Triple Crown Sports


Event Type: Sport: State:

Triple Crown Franchise Opportunities

Effective November 2008, TCS presently has a moratorium on franchise sales. We are not soliciting for sale any territory at this time.

After years of organizing successful grassroots sports tournaments throughout the world, Triple Crown Sports is now making its National Series of sports tournaments available to individuals who will own and operate the local sporting events as a franchisee. A franchise owner will be able to take advantage of Triple Crown Sports many years of event experience along with their highly recognized and respected brand name to become established in the sports tournament business. Franchise territories are available throughout the U.S. for the sports of baseball, fastpitch, basketball (2009) and softball.

Because the sporting industry is one of the most difficult areas to gain employment, amateur grassroots sports franchising is a unique opportunity for an individual to work in the exciting sports tournament business. Now a person can be involved in this business by owning the rights to run local sports tournaments in a protected territory under the Triple Crown Sports name.

History

In 1982 Dave and Annette King ran the first event, a softball tournament that led to the founding of Triple Crown Sports. They wanted to develop a weekend tournament for the serious amateur athlete.

Their concept was to establish three tournaments in a geographic area where top performers would qualify for a championship in Las Vegas. The company name - Triple Crown Sports - was derived from this three tournament idea. The first year of a softball series in western Colorado was 1983. A national rollout of softball occurred in 1988. Triple Crown Sports also sets up and operates events from its corporate headquarters in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The Sports Industry

The sports events and marketing industry is growing. Sports sponsorships have experienced double digit growth. Team participation is exploding, particularly in the highly populated youth market. This age group is seeing tremendous growth in teams and clubs that wish to play more games in different locations against different quality competition. Our culture has a tremendous tie to sports. People develop a personal identity with a sport; being in such a group fulfills a strong social need.
Participating in sports provides a much needed stress outlet for people in our overworked society.

Across the nation, millions of people participate in local sporting events and tournaments every day. Each event is different in size and scale, implementation, professionalism and sponsorship. Impacting this hard-to-reach market with predictable, consistent events requires a sophisticated, dedicated network of event
coordinators. Triple Crown Sports has built such a network, one piece at a time. We produce proven, reliable, consistent events worldwide.

The most important aspect of grassroots sports is the athlete. Athletes participate because they want to be there. It is who they are. Triple Crown Sports caters to these consumers with professionally produced sporting events right in their own backyards.

The Triple Crown Name

Triple Crown Sports is a premier grassroots sport event marketing organization. It is a highly respected and established brand name that is associated with top quality and competitive tournaments. The company has produced over 2,000 sporting events in all 50 states and seven foreign countries. These events have culminated in over 100 National Championships. Triple Crown tournaments have drawn as many as 500,000 or more participants and 1.5 million spectators in a single year. We built the weekend sports business in the U.S.

Tournament Business

Running sporting events is unique in many ways. This business
allows for a great deal of flexibility in its operation. There are no set hours such as in the retail industry. Events are run on the weekends that you choose. As a great home-based business, overhead is low and you decide days and hours of operation. During the events you would operate your tournament from your merchandise trailer.

The tournament business involves specific activities at various times of the year. In the off-season you would set sites by contracting with facilities/venues, scheduling officials and selling corporate sponsorships. The preseason is dedicated to recruiting teams through telemarketing and direct mail campaigns. Once the season starts, you would be involved in the execution of your events.

Triple Crown Concept

As a Triple Crown Sports franchisee, you will own and operate a series of local tournaments in select sports. All your events would operate under the Triple Crown Sports name. Your participants would qualify through various forms of participation for Triple Crown regional, national and world championship events, providing increased value to teams playing in your events.

As a franchise business, you would generate revenue from team entry fees, corporate sponsorships, merchandise sales and commissions from having your teams attend the Triple Crown Championships. With the exclusive rights to a sport in a territory, you would grow your business by developing new tournaments. If there are existing events for that sport in your territory, you would take over and grow those tournaments as well.

Territories

Triple Crown Sports has established 200 franchise-protected territories throughout the United States. A person is protected from having any other franchisee run a tournament in their sport or sports in their territory. These boundaries are drawn along county lines with populations for the territories varying considerably. Depending upon your interests and business goals a person can own one sport in one territory, multiple sports in one territory, or one sport in multiple territories. (Call 970-672-0543 for information on territories). The minimum recommendation for full time would be one sport in one territory. This would be dependent on the specific territories under consideration.

Sports

Within Triple Crown there are many different sports franchises to consider along with various types of events within each individual sport. Currently, the sports being franchised are: baseball, fastpitch, and youth basketball (2010 or 2011).

Championships

Triple Crown offers the teams in your area a chance to play in a variety of "dream-come-true" destination championships when they participate at your local event. The tie to a nationally recognized and respected championship tournament is one thing that will differentiate your events from other local events in your territory. These events become vacations as well as championships for your customers. Currently championships are run in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for baseball; Denver, Colorado for 16u/18u baseball and fastpitch; St. Augustine, Florida for baseball; Las Vegas, Nevada, for baseball and fastpitch; Phoenix, Arizona for baseball, and Park City, Utah for fastpitch.

Support

Triple Crown will provide extensive startup and ongoing training for franchisees. The initial six months training in Fort Collins, Colorado, will be a detailed event business school. Focus will be on the franchisee building an actual business plan for their territory and sports. Sessions will address business operations, event
management, sponsorship sales, team marketing and merchandising. Detailed manuals will also be provided addressing all these topics.

A new franchisee will also receive the assistance of an experienced Triple Crown staff person to work with them on site the week of their first event.

On an annual basis, a training session will be held to address new event products and methodology. This will also be a great opportunity to network with other franchisees to learn from their experiences.

A sport specialist will always be available for franchisees to call for guidance with sponsorship sales issues, facility negotiations, team marketing, event execution
and business operations.

Market Research

You will have access to past and future player survey research information that focuses on event preferences and product usage. This is a proprietary tool for building events that meet the needs of the market and sponsor. As a franchisee, you will be able to clearly sell more sponsorships, increase team attendance and improve retail product sales from your trailer as a result of having used of this important information.

Existing Databases and Contacts

In markets where Triple Crown Sports has run events for a particular sport, a franchisee will be provided with team databases for customers and sponsors as well as contacts for umpires, game officials and facilities.

Merchandise & Group Purchasing

Each franchisee will purchase and operate a specialized trailer that acts as an event retail store. (Leasing is available and required after reaching a 300 team minimum market.) This trailer is specially designed to display and sell a sponsor's products and Triple Crown's full line of event apparel and souvenirs with logos. This provides additional revenue for a franchisee and set your
events apart in venue presentation from any other local event.

As a result of Triple Crown's volume purchases and sponsorship agreements, a franchisee will be provided with a group purchasing price for all awards, souvenirs and equipment. This will aid in cost control as well as increase profit margins for merchandise sales.

Profile of a Successful Franchisee

We are looking for full time individuals who want to be involved in the sports industry and share our mission of providing the best quality grassroots sporting events in the business: people with a high degree of integrity who want to become a business partner in the sports event business.

Next Step

1. Contact Triple Crown Sports for a franchise information packet and application form at:

2. Complete and return application.

3. If possible, visit and work a Triple Crown Sports tournament in your area.

4. Schedule a visit to Colorado to discuss your plans and the tournament business opportunity.

5. Colorado visit will help prospective owner determine if the Triple Crown Sports business is a fit for their business goal.