Baseball Victoria Is Backing Every Club Through the Off-Season

Baseball in Victoria runs on volunteers. The competition, the training, the umpiring, the scoring, the canteen on a Saturday morning, the committee meeting on a Tuesday night — almost none of it happens without someone giving up an evening they’re not paid for. The job of Baseball Victoria, the state governing body, is to back those volunteers. And it does that across its summer clubs, its seven winter associations, its state representative and umpire and coaching programs, and the line that runs upward to Baseball Australia at the national level.

In February 2026, BV signed a partnership with us at TidyHQ. Every affiliated club and association gets free access to the platform for the next 19 months, with a four-week onboarding bootcamp run by our team. I want to explain what that partnership is actually for — because the interesting part isn’t the software. It’s the work the software is meant to carry, and where that work currently gets lost.

The season nobody photographs

There are two seasons in any sport. There’s the one everybody sees — fixtures, finals, championships, state selections, kids in dirty uniforms. And there’s the off-field season, which runs in parallel and never really stops. Nobody photographs that one.

Off-field is where a new child safety coordinator gets nominated, trained and given a real seat at the committee table. Where National Integrity Framework training gets completed and recorded. Where policies get audited and handed to the next set of volunteers. Where the women’s pathway gets planned, the grant application gets written and acquitted, the long-serving volunteer finally gets recognised, and the member satisfaction survey gets answered. It’s unglamorous, it’s relentless, and it’s where every governing body’s strategy is actually delivered or quietly dropped.

It’s also where the work most often goes missing — and the reason is structural. Club committees turn over. At a lot of clubs, every 18 to 24 months; at some, every year. When a committee changes, the memory of what the state body asked for, what the club already did, and what’s still outstanding tends to walk out the door with the outgoing secretary. The state body sends a newsletter. The new secretary inherits an empty inbox and a calendar invite nobody remembers setting. A compliance task that was almost finished restarts from zero. The relationship with BV’s staff has to be rebuilt from scratch.

You can’t fix that with better newsletters. Scott McNaughton, BV’s General Manager of Operations, put the problem more plainly than I could:

“Our clubs are run by volunteers who are doing more every year. Compliance, communication, committee turnover — it’s relentless, and we lose institutional knowledge every time a committee changes over. The TidyHQ partnership gives every affiliated club a tool that holds the work in one place, regardless of who’s in the role next season.”

What the 2023–2026 plan actually asks of clubs

Most strategic plans are filed and forgotten. BV’s 2023–2026 strategic plan is unusual in how specific it is about what has to happen at the club level. It has four pillars, and read closely, each one is a list of jobs for volunteer committees.

Grow People, Participation and Community. New senior, junior and women’s competition structures. Women’s pathway opportunities. Growth in registered volunteers, umpires, scorers and coaches. Clubs feed every one of those numbers.

Provide Leadership. Member Protection Information Officers appointed. National Integrity Framework training done. Policies kept current and handed on. The plan commits BV to “assist clubs by sharing best practice governance guidelines, measuring their performance, and working with clubs to address areas for improvement” — which only works if there’s somewhere for that shared work to live. The headline target sits here too: lifting club child safety coordinators from three to 87. Every club, with a trained, accountable person in the role.

Facilitate Exceptional Experiences. Clubs feeding into BV’s events and pathways, running inclusive competition for all ages, and recognising standout clubs and long-serving volunteers.

Develop Sustainability and Capacity. This is the one that names the gap directly. The plan commits BV to “foster an integrated technology ecosystem to provide ongoing two-way communication to clubs and members,” and to give clubs the resources and accreditation guidelines to “deliver high quality training for club administrators, officials, coaches, and volunteers.”

That’s a lot to ask of any volunteer committee. It’s a great deal more to ask of a federation of 80-plus committees with different sizes, budgets and digital maturity, spread from metro Melbourne to regional Victoria. As Scott framed it:

“Our 2023–2026 plan set targets we have to hit at the club level — lifting child safety coordinators from three to 87, modernising how volunteers work, improving off-season communication. Those targets don’t move unless clubs have tools that match the ask.”

Why the existing stack doesn’t close it

Baseball, like most well-run sports, already has a good off-the-shelf stack — and none of it is the problem the partnership solves.

