NTX Charging for Releases

Per email sent from North Texas this week:

"There was approximately 1,300 competitive releases processed last soccer year, most of them being processed between October to April 1, which was about 30% more than the previous soccer year. This took up most of the hours of the day during that period, leaving little time to respond to phone calls and emails and the walk in customers.

Beginning August 1, 2012 there will be a $25.00 processing fee to be paid to NTSSA by the competitive player who requests a release/transfer from their competitive team. Lisa Skiles, the NTSSA Office Manager, is creating an on-line account so the player will be able to pay the $25.00 fee on line for this service. NTSSA will forward more information regarding this feature after the program has been developed."

if it is a egregious release based on the teams action then the release should be paid for by the team

Let's see, $25 x 1300 = $32,500? Should be able to hire another clerk to handle those. Go, it would be pretty hard to judge each case for club misconduct. I think they should just bill the clubs, rather than set up all those player accounts.

I am all for billing the clubs. Just doesn't seem right that a kid could be looking for a release because of no play time or bad conduct from the coach and then the kid has to pay for the release

Freeatlast wrote:Let's see, $25 x 1300 = $32,500? Should be able to hire another clerk to handle those. Go, it would be pretty hard to judge each case for club misconduct. I think they should just bill the clubs, rather than set up all those player accounts.

And then the clubs will just insert into the contract a clause for the release fees of the $25 NTX fee plus $10 OR $20 processing fee and we will pay anyway.

my2cents wrote:

Freeatlast wrote:Let's see, $25 x 1300 = $32,500? Should be able to hire another clerk to handle those. Go, it would be pretty hard to judge each case for club misconduct. I think they should just bill the clubs, rather than set up all those player accounts.

And then the clubs will just insert into the contract a clause for the release fees of the $25 NTX fee plus $10 OR $20 processing fee and we will pay anyway.

No doubt.
"It's all about the money boys!" - Big Dan Teague

This fee appears to be egregiously high.

Don't be fooled. It's not 25 per release they are charging since they already charge you some fees to handle an expected amount of releases anyway into their budget. They are charging you essentially 32000 dollars for the additional volume above and beyond their expected volume. If that's generously expected at 50% more than what they anticipated, then they are essentiallly charging $50 dollars per additional release they handle. This is ridiculously high cost.

In addition, the cost accounting will tell you the cost to handle releases is a variable cost. That means, with each additional registry fee they charge a portion of their cost is allocated towards handing the releases. Now if there was an increase in volume of registry of players, there should have been increase in the revenue for NTX to cover the extra releases that would coincide with the increase in volume.

The pretense that they need a special revenue to cover the extra cost of handling the additional releases due to more players registering with NTX doesn't hold water. They made more money from the fees, they should have extra revenue to cover the extra people needed to service the growth.

Where do all these NTX management people come from? The government?

I believe the board is still volunteers that get elected. Run on the on the conservative NTX ticket and show them how to cut fees and staff but still get more done. Oh yeah cut or freeze the pay too. That always works so well.

my2cents wrote:I believe the board is still volunteers that get elected. Run on the on the conservative NTX ticket and show them how to cut fees and staff but still get more done. Oh yeah cut or freeze the pay too. That always works so well.

You don't need to cut pay or freeze to make an operation efficient. As a matter of fact, raising pay and cost effective operation isn't a zero-sum factor.

If McD's told us they were now charging fees for using their bathrooms because useage in the bathrooms increased by 30%, would you just go with that? Logically, if all things given equal, higher useage probably has to do with increased in sales. Meaning it can be offset with extra revenue.

In NTX case, the additional releases may have one or two obvious reasons.

Primary reason is probably related to more teams and more kids participating in organized soccer. Look at the number of teams participating in QT for classic the last few years. It's been setting new records. This means more revenue for NTX.

Alternative reason could be that perhaps there is higher rate of releases than the growth in subscription. This is a valid reason to increase or institute a fee. But if this is true, they should be asking why it's true. If people are more dissatisfied with the teams compared to the rate of dissastifaction in the past, there is something wrong in the system and they need to look into that. Charging the dissastified people an additional fee doesn't make for good service.

