--- title: "Sports Club Referral Program: Bring-a-Friend Rewards That Can't Be Gamed | SportyPlus" description: "How to set up a sports club referral program that rewards both the member and the friend they bring, with club credit instead of cash, clear rules about who counts as new, and a minimum booking that keeps the reward from being farmed." lang: "es" canonical: "https://www.sporty.plus/es/blog/sports-club-referral-program" --- 1. [Inicio](https://www.sporty.plus/es) 3. [Blog](https://www.sporty.plus/es/blog) 5. How to Run a Sports Club Referral Program That Rewards Members for Bringing Friends ![How to Run a Sports Club Referral Program That Rewards Members for Bringing Friends](https://www.sporty.plus/_og/r/blog/sports-club-referral-program.png) # How to Run a Sports Club Referral Program That Rewards Members for Bringing Friends How to set up a sports club referral program that rewards both the member and the friend they bring, with club credit instead of cash, clear rules about who counts as new, and a minimum booking that keeps the reward from being farmed. Most new players come to a club because someone they know already plays there. A **sports club referral program** turns that habit into something you can encourage and measure: a member shares a link, the friend joins and books, and both get something for it. The idea is simple. The details decide whether it works: what the reward is, who counts as a new player, when the reward is paid, and how you stop one member from collecting it again and again with accounts nobody uses. This guide goes through each of them. ## The problem: word of mouth you can't see Every club relies on recommendations, but most can't tell which members bring in new players or how many. A friend who turns up at the desk after hearing about the club from a member is usually recorded as just another new player. That has two consequences. The members who do the most to grow the club get nothing for it, so they have no particular reason to keep doing it. And the club can't tell whether a recommendation turned into a paying player or into someone who came once and never booked again. ## How clubs normally handle it The usual answer is an informal bring-a-friend offer: "Bring a friend and you both get a free hour." Someone at the desk keeps track in a notebook or a spreadsheet, or nobody keeps track at all. That works for a small club with one desk. It starts to fail when: - the friend signs up online and nobody at the desk ever hears who sent them - the reward is given before the friend has paid for anything, so a sign-up that never books still costs the club a free hour - an existing member who has played for years "is brought" by a friend to collect the reward - the same member creates a second account, refers themselves, and books the cheapest slot to unlock the reward None of these are rare. Once a reward has value, someone will try to collect it. ## Recommended approach ### Reward both sides, and in club credit Give the same reward to the member and to the friend. The member is thanked for spreading the word, and the friend gets an easy reason to come back after the first visit. Pay it as **club credit**, a balance the player can only spend at your club, not as cash or a discount on the card payment. Credit comes back to the club as bookings, and on courts that would otherwise stand empty its real cost is lower than its face value. It is the same reason many clubs refund cancellations to a [club wallet](https://www.sporty.plus/blog/automatic-refunds-court-bookings) rather than to the card. ### Decide who counts as new A referral should reward bringing someone in, not relabelling someone who already plays. A workable rule is that the friend counts as new if they have never paid for a booking at the club and joined the club recently, for example within the last 30 days. The window allows for the time between signing up and claiming, which can include waiting for the club to approve a new member. The code should also belong to an existing member of the club. Otherwise anyone can make up a referrer. ### Pay out only after a real booking Don't pay the reward when the friend signs up. Pay it when the friend has paid for a booking with real money: card, wallet balance they topped up, or cash at the desk. Free bookings and bookings covered by membership minutes shouldn't count, because nothing was paid for them. ### Set a minimum booking payment This is the rule most bring-a-friend offers miss. If any paid booking unlocks the reward, the cheapest slot does too, and a member can profit from fake accounts: - The reward is €5 for each side. - A fake account pays for a €3 booking. - The two wallets receive €10 between them, from a €3 payment. The fix is a minimum payment for the booking that unlocks the reward. The useful threshold is **twice the reward**. At that level, a fake account gets back no more credit than it paid, so there is nothing to gain from creating one. A genuine friend, who plays anyway, isn't held back by it either, as long as the reward is no more than half of what an ordinary booking costs. Then one normal booking reaches the minimum. ### Pay once, and keep the promise Each friend can be brought to a club once, by one member, and pays out once. If you change the reward or the minimum later, keep the terms a friend joined under: that is what they were promised when they clicked the link. ## Example _A hypothetical padel club with 6 courts, where a court costs €24 for 90 minutes and €16 off-peak._ The club sets a reward of €8 for each side and leaves the minimum at the default, twice the reward: €16. 1. Marta, a member, shares her link with a colleague, Luka. 2. Luka signs up through the link. His referral is recorded and waits for a paid booking. 3. Luka books an off-peak court with Marta and pays his €8 share by card. That is below the €16 minimum, so nothing pays out yet. 4. The next week Luka books a full €24 court on his own. Both wallets receive €8. 