Competitions and registrations run on GameDay (the Stack Sports platform, formerly SportsTG Passport), which Baseball Australia rolled out nationally from 2023. Digital scoring runs on GameChanger (owned by DICK’S Sporting Goods). Coach accreditation runs through Canopi, which BV uses to manage Baseball Australia’s coaching pathway via the USA Baseball certification courses. Each of those does its job well.

None of them was built for the off-field work between the state body and the clubs — the shared projects, the role-based compliance, the two-way communication that doesn’t belong inside a registration system or a scoring app. That’s a real gap in every federated sport, and it’s the gap this partnership is pointed at.

What the partnership includes

The agreement runs from 1 March 2026 through 30 September 2027 — 19 months — with the option to extend a further year. Under it, BV staff, all 52 summer clubs and the seven winter associations get free, full access to TidyHQ for the term. Our team runs a four-week virtual onboarding bootcamp, starting with summer clubs ahead of the 2026/27 season; winter associations follow mid-year. It’s structured as a partnership, not a paid procurement, and it was endorsed by BV’s CEO Chet Gray and signed by Scott McNaughton.

Underneath, here’s what the platform actually does for this kind of structure:

Compliance and tasks live at the role, not the person. When a club’s child safety coordinator changes, the next person inherits the role with its work history and outstanding obligations attached. BV can see, across the federation, which clubs have met which requirements and which haven’t — without chasing 80 inboxes one at a time.

Communication flows both ways. BV can broadcast updates and see whether they actually reached the people they were meant to reach. Clubs can raise issues back to BV without having to work out who the right contact is this season.

Shared work has a home. Policy audits, satisfaction surveys, volunteer-of-the-year nominations, grant coordination, the memorandum of understanding BV is formalising with Baseball Australia — all the work that has to happen between BV and its clubs but fits in none of the existing systems.

One boundary matters, and we’re deliberate about it: BV sees the federation layer — task and compliance status across the network. It does not get the keys to each club’s books. Member records, payments and internal club communications stay with the club, on the club’s own TidyHQ account. The state body coordinates the shared work, through the TidyConnect federation tier, without ever reaching into a club’s private data. Clubs keep running their own house.

What this partnership isn’t

It isn’t a replacement for the systems baseball already runs on. Competitions stay in GameDay. Scoring stays in GameChanger. Coach education stays in Canopi. TidyHQ adds the layer underneath, for work those tools were never trying to do. Here’s how I put it when we announced it:

“Baseball Victoria runs the kind of structure TidyHQ was built for — a state body, summer clubs, winter associations, all keeping their own books. We’re not replacing the tools clubs use to run competitions or coach education. We’re adding the layer underneath, so the state body and its clubs can talk to each other and track shared work without losing the thread every time a committee changes.”

And it isn’t a mandate. No club is being told it has to use TidyHQ. They’re being handed free access because BV decided the off-field work matters too much to be blocked by what a single committee’s budget allows in a given year. How each club uses it is the club’s call. Any data that moves in from an existing system is the club’s decision too — never the state body’s.

The national layer

A real share of what BV asks of its clubs flows upward to Baseball Australia. National Integrity Framework compliance — a framework developed by Sport Integrity Australia and adopted by Baseball Australia, whose Child Safe practices reflect the National Principles that came out of the Royal Commission. Membership data. Performance pathway data. The MoU BV is formalising with Baseball Australia covers membership, performance pathway, participation and officiating — all of which depend on consistent, accurate, timely data coming up from clubs through the state body.

When the off-field work happens consistently at club level, BV can report up cleanly. When it doesn’t, BV ends up hand-aggregating data from 80-plus clubs on different timelines and in different formats, with gaps it has to chase and fill. That’s real volunteer and staff hours, and real risk: a compliance miss at the club level can become one at the state level, and a state-level miss can become a problem for baseball as a national sport.

It’s worth saying that the wider sector has been building tools for exactly this capability gap. The Australian Sports Commission runs Game Plan, a free governance self-assessment tool now used by 7,000-plus clubs and more than 100 national sporting organisations — clubs can pair what they learn there with somewhere to actually do the resulting work. The federation-layer effort isn’t only for BV’s benefit. It’s part of how baseball in Australia holds itself accountable, and part of a national push toward more capable, better-governed community clubs.