You have to look at motive when fee's are instituted. It's generally for two reasons.

First, a fee is a revenue stream for a service provided - it can pay for the service cost and/or generate additional profit. In NTX's situation, they are a non-prof, so I have to assume a non-profit motive.

Second, a fee can be used to encourage a behavior. It can encourage rationing of a certain service. I doubt they are doing it to force people to consider rationing.

So if it's the former, does it make sense to you that 30% increase in releases performed should cost 32k to the soccering public? Look at the raw numbers, 30% of 1300 is 390 extra releases cleared over a 6 month period. if you break that down by monthly and then by weekly, it comes out to 16 to 17 extra releases performed per week (3 to 4 extra per day). Does that sound like a 32k salary for 6 months of work?

My point is that while there may be a good reason for this fee being passed on to the individual parents, initial explanation doesn't pass muster.

Speaking of customer dissatisfaction, isn't that one of the reasons why the clubs split with Classic to go DA? Rumor has it that CL wasn't giving the clubs what they wanted, so they took their most talented players and left. Beware to take a certain amount of arrogance directly to the ultimate customer, the parents. We have the most power in the equation.

In this instance, it's seller beware. Your goods may not be that good.

JKC wrote:

my2cents wrote:I believe the board is still volunteers that get elected. Run on the on the conservative NTX ticket and show them how to cut fees and staff but still get more done. Oh yeah cut or freeze the pay too. That always works so well.

You don't need to cut pay or freeze to make an operation efficient. As a matter of fact, raising pay and cost effective operation isn't a zero-sum factor.

If McD's told us they were now charging fees for using their bathrooms because useage in the bathrooms increased by 30%, would you just go with that? Logically, if all things given equal, higher useage probably has to do with increased in sales. Meaning it can be offset with extra revenue.

In NTX case, the additional releases may have one or two obvious reasons.

Primary reason is probably related to more teams and more kids participating in organized soccer. Look at the number of teams participating in QT for classic the last few years. It's been setting new records. This means more revenue for NTX.

Alternative reason could be that perhaps there is higher rate of releases than the growth in subscription. This is a valid reason to increase or institute a fee. But if this is true, they should be asking why it's true. If people are more dissatisfied with the teams compared to the rate of dissastifaction in the past, there is something wrong in the system and they need to look into that. Charging the dissastified people an additional fee doesn't make for good service.

You have to look at motive when fee's are instituted. It's generally for two reasons.

First, a fee is a revenue stream for a service provided - it can pay for the service cost and/or generate additional profit. In NTX's situation, they are a non-prof, so I have to assume a non-profit motive.

Second, a fee can be used to encourage a behavior. It can encourage rationing of a certain service. I doubt they are doing it to force people to consider rationing.

So if it's the former, does it make sense to you that 30% increase in releases performed should cost 32k to the soccering public? Look at the raw numbers, 30% of 1300 is 390 extra releases cleared over a 6 month period. if you break that down by monthly and then by weekly, it comes out to 16 to 17 extra releases performed per week (3 to 4 extra per day). Does that sound like a 32k salary for 6 months of work?

My point is that while there may be a good reason for this fee being passed on to the individual parents, initial explanation doesn't pass muster.

Read between the lines. We can't handle the amount of paperwork. We need another office person but need a revenue stream to help fund it. Releases have increased alot and if you want off a team bad enough for a mid-season release you will gladly pay it. Believe it or not they do not clear very much from each registration fee.

I believe all the activity is a fallout from the DA, as players move from team to team. In time, the increased activity should subside as things settle back down. Remember when the girls went through this transistion a few years ago? Difference being there is more movement amongst the boys.

If CL hires new staff to cover the short term problem, then what other fees should we expect down the road?

finish1 wrote:I believe all the activity is a fallout from the DA, as players move from team to team. In time, the increased activity should subside as things settle back down. Remember when the girls went through this transistion a few years ago? Difference being there is more movement amongst the boys.

If CL hires new staff to cover the short term problem, then what other fees should we expect down the road?

I think they also have to reschedule a lot of games during our non-drought seasons. I think they can squeeze another $25 for rescheduling, there. A rainy day fund?

