I'm curious what you say to people who ask "Why not Meetup?"
As someone who has organized sport groups from small (single weekly pickup games in the mid west) to large (300+ people vying for spots in three games a week in a major city), I've looked into various sport-specific apps. But in the end, I've always come back to Meetup. They used to have more rough edges, but they've gotten much better.
FYI, here are Meetup features I can't live without as a sports event organizer:
- auto-scheduling of games
- option to make RSVP required (drop-ins are just a hassle, b/c then you never know how many people to plan around)
- online payment collection ("Here's my $3" is a waay more reliable indicator of interest/attendance than "I'm in" - this changed everything for us, and covers our facility rental)
- group-wide + member-specific messaging
- an app and account most people already have and are willing to use
Don't mean to sound pessimistic, just sharing thoughts - best of luck!
Not only is that not quite true, but even if so it would just be a marketing problem, and not because of cultural, legal or technical barriers? (such as iOS only, or heavily english-dependent, etc)
I have personally seen Meetup used fairly liberally in Korea, HK and Singapore.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts – much appreciated! We think there's something special about a place where the purpose is to actually play sports. There's something about cultivating that niche.
We are absolutely going to implement several of the features you mentioned, and hadn't though about some of them, so thanks again!
As someone who has organized sport groups from small (single weekly pickup games in the mid west) to large (300+ people vying for spots in three games a week in a major city), I've looked into various sport-specific apps. But in the end, I've always come back to Meetup. They used to have more rough edges, but they've gotten much better.
FYI, here are Meetup features I can't live without as a sports event organizer:
- auto-scheduling of games
- option to make RSVP required (drop-ins are just a hassle, b/c then you never know how many people to plan around)
- online payment collection ("Here's my $3" is a waay more reliable indicator of interest/attendance than "I'm in" - this changed everything for us, and covers our facility rental)
- group-wide + member-specific messaging
- an app and account most people already have and are willing to use
Don't mean to sound pessimistic, just sharing thoughts - best of luck!