Terms of Service

Effective Date: May 8, 2026

DRAFT — pending attorney review. The wording below is starter content and may change before the effective date is final. Material questions should go to legal@sportsref.net.

1. Acceptance

By creating an account or using SportsRef.net (“SportsRef,” “Service”), you agree to these Terms. If you don't agree, don't use the Service.

If you're using SportsRef on behalf of an organization (a school, athletic association, or league), you confirm you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms. In that case, "you" means both you and the organization.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to register an account.

Organizations using SportsRef may include sub-users who are under 18 in non-account-holder roles (for example, a student manager listed as a contact). The organization is responsible for any sub-users it adds, including obtaining any consents required by law.

The Service is operated from the United States and intended for users in the United States, particularly Ohio and surrounding regions. If you use it elsewhere, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for local compliance.

3. Account Responsibilities

You agree to:

Provide accurate, current information when you sign up
Keep your contact info up to date
Keep your password and MFA secrets confidential
Not share your credentials with anyone — each person uses their own account
Notify us promptly if you suspect unauthorized access (privacy@sportsref.net)

You're responsible for everything that happens under your account, except where unauthorized access occurred despite your reasonable security practices.

4. Acceptable Use

Don't use SportsRef to:

Send spam or unsolicited messages through our notification system
Scrape, crawl, or bulk-extract data from the platform
Reverse-engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Service
Probe, scan, or test our infrastructure for vulnerabilities without written permission
Harass, threaten, or impersonate other users
Upload malware, viruses, or any code intended to interfere with the Service
Interfere with or disrupt the Service or its underlying networks
Use the Service in violation of any law or regulation

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules.

5. Roles and Permissions

Organization admin — manages the organization's settings, users, and billing.
Assignor — schedules officials for games and manages assignments.
Official — receives, accepts, and declines assignments; sets availability.
Coach — views game schedules and assigned officials for their team(s).
Observer — read-only access to schedules and assignments.

Your role is set by your organization. We follow the role permissions in our system — if you think your role is wrong, work with your organization admin.

6. Fees and Billing

Some features of SportsRef may require a paid subscription. When that's the case:

Fees, billing frequency, and what's included will be presented at checkout.
Payments are processed through Stripe. By providing payment information, you authorize us to charge the applicable fees through Stripe.
Subscriptions auto-renew at the end of each billing period unless cancelled before renewal.
You're responsible for any taxes that apply.

If a payment fails, we may suspend access to paid features until the issue is resolved.

7. Refunds

If you cancel a subscription mid-period, we will pro-rate any remaining unused time and refund it where possible. We do not refund fees for service already delivered.

If a charge looks wrong, email legal@sportsref.net and we'll investigate.

8. Intellectual Property

We own SportsRef.net — the platform, software, design, and brand. You don't get any rights to our intellectual property except the limited right to use the Service under these Terms.

You own your organization's data — game schedules, assignment records, user lists, custom fields, and similar. By using the Service, you grant us a limited license to host, process, and display your data so we can deliver the Service.

We may use anonymized, aggregated data (no personal information, no organization-identifiable information) to improve the Service and understand usage patterns.

9. Data Ownership and Export

Your organization's data is yours. On request, we'll provide a reasonable export in a standard format (CSV or JSON). Email legal@sportsref.net to request an export.

If you delete your account, the data retention rules in our Privacy Policy apply.

10. Service Availability

SportsRef.net is currently in BETA. We provide the Service on a best-effort basis. We do not offer a formal Service Level Agreement at this stage.

We will work in good faith to keep the Service running and to fix issues promptly, but we cannot guarantee the Service will be available at all times or free of errors. Plan accordingly — if a game's assignment confirmation is mission-critical, have a backup communication channel.

We may schedule maintenance windows or take the Service offline temporarily for upgrades or security work. Where practical, we'll give advance notice.

11. Termination

You can terminate your account at any time by emailing legal@sportsref.net or through your account settings (where available).

We can suspend or terminate your account if:

You violate these Terms or our Privacy Policy
You haven't paid fees that are due
We're required to by law
We discontinue the Service

If we terminate for cause, we'll tell you why. If you've prepaid for a subscription and we terminate without cause, we'll refund the unused portion.

After termination, the data retention rules in our Privacy Policy apply.

12. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties — express, implied, or statutory — including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

We don't warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure against every threat, or that defects will be corrected. We don't warrant that game data, schedules, or assignments will be free of errors — please verify critical information through other channels.

13. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

Neither SportsRef, WeldonPC, nor our officers, employees, or contractors will be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages — including lost profits, lost data, or lost business — arising from or related to your use of the Service.
Our total liability for any claim related to the Service will not exceed the greater of (a) the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose or (b) one hundred US dollars ($100).

Some jurisdictions don't allow these limitations; in those places, our liability will be limited to the smallest amount permitted by law.

14. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless SportsRef, WeldonPC, and our officers, employees, and contractors from any claims, damages, costs, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of:

Your use of the Service
Your violation of these Terms
Your violation of any law or third-party right
Content or data you upload to the Service

15. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Ohio, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

16. Dispute Resolution

Before filing any formal proceeding, both sides agree to try in good faith to resolve disputes informally for at least 30 days after written notice, sent to legal@sportsref.net (for claims against us) or to the email on file (for claims against you).

If the dispute isn't resolved, both sides agree to binding arbitration administered by a recognized arbitration provider, seated in Cleveland, Ohio, under the provider's commercial rules. Each side pays its own costs except as the arbitrator orders. Arbitration will be on an individual basis — no class actions, no class arbitrations, no representative actions.

This arbitration clause does not apply to:

Small-claims court actions within the limits of that court's jurisdiction
Injunctive relief to stop infringement of intellectual property or violation of confidentiality
Either side's right to file a complaint with a government agency

If any part of this section is unenforceable, the remainder still applies, and any unenforceable part will be severed.

17. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms as the Service evolves. When we make material changes, we will:

Update the Effective Date at the top of the page
Post the new Terms at this URL
Notify active account holders by email when changes are significant

Continued use of the Service after a change means you accept the updated Terms. If you don't accept, you can terminate your account.

18. Miscellaneous

Entire agreement: these Terms (with the Privacy Policy) are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service.
No waiver: if we don't enforce a right one time, that doesn't waive the right going forward.
Severability: if any part of these Terms is unenforceable, the rest still applies.
Assignment: you can't assign these Terms without our written consent. We can assign them in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
Notices: we send notices to the email on your account. You send notices to legal@sportsref.net.

19. Contact

Email: legal@sportsref.net
Mail: WeldonPC — SportsRef.net Legal
[Cleveland-area mailing address — to be added before launch]