The team app is now standard infrastructure. The default settings on most of them allow coach-to-player direct messaging, public-by-default photo galleries, and player-to-player private chat with no parent visibility. Most parents have not changed any of those defaults.
The settings worth changing, and where to find them.
TeamSnap. TeamSnap allows messaging at the team-wide level, the player level (with parent CC by default), and roster-level. Coach DMs to a single minor player without the parent on the message are technically possible if the parent has not set the player profile to “parent-managed.” For minors, the recommended setting is parent-managed accounts, parent email as the primary contact, kid added as “athlete” with messages copying the parent.
The photo gallery has team-level visibility settings. Default is “team and family.” Tighter settings exist; consider “managers only” for any roster page that includes minor athlete information.
GameChanger. Built around stats and live game streaming. The “fans” feature allows public viewing of team feeds. For minor-athlete teams, restrict fans to known family members, and turn off the public-share-link option that lets anyone with the URL view the team page.
The video and photo features can be set to private-by-default. Worth doing.
SportsEngine. Multi-sport platform for many NGB-affiliated leagues. Account types include “athlete” and “parent.” Make sure your kid’s account is linked to a parent-managed account if under 13 (COPPA requires verifiable parental consent for that age band).
Communication tools have a “Player can be DM’d by coach” toggle. Disable it. Coach communication should run through team-wide threads, not one-on-one DMs. This is the SafeSport-aligned setting.
Band, GroupMe, Slack. These are general-purpose apps that some teams use. None are sport-specific and none have built-in MAAPP-aligned defaults.
For Band: enable parental approval on join requests; disable private DMs between coaches and minors; keep group chats open for parent visibility.
For GroupMe: most coach-team threads are visible to all members, which is fine. The risk is the side-channel one-on-one DM. Set the rule that all coach communication happens in the main thread.
For Slack: workspace administrators can disable direct messages between specific roles. If your team uses Slack, ask the workspace admin to disable DMs from coach roles to athlete roles.
The COPPA piece. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, requires verifiable parental consent before an online service can collect personal information from children under 13. Most team apps comply by requiring parent-managed accounts for under-13 users. Verify your kid’s account type. If your 11-year-old has their own account with their own email, that may not be COPPA-compliant.
Photo and video permissions. This is where most leagues and teams have the loosest practices. The default in most team apps is that any team member can post photos to the team gallery. The risk: a casual locker-room shot, a bench shot showing a kid in a moment they would not consent to publicly, a video that shows a player’s face along with their last name and team city.
The setting to look for: “Photo posting requires admin approval.” Or: “Only managers can post photos.” Then a written team policy on what is allowed (in-game action only, no candids, no sideline emotional moments without parent consent).
The recurring audit. Once a season, click through the team app’s settings as if you were a stranger looking at your kid. What can a person who joined the team’s “fan” page see? What is publicly visible? What information about your kid is searchable on the open internet?
If anything makes you uncomfortable, change it. Most leagues have not given this a thoughtful pass and most parents have to do it themselves.
For coaches. A 10-minute pre-season audit of the team app’s settings is the lowest-effort safety improvement available. Make the audit a checklist item with the team-manager parent. The defaults that ship with these apps are not the defaults that align with how youth sports should treat minor athletes.