The Plano Sports Authority was founded as a Non-Profit Agency in December, 1970 when individual sports leagues incorporated to form one administrative youth sports organization. PSA provides quality recreational and select youth and adult sports leagues, classes, and camps to all who live within the city of Plano and surrounding areas. The volunteer base of sports directors and coaches offers 20 different sports to over 55,000 kids annually. Those sports include: Football, Baseball, Fast-pitch Softball, Girls’ Volleyball, Basketball, Cheerleading, Dance team, Figure Skating, Indoor Lacrosse, Indoor Soccer, Arena Football, Wrestling, Track, Soccer, Rugby, Lacrosse, Golf, Martial Arts Academy, Little Athletes, and Ice Hockey. Along with the outdoor fields in the area, PSA also has 2 indoor facilities housing Volleyball, Basketball, Turf courts, and an Ice Rink.
Challenges
Their legacy system (TAPS) had some limitations that made them decide to look elsewhere to manage their business. For example, they could not have a family account where a child was tied to a parent. Therefore, everyone had their own individual profile. The accounting system was completely separate and was not integrated which meant they could not credit players and teams in TAPS. Another constraint was managing the amount of resources they use. Before, PSA used an Excel sheet to manually block off their numerous court and turf spaces. The desire was for an integrated sports management system combining registration, league management, and resource control. Now using Sports IT, they can schedule events on nearly 100 different resources.Why pick Sports IT as the solution?
PSA created a committee consisting of staff members and volunteers to interview and listen to demonstrations and then graded each one of our competitors. Some could not handle the shear size or were not willing to customize their system to work for PSA’s needs. It came down to price and the fact that we were willing to work with them on building tools specific to their business model. Top on their list of features that appealed to them included, the resource calendar, registration system, accounting, and MySAM. Staff Training Currently PSA has about 25 employees that have been trained plus numerous volunteers. They wrote their own procedures and Sports IT manual including scenarios, held classes and then administered tests to each employee. If they passed the test, they became certified and even received a certificate. To help with the transition to Sports IT, the seasons were staggered so they were able to start fresh with just a few sports at a time which made the transition from the old system to Sports IT easier. It was like flipping a switch with the start of the new season.MySAM Integration for Customers
Before Sports IT, PSA took about 70% of their registrations in person or over the phone and 30% on-line. Now this has flipped and they take almost 70% on-line. They used a variety of tools to push MySAM to their customers and coaches. They did the common e-mails to their customers and added links to their website but then took things further. For example, they handed out literature about how to sign up on-line to their customers, gave them magnets and stars advertising their new on-line registration system. They even had their employees wear t-shirts for 2 weeks to catch everyone’s eye!Testimonies
“Sports-It has been a great change for PSA from registering the customer to scheduling the leagues. We are a more efficient staff and I believe the experience for our customers is a better informed, easier experience. It’s great when Parents with multiple kids can register for and see all of their family’s sports teams, classes, camps and schedules in one convenient location, their MySAM.” Starla Seabaugh “With Sports-It we now have a better view of our day to day business and our 13 sports. With the resource calendar we know when and where each of our sports are playing games, who it renting courts and where all the camps are. We were nervous about the transition but the Sports-It staff is very accessible and helpful. They made the transition easy.” Teresa FederspielStatistics
Since implementing Sports IT in the beginning of January, PSA has had 113,369 visits to their MySAM site. Their implementation and marketing strategy made this successful. 
