Having a website is super important for getting the word out about your sports organization—whether it’s to parents, players, coaches, or even potential sponsors in the community. It’s also a great way to help you communicate with your audience, manage registrations, collect payments, fundraise, and recruit volunteers.
Sports volunteers who want to create a website for their team often have many questions: Should I hire a design agency? What kind of content do I need? What font and typography should I use?
But the most important question of all is: How can I stand out?
What makes a high-quality sports league website?
It’s easy to set up a basic sports league website using mass-market website builders. But creating a sports website that performs well, looks great, and has the features sports leagues actually need is a bit harder to do.
Let’s look at a few factors that will make your sports league website stand out!
Easy navigation and fast performance
Great sports league websites are intuitive and easy to use. Your parents, coaches, volunteers, and players should never be confused about how to find what they need — which means menus need to be clear, readable, and logically laid out. Visitors should be able to find schedules, registration forms, and time-sensitive updates within just a few clicks.
Performance is another important part of ease of use. If site visitors are sitting around waiting for their page or resource to load, they may give up or stop waiting. Fast load times create a better, smoother experience that helps users find what they need faster and stay engaged with their league or team.
Engaging and up-to-date content
Great sports league websites keep things fresh even during the offseason! Keep your website updated throughout the year with news, event details, game highlights, and anything else you’ve got that users would need to know or want to see.
This is a great way to keep your audience engaged in season and out.
📷 Bonus tip: The more visuals, the better! Include photos and videos in your content and posts so you can build more excitement and community involvement.
Revenue-generating features
Regardless of whether your team or league is a nonprofit, you need a way to collect money. Online player registration, ecommerce merchandise sales (including uniforms), donations, and sponsorships are a few ways that money flows into your organization — and a high-quality sports website should support this by enabling users to pay and donate online.
By setting up seamless online payment options, you’ll make life easier for both your audience and your organization. Taking the pain out of payments will make your users happier, and bringing in more money helps keep your organization going strong!
Best youth sports website design examples
If you’re looking to create a new website for your youth sports organization, don’t start from scratch! It’s OK to borrow ideas from well-designed websites and make them your own.
We’ve highlighted seven youth sports websites that do a great job in terms of design and function. Explore these awesome examples to get design inspiration for your own!
1. Kings Youth Football
Kings Youth Football is a community football program that has teams in grades K-6. The organization uses its website to promote its teams throughout the year, manage registration and payments, and communicate with families.
Kings Youth Football is a great example because it uses high-quality images to build credibility, provides intuitive links for parents and coaches to get the information they need, and lists team staff which is important for building credibility and trust.
We also love that the site includes a prominent link to registration at the top of the website so visitors can't miss it!
A sweet bonus: the Kings Youth Football website also includes links to the league website so visitors can easily find standings and scores.
🧠 Learn More: The Best Sports Website Themes
2. North Bitterroot Little League
North Bitterroot Little League uses images on its website to promote essential information regarding season schedules, apparel purchases, and fundraisers for their season. All these links live right in the header for easy accessibility for visitors.
The league also has prominent links with field locations and FAQs, including age charts, so parents can find helpful information without contacting the organization directly.
3. Moore Wrestling
Moore Wrestling is a wrestling program established in 1971 that caters to athletes from kindergarten to high school.
Their website splits information into age groups to help participants easily find information applicable to their age group. Their homepage is updated often, with timely announcements posted about weekly meetings and practice.
There’s also a Community tab with helpful pages for parents, their Booster Club, fundraisers, and sponsors. Plus they provide easy-to-find information for their off-season camps.
4. SKILLS Basketball
SKILLS Basketball has been providing summer basketball camp opportunities for almost thirty years. They list the history of their organization on their website so parents can learn more before signing up their kids.
An online registration portal linked within their top navigation makes it easy to sign up for camps at numerous locations around Michigan. Other information is clearly organized using tabs that direct different audiences to the resources they need.
Parents and players will find everything they need under Camp Information, while information for and about directors and coaches is all organized on a separate tab.
Videos from past camps are also embedded on the website for potential players to learn more about the camp experience.
5. Cherokee Crush
Cherokee Crush is a fastpitch softball program founded in 2022. We love the way this program uses a subtitle to clarify exactly who they are and why parents and players should consider them: “North GA’s fastest growing girls fastpitch program.”
There’s plenty of information here on both the program’s founders and its current coaches which builds confidence and interest among prospective players and parents.
Their website contains a Support Us dropdown which showcases three pages. You can view current sponsors, learn about the available sponsorship tiers, and make a donation. Social media accounts are also attached to the website so fans can follow the team on different social media sites.
The site also includes a media carousel that rotates through recent pictures showcasing their players and achievements.
6. Fentress County Soccer Club
Fentress County Soccer Club is a recreational youth soccer program serving a county in Tennessee. This volunteer-led nonprofit organization focuses on inclusive, enjoyable, high-quality soccer recreational soccer development..
The club’s website is effective thanks to a clear layout and consistent color scheme, with modules for both announcements (such as schedule and information updates or canceled practices) and upcoming events.
A prominent banner at the top of the site invites viewers to become annual club sponsors, and this space can be reused for other purposes throughout the year.
FCSC does a great job of maintaining documentation as well, including schedules, announcements, bylaws, and even board meeting minutes.
7. Bells Youth Sports
Community-based Bells Youth Sports is a multi-sport organization (baseball, softball, football, cheerleading) located in north-central Texas. It can be a challenge to cover multiple sports on one site, but BYS does this well by organizing all information under separate drop-down menu tabs for each sport.
The sports organization also uses its website to allow users to subscribe to email and text message updates.. A prominent call-to-action widget on the home page invites visitors to make one-time donations with ease.