JKC wrote:Alternative reason could be that perhaps there is higher rate of releases than the growth in subscription. This is a valid reason to increase or institute a fee. But if this is true, they should be asking why it's true. If people are more dissatisfied with the teams compared to the rate of dissastifaction in the past, there is something wrong in the system and they need to look into that. Charging the dissastified people an additional fee doesn't make for good service.

I love this statement.

Nobody seems to be asking WHY the volume of releases has increased. The most important thing to know is the root cause.

Is Academy and select growing? Yes but the increase in releases seems to show that the services provided by the organizations in this market are insufficient for meeting the new demands.

Simply saying "Well... that person wasn't the right kind of customer." and collecting a fee isn't good enough. Maybe the customers need to be better educated. Maybe there needs to be increased oversight for the clubs. Maybe a new type of certification (proving the ability to correctly manage young children) needs to be required of these professional coaches.

Increasing the fees to offset the new volume is a reaction to the problem. Why not look to solve the problem in the system first? If the problems cannot be fixed, then the fees should be increased. But at least try to resolve the cause of the problems first. Why not be proactive and solve the problems before the volume of releases continues to increase and fees have to be raised again?

I’m sure there is no correlation between increased roster sizes and releases

bigtex75081 wrote:

JKC wrote:Alternative reason could be that perhaps there is higher rate of releases than the growth in subscription. This is a valid reason to increase or institute a fee. But if this is true, they should be asking why it's true. If people are more dissatisfied with the teams compared to the rate of dissastifaction in the past, there is something wrong in the system and they need to look into that. Charging the dissastified people an additional fee doesn't make for good service.

I love this statement.

Nobody seems to be asking WHY the volume of releases has increased. The most important thing to know is the root cause.

Is Academy and select growing? Yes but the increase in releases seems to show that the services provided by the organizations in this market are insufficient for meeting the new demands.

Simply saying "Well... that person wasn't the right kind of customer." and collecting a fee isn't good enough. Maybe the customers need to be better educated. Maybe there needs to be increased oversight for the clubs. Maybe a new type of certification (proving the ability to correctly manage young children) needs to be required of these professional coaches.

Increasing the fees to offset the new volume is a reaction to the problem. Why not look to solve the problem in the system first? If the problems cannot be fixed, then the fees should be increased. But at least try to resolve the cause of the problems first. Why not be proactive and solve the problems before the volume of releases continues to increase and fees have to be raised again?

I don't believe it is NTSSA's responsibility to find out why more people are leaving clubs. It is very rare that a rec release is asked for. They give the customers what they want, an out from the club. As far as alienated customers they could raise fees for all to cover the added expenses they are incurring or they can put a fee on the service that approxamately 1% of their customers use.

Distributer wrote: I’m sure there is no correlation between increased roster sizes and releases

Exactly. Bigger rosters + less play time + more unhappy customers + more player movement + more fees.

More more more for less!

Debit, you're a cpa, what does this add up to?

Number 13, you're a whiz kid, what's a paying customer to do?

Kind of sad. You'd think NTX (in terms of the larger p2p world) would be satisfied with the money they're making already. It is supposed to be a charitable effort after all. Alot of parents are already spending a large chunk of their income so their son or daughter can play a sport. If they're not careful, NTX soccer is going to end up killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. I would think the coaches and club officers would be fighting these kinds of efforts. If p2p soccer declines in the area, it would be impossible for most of them to replace income at their current level. Unfortunately, while the product has declined in quality over the past few years, the cost has increased which is not a good sign for the longevity of the product. They do need to remember that this is for the kids.

finish1 wrote:

Distributer wrote: I’m sure there is no correlation between increased roster sizes and releases

Exactly. Bigger rosters + less play time + more unhappy customers + more player movement + more fees.

More more more for less!

Debit, you're a cpa, what does this add up to?

Number 13, you're a whiz kid, what's a paying customer to do?

Am more kid than whiz. A release is like a mini-divorce. In that context, if you can get out of a bad $3000 situation/decision for $25, seems like a bargain. Doubt NTSSA is putting a hottub in the staff spa with the extra benjamins.

