SportingPulse have been involved with grassroots football for nearly ten years, with the AFL and all affiliated leagues using SportingPulse products throughout its national network for competition and member management, websites and online registration and payments.
The national network, or ‘Footyweb’ as it is commonly known, incorporates participants in programs such as NAB AFL Auskick, senior and junior football leagues, recreational football, as well as schools, coaches and umpires through the AFL Online Communities project (aflcommunityclub.com.au).
What Josh had to say about SportingPulse:
“The AFL is extremely satisfied with our association with SportingPulse, who have helped us connect with our grassroots participants in an effective way through the use of websites, member databases and associated competition management tools.
“Nowadays, people are feeling increasingly comfortable with making payments and registering to participate in sport online. SportingPulse have helped facilitate this - not only for our NAB AFL Auskick program, but for all levels of football right around the country.
“The wide range of SportingPulse products that we have implemented, as well as their willingness to engage key stakeholders at state, league and local level to meet all our technical and operational requirements, has resulted in some great outcomes for the AFL – it has improved the efficiency of leagues and allowed clubs to connect better with their membership base.
“We look forward to SportingPulse and the AFL’s relationship continuing well into the future.”
How does the AFL use SportingPulse?
- Official fixtures, results, ladders and stats.
The AFL use SportingPulse competition management software (Desktop) to manage fixturing, results and ladders for its many senior and junior football associations and leagues around Australia.
More Information about Desktop - Manage participants in a national database (Footyweb)
Footyweb utilises a SportingPulse Membership database that has been customised specifically for the AFL and its vast structure of states, regions, leagues and clubs, as well as for schools, coaches and umpires – right down to the participants at grassroots level.
Footy administrators - such as regional managers, association and club secretaries - are all provided different levels of Footyweb access to manage their clubs, teams, participants and competitions, as well as allowing other important functions such as direct communication to participants via email and SMS.
More Information about SportingPulse Online Membership 
Take player registrations online
Parents of NAB AFL Auskick participants visit the Auskick website (www.aflauskick.com.au), find their nearest Auskick centre, register and pay online using the joining form. The form is directly linked to the Footyweb membership database so that participant details are automatically captured in the system, saving the Auskick coordinator a mountain of manual data entry.
NAB AFL Auskick has also taken the lead by opting to use SportingPulse Payments to facilitate the payment part of their online registration process. Since its launch in late 2009, several more football leagues and clubs have started using SportingPulse Payments for accepting club memberships, taking one-off event payments and even selling merchandise products. The time and cost savings to sport mean that volunteers are able to enjoy running clinics, without the overhead of manual data entry and carrying cash around in a jar!
More Information about SportingPulse Payments
Send emails and SMS messages using the Communicator tool
Many AFL football clubs are using the SportingPulse Communicator tool to send messages – both via email and SMS – to their members, directly from the Footyweb database. Using official data allows you to keep email addresses and mobile numbers up to date in order to stay in touch with your members, while custom lists can be custom created using information from the system, or they can be as simple as a member type (e.g. players, coaches or umpires).
More Information about Communicator- Manage the transfer of players between clubs and associations
In 2004, SportingPulse revolutionised the tracking of player movement in the game, from largely a paper chase through to an online system. The Footyweb database taps into this technology, allowing online processing of transfers and clearances that saves considerable time and paperwork for administrators. - Websites for clubs, leagues and associations
All AFL leagues, associations and clubs that are part of the Footyweb Network are offered free SportingPulse Websites for their organisation, which are integrated with their membership databases and provide a central place to publish fixtures, results, ladders and other competition information.
The websites provide a wide range of features and flexibility, allowing an organisation to fully tailor their site according to their needs – e.g. layout, colour scheme, sections, menus, features and more.
Websites and software can cost clubs thousands of dollars each year in website design, development, hosting and maintenance - an expense that can lead to higher membership fees for participants - but the Sportzware websites have an easy-to-use content management system (CMS) that require no technical expertise to manage and maintain, a major advantage for when the site is handed over to new people as club administrators change hands.
All affiliated leagues and clubs are eligible to use these websites at no cost through the partnership between SportingPulse and the AFL.
More Information about SportingPulse Standard Websites - Elite Websites for AFL commercial content
The AFL engaged SportingPulse to design and develop a series of websites aimed at grassroots AFL participation – these include the AFL Community Club website and the NAB AFL Auskick Parents and NAB AFL Auskick Coordinators websites, all of which were built as SportingPulse Elite websites.
Elite sites are professionally designed self-editing websites that are easy to maintain, fully customised to the client’s (e.g. the AFL’s) needs and are optimized for performance – they provide a professional looking and operational site that promotes your business and its image.
Following their implementation, these sites were handed over to the AFL who now manage the content on these sites themselves using a user-friendly CMS, allowing them to maintain the site content online at their leisure – they can upload photographs and documents, as well as providing the ability to incorporate online registration forms that directly interact with the Footyweb database and allow people to register and pay online for events and memberships etc.
More Information about Elite Websites
How can you benefit?
SportingPulse's range of products can cater to your sport or organisation's needs at all levels of administration - from the national body all the way down to grass roots participants – saving time and giving better outcomes for administrators, as well as making it easier for players to participate and to grow your sport.
If you’re an AFL affiliated footy league or club, these tools are available to you under a global licence through the partnership between the AFL and SportingPulse.
Visit the Sports Solutions page for more information about the products on offer, or contact SportingPulse’s AFL Account Manager, Tony Costanzo, for any further enquiries:
Tony Costanzo
t.costanzo@sportingpulse.com
(03) 8676 6992
