We live in a world of instant gratification. We expect texts to be returned immediately. We complain if we have to wait at the drive-thru window for our lattes. We expect items we order online to be delivered as quickly as if we went to the actual store to pick them up.
So why tolerate waiting until tryouts are over to see scoring results and player rankings? With sports evaluation apps, results are available in real-time. Evaluators enter the scores and they are immediately available for coaches and directors to access through the platform.
Find out how having scores available in real-time can benefit your team.
Coaches can watch, not evaluate
Live scoring allows coaches to see how individual players are performing at any time during tryouts. Are athletes struggling with specific skills? Are certain players excelling? These results can help inform coaches as to what drills they should be running, or which stations and players they should be paying close attention to.
Using their mobile phone or tablet, coaches can pull up athlete scores as they are working between various stations. Being able to see how the evaluators are scoring athletes in real-time can help coaches determine if certain drills are causing issues for players, or if there are skills a slew of athletes are excelling at. It also gives coaches the chance to add in intangibles that evaluators might not have made note of, such as hustle and attitude.
Catch errors early on
Real-time scoring allows all player scores to be seen immediately in the app, which can help raise flags if there is a scoring error on an athlete or at a station.
A typo by an evaluator is more likely to be caught and corrected early on as coaches watch the scores in real-time. The coach can talk to the evaluator right away and get the issue fixed before scores are used in the team formation process.
“Have you ever had a scoring error cause major problems? A typo by an evaluator is more likely to be caught and corrected early if coaches are watching the scores in real-time.” [Click to Tweet!]
It also lets the coach see if there are scoring errors where the marks don’t necessarily match the athlete’s performance. If a coach is watching a drill while looking at the live-scoring app, then they have the opportunity to see if the scores entered are fair based on what they are observing from the athletes. If the scores don’t match the performance, then the coach has the opportunity to address the situation with the evaluator right then instead of waiting until post tryouts.
For more tips on prepping your evaluators, here’s How to Prepare Evaluators for Youth Sports Tryouts.
Real-time player rankings
Having live scoring during tryouts sessions allows coaches to see player rankings in real-time.
“The evaluators were able to quickly enter scores for the girls, and could easily see where scores were missing. Better yet, the results were available immediately, without having to collect a bunch of papers and enter the scores into a spreadsheet,” LeeAnn Taylor, of the Queen City Volleyball Club, said.
Coaches know which players are at the top, who is struggling, and perhaps most importantly – who is on the bubble of making the team. This lets coaches determine how to prioritize their time during the evaluation session. If they know certain players are on the fringe of making the team or not, they can watch that particular group during the session to see for themselves how the players are performing, and if there are any traits that might give certain players an edge over others.
Quick team formations
Live scoring allows leagues to form their rosters very quickly. Coaches can access the real-time scoring app and immediately see which players are most likely to make the team. This can save leagues numerous hours not having to compile scores and calculate rankings at the end of tryouts.
Manhattan Beach Little League was able to use the live scoring app to trim their draft process.
Instead of taking five to seven hours with their old method, the draft took about two hours with the aid of the TeamGenius evaluation app. All of the information on players was readily available and accessible.
“We were all sharing our data together and it was all in real-time. We didn’t need to wait for someone to put it together for us,” said Sergio Silva, President of Manhattan Beach Little League.
Instead of coaches and directors trying to crunch numbers to determine which players have the top scores to make the squad, they can instead spend their time looking at the data and determining how to use the scores and rankings when forming their teams.