As a tiny-tot parent, will leave more interesting philosophical discussion of why more releases to those with better perspective.

my2cents wrote:

bigtex75081 wrote:

JKC wrote:Alternative reason could be that perhaps there is higher rate of releases than the growth in subscription. This is a valid reason to increase or institute a fee. But if this is true, they should be asking why it's true. If people are more dissatisfied with the teams compared to the rate of dissastifaction in the past, there is something wrong in the system and they need to look into that. Charging the dissastified people an additional fee doesn't make for good service.

I love this statement.

Nobody seems to be asking WHY the volume of releases has increased. The most important thing to know is the root cause.

Is Academy and select growing? Yes but the increase in releases seems to show that the services provided by the organizations in this market are insufficient for meeting the new demands.

Simply saying "Well... that person wasn't the right kind of customer." and collecting a fee isn't good enough. Maybe the customers need to be better educated. Maybe there needs to be increased oversight for the clubs. Maybe a new type of certification (proving the ability to correctly manage young children) needs to be required of these professional coaches.

Increasing the fees to offset the new volume is a reaction to the problem. Why not look to solve the problem in the system first? If the problems cannot be fixed, then the fees should be increased. But at least try to resolve the cause of the problems first. Why not be proactive and solve the problems before the volume of releases continues to increase and fees have to be raised again?

I don't believe it is NTSSA's responsibility to find out why more people are leaving clubs. It is very rare that a rec release is asked for. They give the customers what they want, an out from the club. As far as alienated customers they could raise fees for all to cover the added expenses they are incurring or they can put a fee on the service that approxamately 1% of their customers use.

Your statement illustrates what I think is probably the biggest problem for us here... If it isn't NTSSA's responsibility to fix the issues then whose responsibility is it? IMO, the worst possible answer you can give to this question (but probably the correct answer for our current situation) is that no one has that responsibility.

bigtex75081 wrote:

my2cents wrote:

bigtex75081 wrote:

JKC wrote:Alternative reason could be that perhaps there is higher rate of releases than the growth in subscription. This is a valid reason to increase or institute a fee. But if this is true, they should be asking why it's true. If people are more dissatisfied with the teams compared to the rate of dissastifaction in the past, there is something wrong in the system and they need to look into that. Charging the dissastified people an additional fee doesn't make for good service.

I love this statement.

Nobody seems to be asking WHY the volume of releases has increased. The most important thing to know is the root cause.

Is Academy and select growing? Yes but the increase in releases seems to show that the services provided by the organizations in this market are insufficient for meeting the new demands.

Simply saying "Well... that person wasn't the right kind of customer." and collecting a fee isn't good enough. Maybe the customers need to be better educated. Maybe there needs to be increased oversight for the clubs. Maybe a new type of certification (proving the ability to correctly manage young children) needs to be required of these professional coaches.

Increasing the fees to offset the new volume is a reaction to the problem. Why not look to solve the problem in the system first? If the problems cannot be fixed, then the fees should be increased. But at least try to resolve the cause of the problems first. Why not be proactive and solve the problems before the volume of releases continues to increase and fees have to be raised again?

I don't believe it is NTSSA's responsibility to find out why more people are leaving clubs. It is very rare that a rec release is asked for. They give the customers what they want, an out from the club. As far as alienated customers they could raise fees for all to cover the added expenses they are incurring or they can put a fee on the service that approxamately 1% of their customers use.

Your statement illustrates what I think is probably the biggest problem for us here... If it isn't NTSSA's responsibility to fix the issues then whose responsibility is it? IMO, the worst possible answer you can give to this question (but probably the correct answer for our current situation) is that no one has that responsibility.

NTX told academy no two leagues or two games on the weekend. What happened? Non-NTSSA sanctioned leagues. They tried to control that and what we have now is a free for all. It is up to the parents to excercise control by walking away from clubs/coaches that are generating the increase in releases.

I find it very ironic that so many select parents turn up their noses at rec associations. If they embraced them and worked with and thru them then they could force changes thru the proposal and passing of new rules at the annual AGM. Rec associations hold the overwhelming majority of the votes.

my2cents wrote:
NTX told academy no two leaguses or two games on the weekend. What happened? Non-NTSSA sanctioned leagues. They tried to control that and what we have now is a free for all. It is up to the parents to excercise control by walking away from clubs/coaches that are generating the increase in releases.

