Sports Organizers Are Losing Thousands in Refunds

It requires money to operate a successful sports organization–plain and simple. Typically, a bulk of these funds come from registration fees, which allows the organization to sustain itself based on budgets and forecasts created prior to the season.

Unfortunately, uncertainty can throw a huge wrench in these budgets and forecasts. 

Unexpected incidents can lead to a change in mind or an inability to participate.

Parents demand refunds or get aggressive with chargebacks, and organizers are left with holes in their bottom-line. 

Taking a look at the numbers

Refunds are something a majority of sports organizations have to deal with at some point in the year. Out of all the organizations that used TeamSnap for registration and invoicing over the past 12 months, 59% of them had to provide some sort of refund– of which 68% had refunds totaling over $500, and 50% over $1,000.

On average, across all accounts that had refunds over the past 12 months, organizations handed out $3,243 in refunds. So it definitely isn’t just chump change. 

The average refund amounts differ by sport, and there are even non-traditional sports such as kickball and netball that see high volumes, with $3,343 and $6,550 in average annual refunds respectively. 

Protecting yourself against refunds

How do sports organizations protect their cash flow and bottom-line?

Some clubs and leagues implement a no-refund policy, which does not protect you against chargebacks but is a great way to cut out the headache of refunds. Unfortunately, this can come with parent backlash. Parents have no control over their child falling sick or getting injured. They cannot foresee when the weather is going to get in the way of them getting to a tournament. These are unexpected incidents and parents naturally want their money back.

Parents want reassurance that they will be covered in case something unexpected comes up.

Now you can provide parents in the U.S. with this reassurance and peace of mind by offering them registration insurance through our partnership with Registration Saver (Regsaver). 

Enable registration insurance directly within your form, and allow parents to cover themselves in the case of unexpected incidents, such as an illness, an injury, or bad weather.

There’s no additional cost to your organization, and you get to implement a no-refund policy without guilt or uncomfortable conversations. It’s a win-win!

Regsaver is already enabled by default on newly created registration forms, so there are no hurdles for you to jump through. Just turn on online payments and open up registration. You can also go back and enable it on all existing registration forms. Learn more about the process here.

*Regsaver is currently only available for U.S. customers.