5. If another member later shares a link with Luka, his claim is refused: he has already been brought once, and he is no longer new to the club. 6. If Marta made up an account to claim her own link, that account would have to pay at least €16 for a booking before anything paid out, and the two wallets would get €16 back between them. She would gain nothing. The club has spent €16 in credit, which comes back as court time, on a player who has already paid €32 and has a reason to book again. ## How SportyPlus can help In SportyPlus, the referral program is switched on per club in the CMS, under **Settings → Payments → Bring a friend**. The club sets the **amount each side gets** and, optionally, the **minimum booking payment**. Left empty, the minimum is twice the amount. Both values are copied onto a referral when the friend claims it, so changing them later doesn't change what an existing referral pays. Members find **Bring a friend** in the member app's menu once the club has switched it on. There they see their code, a button to share their personal link, the friends they've brought and whether each has paid out. A friend who opens the link and signs up, in any way the club offers, has the code claimed for them automatically after signing in. The reward goes onto both [club wallets](https://www.sporty.plus/modules/finance) in the club's currency as soon as the friend's booking payment reaches the minimum. Card, wallet, cash and split payments all count for the friend's own share. SportyPlus applies the rules above for you: the code must belong to a member of the club, the friend must be new to it (no paid booking there yet, and on the member list for at most 30 days), each friend is brought once, and free bookings or membership minutes don't unlock anything. A booking refunded later doesn't take the reward back. ## Practical recommendations - Start with a reward that is easy to explain, for example the price of one off-peak hour, split as "you both get €X". - Keep the minimum at twice the reward unless you have a reason to change it. Lower it and the program can be farmed; raise it a lot and you put off genuine friends. - Tell members where to find their link. A [club newsletter](https://www.sporty.plus/blog/sports-club-mailing-list) or a [social media post](https://www.sporty.plus/blog/social-media-for-sports-clubs) announcing the program does more than the menu entry alone. - Mention the program at the moments members are happiest with the club: after a league final, at the end of a coaching block, in the booking confirmation. - Every few months, look at how many referrals paid out and how many are still waiting. Many waiting referrals usually mean friends sign up but don't book, and the first booking needs a nudge. ## Related questions **Should the referrer get more than the friend?** It can work either way, but equal rewards are the easiest to explain and to share: "we both get €8" needs no small print. **Why credit and not a free hour?** A free hour is hard to apply fairly across courts, times and sports. Credit works for any booking, and the player chooses when to use it. **Can a member bring friends to more than one club?** In SportyPlus a member has one code, and the link they share belongs to the club they are at. Each club runs its own program with its own amount, and the reward is paid in that club's wallet. **What if the friend books with the member who brought them?** That counts, as long as the friend pays their own share and it reaches the minimum. A booking paid entirely by the member doesn't, because the friend hasn't paid anything. ## Related SportyPlus guides - [How to Handle Refunds for Cancelled Court Bookings Automatically](https://www.sporty.plus/blog/automatic-refunds-court-bookings) explains how a club wallet works and why clubs keep credit at the club. - [How to Build a Sports Club Mailing List That Reaches Beyond Your Members](https://www.sporty.plus/blog/sports-club-mailing-list) covers reaching the friends and prospects who aren't members yet. - [Social Media for Sports Clubs: What to Post and How to Post It Everywhere at Once](https://www.sporty.plus/blog/social-media-for-sports-clubs) shows how to announce the program to followers. - [How to Manage Court Bookings Without Spreadsheets, Messages and Manual Work](https://www.sporty.plus/blog/court-booking-management) covers the booking side the reward depends on. --- **Turn recommendations into paying players.** SportyPlus runs bring-a-friend rewards on the same [court booking](https://www.sporty.plus/modules/court_booking) and [club wallet](https://www.sporty.plus/modules/finance) your members already use, so every referral is tracked from the shared link to the first paid booking. ## Guías de SportyPlus relacionadas - [How to Handle Refunds for Cancelled Court Bookings Automatically](https://www.sporty.plus/es/blog/automatic-refunds-court-bookings) A clear cancellation rule plus an automatic club wallet credit removes one repetitive task from every cancellation. - [How to Build a Sports Club Mailing List That Reaches Beyond Your Members](https://www.sporty.plus/es/blog/sports-club-mailing-list) Your member list is not your audience. The parents, the trial players and last summer's camp all want to hear from you, and none of them are members yet. - [Social Media for Sports Clubs: What to Post and How to Post It Everywhere at Once](https://www.sporty.plus/es/blog/social-media-for-sports-clubs) Most clubs end up with a Facebook Page, an Instagram account and a members' chat group. The hard part is not the content — it is posting the same thing everywhere. - [How to Manage Court Bookings Without Spreadsheets, Messages and Manual Work](https://www.sporty.plus/es/blog/court-booking-management) A complete guide to replacing spreadsheets, WhatsApp groups and manual scheduling with booking rules the system enforces on its own.