2024 Conference Seminars

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Seminar Details

Underdog Hiring Philosophy 

Leaders: Nick Ferate (Underdog Sports)

Room: Avalon 17 

Summary: Underdog will take you through several of the philosophies that it has learned and lived by over the years. These philosophies have helped make them successful in hiring field staff in order to put the best product possible out at their leagues. Nick will go over a wide range of topics such as the Field Staff depth, building through “Raising the Floor”, hiring and interview traps, cutting bait, and what Logan Roy would tell you to think about when hiring. 

How owners & managers can grow their clubs to be more inclusive

Leaders: Jaime Filipek (Allegheny County Parks Foundation)

Room: Avalon 18

Summary: Learn best practices for written policies and benefits using commitment and transparency. Understand the importance of your leaders role in creating a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. Topics include: Diversity and Inclusion begin at the top, dedicating resources to your efforts, internal professional development, community engagement, and Microaggressions vs Microaffirmations. 

Grow your club with a custom "Scorecard"

Leaders: Sal Farruggia (LI-Kick)

Room: Avalon 19

Summary: The 'Scorecard' is a tool used to track and measure the key performance indicators which are crucial for the success of your club. It is a one page document that presents a snapshot of your league's most important metrics. When reviewed weekly, the scorecard drives growth, directs attention, and solves issues before they become problems. In this seminar you'll discuss industry specific metrics and make a custom Scorecard for your club. You'll return to your club with a tool to systematically strengthen the metrics that matter most to you.

Being Efficient, using Asana & other tools

Leaders: Delaney Lafond Entrop & Nick Ferate (Underdog Sports)

Room: Avalon 17 

Summary: This seminar will take you through various softwares and philosophies that help Underdog run as efficiently as possible - Asana, Thinkific, Slack, League Lab, and more! Learn how to onboard staff and set up your daily tasks so that nothing is missed...even a year from now.

Celebrating Holidays – Best practices within our industry

Leaders: Jaime Filipek (Allegheny County Parks Foundation)

Room: Avalon 18

Summary:

Discuss why it is necessary to know who you are and who you serve before making holiday policies. Review example policies and learn what should be included in a great policy. Learn the importance of consistency when scheduling. Learn how to create flexible accommodations for schedules. Followed by discussion and Q&A. 

Leveraging Trends in Sports and Entertainment trends to enhance value with corporate sponsors

Leaders: Monique Jacobs (EssenceMedia.com)

Room: Avalon 19

Summary: Key current sports and entertainment trends will be highlighted to exploit areas of opportunity for SSIA leagues to add value to existing corporate sponsorships or may help attract new partnership opportunities.

League Lab best practices & examples

Leaders: Bradley Lach (Club Sport)

Room: Avalon 17

Summary: Calling all League Lab users! Ever wonder if you are missing any tips and hints when using LL in your every day operations. Attendees will be called on to come up and share some workarounds, hints, or procedures that they use in the hopes of hitting on something new for the rest of the participants. User participation is required!

SSIA Leaders Focus

Leaders: Chris Hastings (Chicago Sport & Social Club)

Room: Avalon 18

Summary: The first of hopefully many in a series where we have a "legend" of the industry open up about their history, growth, and path they took. Q&A is encouraged from the audience. Learn what it takes to make it in the industry. This year's presenter is Chris Hastings, President of the Chicago Sport & Social Club.

Hear the truth about creating authentic marketing partnerships 

Leaders: Paula Beadle (Sponsorship Marketing Association)

Room: Avalon 19

Summary: There is a gap between what brands want and what properties are delivering. Both partners have a role in closing the gap. This webinar will break down the walls on how partners collaboratively work together to communicate, solve problems, develop big ideas and deliver results. Walk away with tips and strategies from partners who have built true marketing partnerships.   

AI - tools to use in our industry

Leaders: Rebecca Whitney (Striker Sport & Social) 

Room: Avalon 17

Summary: AI is advancing fast and can be useful in just about any industry. We'll show you a few tools that might be useful at your club. Do you have a favorite AI tool? Bring your ideas to this seminar and share! 

