A Team Chat is a group chat the system creates automatically within the PlayerFirst Club App for a rostered team. Team Chats are different from normal group chats due to the fact they are automatically created and the recipient list is set based on the roster of the team within PlayerFirst. This article covers how a Team Chat comes into being, who ends up in it, what it can do, and how it winds down at the end of a season.
Overview
Eligibility & Creation — which teams get a Team Chat, and what has to be true first.
The Team Chat Public Date & Welcome Message — the field that controls when it goes live.
Recipients & New Members — who's included, and what a newly-added member can see.
Chat Behavior — pin, mute, archive, reactions, and size limits shared with every chat.
Archiving & the End of Season
1. Eligibility & Creation
A Team Chat isn't created for every team on the platform — a background job only creates one once all of the following are true:
The team's division uses individual registration, not Registration by Team. Divisions set to register by team never get a Team Chat.
The program's Activity Type is Club Team — this is the club/tryout program flow covered in Club Team Management. Team Chats aren't created for other activity types.
The team has at least one active roster spot and at least one team contact (coach, manager, or director) already added.
The program hasn't ended.
The team's Team Chat Public date/time has arrived — see Section 2 for where this is set and how it defaults.
Team Chats are enabled for the brand at all: Settings page, Communications section, Enable Creation of Team Chats checkbox — on by default. Turning it off stops any new Team Chats from being created; it doesn't touch chats that already exist.
NOTE: This runs as a scheduled background job checking a batch of eligible teams at a time, not instantly the moment a roster is finalized — a newly-eligible Team Chat can take some time to appear.
2. The Team Chat Public Date & Welcome Message
Each team has its own Team Chat Public date/time field on Team > Team Management, on the Team Management tab (next to Roster Due). This field — not roster acceptance, and not a coach's first message — is what actually controls when the chat appears in the Club App and fires the welcome message.
It defaults to the program's Event Start Date/Time (from Registration Details > Reporting), but can be moved later. It cannot be set earlier than the Event Start.
Once the welcome message has sent, the field locks and can no longer be edited.
At the scheduled date/time, the system automatically:
Adds the Team Chat to the Club App's Chat list for every qualified recipient.
Sends the automated welcome message below to the chat.
Welcome message (sent as a system message):
Hi [team_name]! Welcome to your team chat.
Use this space to introduce yourselves and connect with teammates, coaches, and families. It's also a great place to coordinate plans and share updates throughout the year.
A few ways to stay on top of things:
Schedule tab: practice times, game days, and any last-minute changes
Team tab: get contact information for coaches and teammates
Please keep this chat friendly and on-topic. It's meant to help the team stay connected all season long.
We're excited for the upcoming season!
NOTE: The chat does not deactivate on the program's Event End Date. It stays visible and active until the season-end archive job runs — see Section 6.
3. Recipients & New Members
A Team Chat's recipients are the team's full active roster, their parents/guardians, and every team contact (coach, manager, director) — this isn't filtered by the visibility settings covered in Club Team Management; a chat can include people whose roster spot isn't yet publicly visible.
When someone joins the roster later — accepting a roster spot, being added by an admin, or moved onto the team — they're added to the Team Chat automatically, and the chat receives an automated system message: "A new user has been added to the chat."
NOTE: Team Chat shows its full history of messages from the start of the season to anyone added to it.
4. Chat Behavior
Chats can be pinned, muted, archived, marked-as-read.
Emoji reactions can be added to messages.
Team chats top out at 150 participants.
5. Archiving & the End of Season
14 days after a program's official end date, Team Chats are archived automatically — no admin action needed. Archived chats aren't deleted; they still show up under the Chat tab's Archived filter and remain searchable.