Best professional sports website examples
While your youth sports website is operating with a slightly smaller budget than the global brands and franchises below, you can still get great insights from what the pros do!
8. Manchester United
Manchester United is one of the most recognized football clubs in the world. Their website immediately builds credibility by recognizing the club’s long and accomplished history.
Fans can also watch video highlights and interviews, and check out player profiles. Sponsors of the club are also prominently displayed at the top of the website.
The club also makes it super easy for fans to purchase apparel or buy tickets to upcoming matches.
9. Cincinnati Reds
The Cincinnati Reds post video recaps of every game on their website that fans can watch. Social media accounts are also embedded on the website with the latest highlights from games.
The Reds are also the oldest professional baseball team, and they emphasize the club's history on their website. Fans can learn more about the team's 5 World Series Championships and 9 National League Championships.
10. Nike
Nike is one of the most recognized brands in sports. But their website is more than just a typical online store. Visitors can customize shoes, other sports equipment, and apparel directly on the website.
Nike also shares podcast episodes, video stories, and interviews with athletes and coaches athletes to reach new heights.
11. Dallas Cowboys
Whether you love ‘em, or love to hate ‘em, the Dallas Cowboys have an awesome website.
The website highlights the latest news about the sports brand, even during the offseason. Fans can also view multimedia, including practice recaps, player interviews, and community events.
The Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium is one of the most famous sports venues. One excellent design element is that fans can virtual tour the stadium and select tickets to future games.
Best practices for youth sports web design
Whether you’re building a new sports site from scratch or considering an in-depth redesign, these best practices will help you design and build a user-friendly sports website that looks great and functions even better.
Organize your website so important information easy to find
Usability is key to a good website experience. When people visit your site, they should be able to find what they're looking for easily, without getting confused or having to dig through disorganized menus.
Here are a few tips for a clean page design:
- Simplicity - Organize the pages on your website so everything is easy to find with just a few clicks.
- Seasonality – Focus on what’s important throughout the year. Before the season, put your online registration front and center. During the season, post schedules so parents and players can easily find important information. In the offseason, post all the details for your next season, and only other offseason events.
- Consistent Updates - Update your website at least once weekly during your season and once monthly during your offseason.
- Images and videos - People want to see more than just all text on your site. Add images, videos, and links to your social media channels throughout your website. You can also add photo albums from previous seasons or events if you don't have much content yet.
Pro tip: One easy way to keep your website organized is with an all-in-one sports management tool that includes a team website builder, like Jersey Watch!
Build credibility when visitors land on your website
Your youth sports website may be the first engagement people have with your organization, so it’s essential to make a good first impression that lasts. Users only spend an average of 10-20 seconds on a webpage before deciding if they want to continue, so quickly establishing credibility is crucial.
How? You can start by creating an “About Us” page. Briefly outline some information about your organization. This includes your history, mission statement, values, board members, and coaching profiles.
Provide an email address for your organization and respond to questions so that community members know you’re easy to reach. You can even provide different email addresses for each board member so that parents or coaches can reach out to the right person with specific questions.
Optimize your sports website for mobile
More web traffic comes from mobile devices than from traditional computers — these days, roughly 2/3 of all web traffic is mobile. But some websites don’t display correctly on mobile devices, and some are barely functional (look out for broken menus, links that can’t be tapped, etc.).
Make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices so that it loads responsively, adapting to whatever size of screen or window it’s in.
Grow your organization with online registration
When you manage a sports organization, a critical function in the offseason is registering new players. But complicated player registration processes can prevent parents from following through and signing their kids up. Parents shouldn't have a stack of paperwork to fill out before their child joins a sports team.
Instead, keep it simple by using an online registration system.
Ask a few basic questions like player name, jersey size, and current school. You could also ask if parents want to volunteer and provide them with multiple areas of interest options. With a simple registration form, you can easily turn interested parents into new members!
Save time with the fastest website builder made for sports
A well-designed youth sports website is a crucial tool for connecting with parents and players. With a powerful website for your team or organization, you can more easily share information, build trust, collect payments, and sign up new players and volunteers.
But to do this well, you’ll need the right website builder — one that was built for sports organizations like yours.
At Jersey Watch, we want to simplify what’s already on your plate by making it easier to create powerful sports websites. Our website builder can help do the heavy lifting so that you can focus where it matters: managing your league or teams.
Try Jersey Watch free: create your free account
Sports website FAQ
How to create a sports website?
To create a sports website you should find a website builder that is fast and easy to use. Building a website should take no more than 30 minutes, and maintaining up-to-date content should just take a few minutes per week.
Most modern website builders don’t require experience or tech skills. A lot of them include sports website templates so you don’t have to do any heavy lifting - you just fill in content and launch.
How much does it cost to make a sports website?
Most modern website builders will cost between $20 and $100 per month, depending on the features you need and your organization's size. When you research website builders, find a system with transparent and simple pricing and no contracts.
Jersey Watch offers transparent pricing: you pay just $29, $49, or $89 per month (when paid annually) depending on the number of text messages and emails you need to send each month.
What is the best software for creating a sports website?
There are many popular software platforms and apps to run a sports organization. You can start by researching different solutions online.
When you build a website, it’s important to find a system that is fast and easy-to-use so that you can keep your content updated, and you can share responsibility with other board members and coaches without having to train them on building a website.
To learn more about the best sports software, read The Best Sports Team Management Software.
What are the latest trends in sports website design?
Sports websites are growing more immersive, with eye-catching photo and video content and even interactive media. Mobile-first or responsive design is extremely popular as well.
What role does SEO play in sports website design?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for sports websites: it helps internet users find your site when searching on Google, Bing, and elsewhere by improving how high up in search results your site and pages appear. Popular tactics include refining keyword usage, optimizing for mobile and local search, and enhancing page speed.
