www.grandslamtournaments.com
Grand Slam Tournaments, an event owner and operator of youth travel baseball tournaments, has been a member of the sports marketplace for nearly two decades, putting on an array of competitions and having been named one of Sports Destination Management’s Champions of Economic Impact in Sports Tourism on several occasions.
SDM sat down with Larry Thompson, owner and CEO of the popular organization, to learn more.
Sports Destination Management: How did you get started in the business?
Larry Thompson: It’s a funny thing: about 24 years ago, my son, who was ten at the time, was playing in a tournament and I thought it would be really cool to do this. I started keeping a notebook of every travel tournament I went to, listing the good and bad things. I had no idea at 
the time that I’d be doing this today.
SDM: When did you put on that first event?
Thompson: In October of 2004, and the rest is history. Here we are in year 21. We are running over 350 tournaments each year that serve over 4,000 teams.
SDM: What age groups do you serve?
Thompson: The bulk of what we do is 7U through 14U, but we also have tournaments for 15U, 16U, 17U and 18U teams.
SDM: What do you think is the most important factor in your success?
Thompson: The entire reason we have grown is that we have a lot of wonderful people who understand our emphasis is on the kids. Grand Slam is a family and we treat people like they are family. I’ve always said if you treat people right, they will continue to support you by telling others about your events even after their kids have cycled out.
SDM: What is your staff like?
Thompson: One of the things I am most proud of is I can count on one hand the number of directors that have left our organization to go to another group. They stay with us because we treat them well, just as we treat our teams well. Our staff is like family.
SDM: What sort of trends have you noticed?
Thompson: The state tournaments that we run are big deals; people really look forward to them. For example, most of our State Championship events will have 200-plus teams. We’ve learned that sometimes, splitting state tournaments into two different weekends is the best idea so that every team can get the best tournament experience possible.
SDM: Switching gears very quickly, how difficult is it to recruit umpires?
Thompson: It’s definitely a challenge. Fortunately, we have two individuals who have been working with us for 20 years. We have folded them into our family over the years and they do an exceptional job of recruiting and training umpires.
One thing you need to remember is that as time goes by, these umpires age out and you need to keep recruiting new ones in order to make your tournaments sustainable. We have made a conscious effort to recruit kids from college who have the expertise and the willingness to do this. It’s tough sometimes because umpires in today’s game take a lot of verbal abuse from fans and coaches, which is one of the downsides to the travel tournament scene.
SDM: What advice would you give to other potential event owners?
Thompson: I would tell them you need to know your area, know the socioeconomics of it, understand the teams you want to attract, know what people will be available to help you fulfill your goals, etc. You need to do what you feel is best for your area but you also need to provide a quality experience for the kids. Every area/state is different and thus there is not a cookie cutter model that will work for everyone. SDM
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