You Use a Housing Company. We Get It — We Were One.

March 26, 2026 · youth sports

We ran this model for 25 years. It was a great business. But the technology has outgrown it.

We ran this model for 25 years. It was a great business. But the technology has outgrown it.

We're not going to pretend we're outsiders throwing rocks at housing companies. Stayker spent 25 years in hotel distribution — sourcing blocks, negotiating rates, managing pickup, processing commissions, delivering reports. We know this business because we built it. For a long time, it was the best available model for getting heads in beds at events.

It's not anymore.

The housing company model was built for a world where the only way to guarantee hotel rooms was to contract a block months in advance and manage it manually. That made sense before live inventory APIs, before real-time booking platforms, before it became possible to track every room night an event generates regardless of where the family books.

Technology caught up. The model hasn't.

That doesn't mean your housing company is doing a bad job. It means there's a better way to get the same results — and in most cases, better results — with more transparency, less overhead, and a better experience for your families.

How the Model Works (The Parts You See)

The standard arrangement looks something like this:

  1. The housing company negotiates room blocks with hotels near your venue
  2. They build a booking portal for your event
  3. Families book through that portal
  4. The housing company collects a commission from the hotel — or marks up the rate — or both
  5. You receive a rebate, typically a few dollars per room night
  6. After the event, you get a pickup report showing how many rooms were booked

Straightforward enough. But the parts you don't see are where it gets interesting.

The Parts You Don't See (And We Know, Because We Lived Them)

The commission structure. Housing companies typically earn somewhere between 10% and 20% on each room night, sometimes more. Sports Business Journal has reported commissions around 10%, but that figure varies widely based on the market, the hotel, and the leverage the housing company brings. Your rebate — the $3 to $8 per room night you receive — is a fraction of what the housing company earns on the same booking. We know this because we used to be on the other side of that math.

The rate inflation. Parents across the country are reporting a consistent pattern: rates through tournament housing portals are higher than what they can find on their own. Not always. But often enough that it's become a major source of frustration. One parent blogging about youth soccer described finding the same hotel, same dates, same room type for $80 less per night than the mandatory tournament rate. That's not an outlier.

The loyalty point problem. Many housing company bookings don't earn hotel loyalty points. The reservation is made through a third-party block, not directly with the hotel, which means the guest's Marriott Bonvoy or Hilton Honors status doesn't apply. For families who travel to tournaments every other weekend, this is a real loss — and one of the loudest complaints in every parent forum online.

The cancellation rigidity. Block reservations often come with stricter cancellation policies than the hotel's own direct bookings. Team gets knocked out early? Kid gets sick? You're locked in. The housing company needs the pickup numbers, and flexible cancellations threaten the block commitment.

The tracking gap. This is the big one. A housing company can only report on bookings that went through their system. Every family that booked on Expedia, called the hotel directly, used points, or found a better rate elsewhere? Invisible. Your pickup report shows a fraction of the room nights your event actually generated. You're underselling your impact to every stakeholder who matters — your CVB, your venue, your board.

What Parents Are Actually Saying

The parent backlash against tournament housing isn't theoretical. It's loud, it's public, and it's getting media attention.

Oklahoma Watch published a major investigation in 2025 documenting how stay-to-play policies — enforced through housing companies — have become a pressure point for families across the country. The reporting found cases where professional sports franchise staff owned the travel company that teams were required to book through. In another case, court records from a settled lawsuit showed a single cheer tournament organizer collecting more than $4 million per year in hotel kickbacks.

Those are extreme examples. Most housing companies aren't running scams. But the industry's lack of transparency has created an environment where parents assume the worst — and they're not always wrong to.

Here's what parents consistently say they want: transparency. Families would rather see the full cost laid out clearly — even if it means a higher tournament fee — than feel like they're being squeezed through an opaque booking system.

That's a problem for you even if your housing company is operating fairly. Because the parent doesn't distinguish between your event and your housing partner. When they feel overcharged, they blame your tournament.

The Attrition Trap

If your housing company negotiates traditional room blocks, those contracts likely include attrition clauses. If teams don't fill the block to a certain percentage — typically 80% — someone owes the hotel for unsold rooms.

Sometimes that's the housing company's problem. Sometimes it's yours.

For large, established events with predictable attendance, attrition risk is manageable. For a growing tournament that might draw 40 teams one year and 70 the next? It's a liability that can wipe out your housing revenue in a bad year.

And it creates a perverse incentive: the housing company needs the block filled, which is why stay-to-play policies get enforced aggressively. The stricter the enforcement, the better the pickup, the less attrition risk. But aggressive enforcement is exactly what's generating the parent backlash — and increasingly, legal scrutiny.

The Questions You Should Be Asking

You don't need to fire your housing company tomorrow. But you should be able to answer these questions:

What is the hotel paying per room night in commission? Not the "industry standard." The actual number on the contract between the housing company and each hotel.

What is my rebate as a percentage of the total commission? If the hotel is paying 15% and you're getting $4 on a $180 room, you're receiving about 15% of the commission. The housing company is keeping 85%. Is the service worth 85% of the revenue your event generated?

Are the rates competitive with publicly available rates? Check. Not once — every event. Pull up the same hotel on the hotel's own website for the same dates. If the housing portal rate is consistently higher, your families are subsidizing the commission structure through inflated pricing.

Do families earn loyalty points? If not, that's a tangible cost to your families that doesn't show up on any invoice.

What is my attrition exposure? If teams don't fill the block, who pays?

What percentage of my event's total room nights does the pickup report capture? If it's only counting portal bookings, you're seeing a fraction of reality.

What Changed: The Technology Caught Up

When we started in this business, there was no way to book a hotel room in real time through an API. Blocks were necessary. Contracts were necessary. A housing company standing between the hotel and the guest was the only way to make it work.

That world is gone.

Today, it's possible to connect directly to live hotel inventory across 250,000+ properties. Families book at real-time rates, earn their loyalty points, and get a real confirmation number directly from the hotel. No blocks to negotiate. No cutoff dates to manage. No attrition risk.

And here's the part that changes the game entirely: it's now possible to track every booking your event generates — every team, every hotel, every room night — no matter where or how the family books. Not just the bookings that went through a portal. All of them.

That means your economic impact report is complete for the first time. Your stay-to-play data is real. Your CVB gets the numbers they need. And you see the true value of your event — not the partial picture a pickup report gives you.

This is the future of group travel. We know, because we helped build it after spending 25 years in the model it replaces.

Where Stayker Fits

Stayker is what we built when we realized the old model couldn't keep up.

A branded hotel booking portal for your event, live in minutes. Live inventory. Real-time rates. Loyalty points on every booking. Every reservation tracked — every team, every hotel, regardless of where the family books. Revenue flowing to your organization on every room night.

No room blocks. No attrition. No hidden commission stacks. No waiting four months for a check.

We're not here to tell you your housing company is stealing from you. We ran this model. We know how it works, and we know where it breaks. If you've never looked under the hood — or if the math doesn't add up — there's a better model available. One we wish we'd had 25 years ago.

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Sources

Stayker powers hotel booking for youth sports tournaments, PGA events, corporate meetings, and thousands of live events worldwide. Learn more →

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