I find it very ironic that so many select parents turn up their noses at rec associations. If they embraced them and worked with and thru them then they could force changes thru the proposal and passing of new rules at the annual AGM. Rec associations hold the overwhelming majority of the votes.

I wasn't aware there was an association that's rec specific....

Here is NTX's Mission Statement.

.... North Texas Soccer has one purpose in mind: To ensure that each participant has an enjoyable soccer experience while moving toward his or her personal goal.
Emphasis placed on the development of players - Recreational - Competitive - State Select/ODP ....

I don't see how it doesn't fall under their responsibility to see why there is more player turnover at higher rate than in the past.

I'm not saying at all that NTX shouldn't hire extra people to help. The fact, as someone else previously mentioned, is that there is no time to handle the increase in volume of work. My argument is that they should check to see if their increase in revenue due to higher registry of players, teams, and clubs can make up for that before increasing fees. In addition to just doing the administrative task of handling releases, isn't it in their realm of responsibility to understand why there is an increase in releases?

finish1 wrote:

Distributer wrote: I’m sure there is no correlation between increased roster sizes and releases

Exactly. Bigger rosters + less play time + more unhappy customers + more player movement + more fees.

More more more for less!

Debit, you're a cpa, what does this add up to?

Number 13, you're a whiz kid, what's a paying customer to do?

I would say it adds up to more credits than debits.

Seriously, I'm split on the issue. After the checks I've written for soccer over the past 3 weeks, another $25 seems like a drop in the bucket, but contrary to a previous poster, I think the fee is intended to serve as a bit of deterrent. How badly do you really want that release?

If you look at it from the NTSSA perspective that they processed 1300 releases in 6 months (26 weeks), that's 50 per week. I'm not sure I understand the amount of work involved to process a release. Let's say it takes 30 minutes to process a release. The clerk/admin can process 2 per hour--that's 25 hours per week they're paying a clerk to just do releases. That seems pretty crazy. I'm guessing that person has lots of other responsibilities they're struggling to cram into the other 15 hours each week.

But, I think the $25 fee cannot be justified by the costs. Using the same assumption above, the clerk/admin can process 2 per hour or $50 revenue per hour. I'm pretty sure they're not paying a clerk/admin anywhere close to that so the fee is too high.

debit wrote:

finish1 wrote:

Distributer wrote: I’m sure there is no correlation between increased roster sizes and releases

Exactly. Bigger rosters + less play time + more unhappy customers + more player movement + more fees.

More more more for less!

Debit, you're a cpa, what does this add up to?

Number 13, you're a whiz kid, what's a paying customer to do?

I would say it adds up to more credits than debits.

Seriously, I'm split on the issue. After the checks I've written for soccer over the past 3 weeks, another $25 seems like a drop in the bucket, but contrary to a previous poster, I think the fee is intended to serve as a bit of deterrent. How badly do you really want that release?

If you look at it from the NTSSA perspective that they processed 1300 releases in 6 months (26 weeks), that's 50 per week. I'm not sure I understand the amount of work involved to process a release. Let's say it takes 30 minutes to process a release. The clerk/admin can process 2 per hour--that's 25 hours per week they're paying a clerk to just do releases. That seems pretty crazy. I'm guessing that person has lots of other responsibilities they're struggling to cram into the other 15 hours each week.

But, I think the $25 fee cannot be justified by the costs. Using the same assumption above, the clerk/admin can process 2 per hour or $50 revenue per hour. I'm pretty sure they're not paying a clerk/admin anywhere close to that so the fee is too high.

That's the difference between financial accounting and managerial accounting. The reality is much worse. Remember, they were already handling 70% of the work based on fee collected for registration. They are purporting that the extra fee is necessary because the additional 30% of work necessitates extra capacity hence, they are charging $25 for all (100% of all releases). My math for 50% increase in volume is some where near the top of the original post, which I think is being generous, though not as generous as your calculation. Regardless, their explanation doesn't add up.

Does anyone know how many people work, are employed, by NTX soccer? Just curious, because I do not know.