Alternative revenue streams outside of sports

Leaders: Christian Crute (SportsLink)

Room: Avalon 18

Summary: Your "bread and butter" income streams are most likely the biggest sports everyone runs. But what else can you do outside of those? From fringe sports, one off tournaments, ad revenue, and other unique streams we'll discuss how to pad your bottom line. 

Create an asset framework without losing your mind

Leaders: Paula Beadle (Sponsorship Marketing Association)

Room: Avalon 19

Summary: One of the important factors to success begins with taking a broad survey of all available assets. Identifying and leveraging all of the assets available and packaging those assets strategically will serve as your roadmap to creating and valuing your sponsorship programs. The allocation of assets into categories and levels creates a clear framework to better communicate program opportunities both internally and externally.   

Dealing with weather events (heat, smoke, etc)

Leaders: Ian Elston (Club Sport) & John Pantzer (Circle City Athletics)

Room: Avalon 17

Summary: Metrics and indexes are becoming more and more common when trying to decide when it’s safe to play or be outside or not. This summer saw a rise in the use of both air quality index and heat index around the country. Is there a consensus on when to play and when to cancel? Does it depend where you are? Is it out of your hands due to your municipality? All of this will be discussed. 

Evaluating revenue numbers

Leaders: Chris Giebner (Club Sport)

Room: Avalon 18

Summary: Ever wonder how your income distribution stacks up versus others in the industry? This seminar will explore this breakdown. All attendees will be required to submit an anonymous survey of the percentage breakdown of their income across several categories. This will be summarized and discussed in aggregate. A similar seminar was held at the 2017 conference to great fanfare!

Text Marketing - pros, cons, tips

Leaders: Bill Coon (Milwaukee Sports & Social) & Rebecca Whitney (Striker Sport & Social)

Room: Avalon 19

Summary: Have you found it hard to communicate via email in today's cell phone age? Do millenials even have their voicemails setup? One way to get through is text messaging and text marketing. But there are still pitfalls. This seminar will discuss it all. 

Idea roundtable for non-sport games for field days, events, etc

Leaders: Felix Goodson (Volo Sports) & Kevin Cregan (Atlanta Sport & Social Club)

Room: Avalon 17

Summary: Do you run field days, corporate events, and more? Do you sit at home watching Survivor and think "that would be cool to do"...but you don't have an unlimited budget? We'll go over some tips and tricks for great games for your unique events. It's expected that you come to this seminar with at least one great idea you use back home! 

Employee incentives, benefits & work/life balance

Leaders: Giovanni Marcantioni (Volo Sports)

Room: Avalon 18

Summary: This seminar will discuss the various ways to reward your staff and employees in our industry. Come prepared to share your unique ways of making your crew feel engaged and rewarded. Sometimes the hours are long and customers are a challenge - so we need to make sure everyone in your organization is incentivized properly. 

Slaying the Marketing Game: Using Social Media to Reign Over League Registrations 

Leaders: Luke Wade (MediaAlly)

Room: Avalon 19

Summary: Discover how KC Crew's team of mythological creatures harnessed the power of social media dragons and enchanted SEO spells to conquer the league registration battlefield. 

Tier 2 & 3 breakout - Owners and management issues

Leaders: Christian Crute (SportsLink)

Room: Avalon 17

Summary: This will be a moderated free form breakout discussions. Attendees should be owners or general managers from Tier 2 and 3 clubs (income greater than $500,000). This discussion could focus on the stress and pitfall of being where the buck finally stops, exit plans, and how to continue growth.

Tier 2 & 3 breakout - Staff & working in the industry

Leaders: Pedro Garcia (Houston Sports & Social Club)

Room: Avalon 18

Summary: This will be a moderated free form breakout discussions. Attendees should be employees and staff from Tier 2 and 3 clubs (income greater than $500,000). We will discuss the challenges and balances of working for larger clubs but not being the owner or final decision maker.

Tier 1 breakout - How to make the most of what you have

Leaders: Louis Hodgetts (Game On VT)

Room: Avalon 19

Summary: This will be a moderated free form breakout discussions. Attendees should be owners and employees from Tier 1 clubs (income less than $500,000). We'll discuss the pitfall and challenges of small clubs and how they are going about making it to the next level.