That’s why this matters beyond Victoria. If the model works here, it’s a model that travels — to the other state baseball bodies, and potentially to other federated sports living with the same off-field gap.

What we’re watching for

I’d rather tell you what we’re measuring than pretend we already know how it lands. BV and TidyHQ have agreed to review at six months and again at the end of term, with a three-month checkpoint in July 2026. Three things in particular:

Adoption. The share of BV’s clubs and associations actively using the platform within six months of go-live. Our working assumption is 60% or higher. If it lands meaningfully under that, we’ll publish what we learned about why.

Compliance lift. Whether the platform helps BV move toward its 87-child-safety-coordinator target faster than it could without one. It’s the highest-stakes number in the plan, and the one where a federation-layer tool should make the most visible difference.

Communication reach. Whether read tracking and shared task management lifts the share of club committees that actually engage with state-body updates — especially over the off-season, when communication usually drops away.

If those three move in the right direction, we’ll know we’ve built something baseball genuinely needs. If they don’t, we’ll know where the model breaks. Either way, we’ll publish what we find.

If you work at another state or national sporting body in Australia — bat-and-ball or otherwise — and the off-field gap in this piece sounds like your organisation, I’d welcome a conversation. Not a pitch. A conversation about whether your structure looks like Baseball Victoria’s, where it doesn’t, and what would actually make a difference in your context.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Baseball Victoria and TidyHQ partnership?

In February 2026, Baseball Victoria signed a partnership with the Australian software company TidyHQ that gives every affiliated club and association free access to the TidyHQ platform for 19 months — from 1 March 2026 through 30 September 2027, with an option to extend a further year — plus a four-week virtual onboarding bootcamp run by the TidyHQ team. It’s structured as a partnership rather than a paid procurement, and was endorsed by BV CEO Chet Gray and signed by GM Operations Scott McNaughton.

What does the partnership cost Baseball Victoria’s clubs?

Nothing. The platform is free for Baseball Victoria and every affiliated club and association for the term of the agreement.

Does TidyHQ replace GameDay, GameChanger or Canopi?

No. GameDay (the Stack Sports platform, formerly SportsTG Passport) continues to handle registrations and competitions. GameChanger continues to handle digital scoring. Canopi continues to handle coach accreditation. TidyHQ adds the off-field layer underneath — the administrative, compliance and communication work between Baseball Victoria and its clubs that those systems were not designed for.

What is Baseball Victoria’s 2023–2026 strategic plan?

It’s a four-pillar plan covering people and participation, leadership and governance, exceptional experiences, and sustainability and capacity. Club-level targets include lifting child safety coordinators from three to 87, growing volunteers, umpires and participation, and — under the sustainability pillar — fostering “an integrated technology ecosystem to provide ongoing two-way communication to clubs and members.” The full plan is published on the Baseball Victoria website.

How does Baseball Australia work with state bodies like Baseball Victoria?

Baseball Australia is the national governing body. State bodies like Baseball Victoria operate at the state level and report into Baseball Australia on matters including national pathways, integrity-framework compliance, membership data and performance-pathway outcomes. BV’s 2023–2026 plan includes formalising a memorandum of understanding with Baseball Australia across membership, performance pathway, participation and officiating.

What is the National Integrity Framework, and who runs it?

The National Integrity Framework is a suite of integrity and safeguarding policies developed by Sport Integrity Australia and adopted by national sporting organisations, including Baseball Australia. Its Safeguarding Children and Young People policy reflects the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations. Member clubs complete the relevant training and appoint Member Protection Information Officers and child safety coordinators.

When does onboarding begin?

Onboarding begins in April 2026 for summer clubs, ahead of the 2026/27 season, with winter associations following mid-2026. A three-month checkpoint is set for July 2026 to review early adoption. Specific timing for each club is coordinated by Baseball Victoria.

What is TidyConnect?

TidyConnect is the federation tier of TidyHQ, built for the state and national bodies that coordinate networks of affiliated clubs. It lets a governing body run shared projects, assign role-based tasks, broadcast announcements with read tracking, and track compliance across its affiliates — while each club keeps its own member records, payments and communications private on its own account, and without replacing the sport-specific systems clubs already use.

If you work at a state or national sporting body in Australia and the off-field gap described here sounds familiar, get in touch. We’re not pitching — we want to compare notes.