the Bash in the Boro in Murfreesboro, Tennessee was canceled this past weekend due to the weather. I wonder how many other tournaments have been canceled this year.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
I know one in Myrtle Beach was back in February.
I think my son’s travel team is going to have to play Friday, Saturday, Sunday this coming weekend to make up what they’ve missed. Still working on my own team’s two missed matches. Should be a busy April!
April 9th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
One thing I’d like to see addressed by clubs is the weather policy in case an entire tournament is canceled. Recently, an entire tournament was called on a Thursday for a weekend tournament in Murfreesboro. While the club has a disclaimer on rain cancellations, I always took that to mean cancellations due to weather after the tournament started. If a tournament is called a day before the first game is due to kick off, does the club have any obligation at all to return any of the funds back to the applying clubs? What about offering a discount for the next tournament. Why don’t clubs self insure themselves against rain-outs and offer a full or partial refund based on how much of the tournament is canceled? Any club that would insure a refund would be worth paying a little more to attend. I have a post on this over at my blog. Are there any innovative ideas concerning rain-out policies for tournaments?
April 9th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I can see both sides – many clubs rely on their one big tournament to fund a significant part of their program. Losing all that revenue would be a major impact. The insurance idea sounds interesting, but you have to think as common as rain can be when there isn’t a drought, that such a policy would probably be pretty expensive (because the insured pool would be pretty small – given what a niche it is) But there definitely should be SOME type of discount or something for teams that lose their $400 because of rain.