How to Set Up Online Registration for Your Sports League

If you're still collecting registrations through Google Forms, email, or paper sign-ups, you're spending hours on work that should take minutes. Online registration isn't just convenient — it eliminates the back-and-forth of chasing forms, tracking payments, and manually building rosters.

What You Need in a Registration System

Before you pick a tool, here's what a good registration system should handle:

Custom forms — Every sport is different. Baseball needs jersey sizes and batting preferences. Soccer needs position and skill level. Your registration form should match your sport.

Payment collection — Parents and players should be able to pay registration fees at the time of sign-up. No more Venmo requests or check-chasing.

Digital signatures — Liability waivers, medical consent, photo release, and code of conduct agreements should all be signable online.

Document uploads — Birth certificates, insurance cards, or medical forms that need to be on file.

Approval workflow — Coaches or admins should be able to review and approve registrations before they're finalized.

Setting Up Registration with Sideline

Here's how to go from zero to accepting registrations in about 10 minutes:

Step 1: Create your organization — Sign up at trysideline.com/get-started. Pick your sport, choose your subdomain (like westside-baseball.trysideline.com), and you're live.

Step 2: Create teams — Add your teams with names, age groups, and any other details. Each team gets its own registration link.

Step 3: Configure your registration form — Sideline auto-generates sport-specific fields (e.g., positions for baseball, jersey sizes for basketball). You can add, remove, or reorder fields from your admin settings.

Step 4: Connect Stripe — This is how you collect payments. Takes about 5 minutes to set up. Payments go directly to your bank account.

Step 5: Share registration links — Each team has a unique URL. Share it via email, text, social media, or your website. Parents click the link, fill out the form, pay, and submit.

What Happens After Registration

Once a registration comes in:

1. Coaches get notified and can review the submission from their dashboard
2. The player appears on the team roster immediately upon approval
3. Payment is processed through Stripe and deposited to your account
4. Parents receive a confirmation email
5. All data — forms, payments, waivers — is stored in one place

No more spreadsheets. No more email chains. No more lost checks.

Getting Started

Sideline's Starter plan is free — 3 teams, 75 players, full registration and payment processing. No credit card needed. You can be accepting registrations today.

Create your organization at trysideline.com/get-started.