Discover how Kelsey moved to a new city, founded a local bar and sport and social league, and grew her player base from 84 to over 15,000 across 10 different sports.
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Welcome to Episode #8 of the Sold Out podcast where we interview league organizers across the country for tips and tricks on how to sell out leagues.
In this episode, we delve into the inspiring journey of Kelsey, the founder of Gem City Social Sports in Dayton, OH. Moving to a new city with no connections and a desire to create a sense of community, Kelsey transformed her passion for sports into a thriving business. Starting in 2017 with kickball leagues, she quickly expanded to include a variety of indoor and outdoor sports. By partnering with a local brewery for after-parties and utilizing word-of-mouth and player referrals, Kelsey grew her player base from 84 to over 230 in just a year. This discussion explores the strategies she employed, the importance of integrating social aspects into recreational sports, and the role of technology in managing and expanding her leagues.
Kelsey's emphasis on being present and listening to customer needs has led to continuous improvements and expansions, including more competitive sports like soccer and pickleball, and the creation of a bar and larger facility offering activities like ax throwing, yard games, and video games. Her story is a testament to perseverance, community engagement, and innovative thinking, culminating in a focus on community-based charity work to give back and build a stronger community. Prepare to be inspired by her entrepreneurial spirit and practical insights into building and sustaining community-focused sports leagues.
Below is the full transcript from this episode. The Sold Out Podcast is available on Spotify and Apple, or you can watch the entire interview on our YouTube Channel!
Tune in every other week to hear AREENA interview the country's best league organizers about their success in selling out leagues consistently.
Lance (00:01.355)
Alright, today we have Kelsey from Gym City Sports. Thanks for being here, Kelsey. So let's start with the basics. So where you're located, what kind of leagues are you running, how many teams, give kind of a feel for size, how many teams you have running any given season.
Kelsey (00:06.125)
Thanks for having me.
Kelsey (00:16.398)
Yeah, of course. So we are located in Dayton, Ohio. We've been in business since 2017. Our first league was officially April of 2017. At that point, we only had kickball leagues and we quickly grew to quite a big variety. So now we do year round indoor outdoor sports multiple a week. Right now, currently we're running pickleball, soccer, kickball, cornhole and axe drive.
So yeah, I'm quite the variety.
Lance (00:47.435)
Yeah, and I guess you had said that y 'all opened up a physical location that kind of goes with it Is that how you're doing axe throwing? I've never heard of anybody doing a leak like that
Kelsey (00:55.182)
It is. Yeah, so as an external bar, we had the knowledge of how to run leagues. And so the two just kind of go hand in hand.
Lance (01:03.307)
Why did you start with kickball? It's actually I think I did a podcast last week and he said he started with kickball as well. What was your?
Kelsey (01:10.703)
I think there is a couple of different reasons. So one, I had played in the social kickball league before. So I had kind of the background and like the reason why, which is to make friends, grow in your community, et cetera. Kickball is well known, right? Like everybody kind of knows kickball. And if they don't, you can quickly explain to them, you're running the base, you're kicking the ball. It's fairly user friendly. So that's why we started with kickball.
And then from there, just kind of listen to people and what they were looking for, what was working, what wasn't working. And throughout the years, kickball has just been, you know, a stable, everyone kind of likes it, everyone, you know, can feel comfortable playing it. So we've kept it in the books every year since then.
Lance (01:59.499)
Nice. And you said, you've used the word we, is this, so you started this in 2017 and was it just you or there was?
Kelsey (02:06.415)
I did. Yeah. So 2017 I had just moved to Ohio. I had graduated from Florida State.
didn't know what on earth I was doing. Planning on going to med school. You know, every 22 year old has like some wild plan after college. And life doesn't always, you know, go along with that plan. So I moved to Ohio, first winter ever in my life. And it was, you know, a big slap in the face, really cold, dreary. I was sad all the time and I was just like, something's got to give. So like I mentioned before,
I'd played in the social league before, played intramurals during college and just thought, hey, you know, like what's the worst that could happen. So January 2017, maybe a little bit before that, I just started like, came up with a league name, applied for a business license and just kind of like threw it out there just to see what would happen. April, we had about 84 people. That was our first league. And I felt really fine about that. Like I mentioned, my goal was to make friends. So I made my friends.
We were having a good time. And then, fast forward a year, the kickball league grew from 84 to like over 230 people. And I realized, yeah, okay, well, there's some traction to this. At that point, so I have no background in sports, like very uncoordinated, sports are just not my thing. I love football, I love watching them, but I'm a spectator.
I realized that if I was going to expand, I needed people on my team that, you know, new sports had a different perspective than I did. I felt like I could easily bring the social dynamic and making it friendly for everyone. Right. So I'm athletic, athletic, and I was able to just really get some good people on my team. So my now husband, he, he really helped me kind of get the ball rolling, gave me the sports side of things.
Kelsey (04:07.281)
And I've just kind of been learning ever since. So that being said, I did start it, but I have many, many people on my team now that helped me run the day to day.
Lance (04:17.835)
Nice, okay, so I have a lot of questions about all that, but the initial thing you said 84 people, how, you know, if you were gonna give somebody advice based on what happened with you, like how do you get those first 84 people? Advertising, or you're printing off flyers?
Kelsey (04:20.849)
Yeah.
Kelsey (04:30.801)
you know, it's a lot. Yeah. So you do anything you can, right? So you, so for us, we immediately were like, okay, we knew that we wanted it to not only be kickball, but we had to have that social aspect because anybody can kind of say, Hey, we're going to play XYZ sport. we wanted to have after parties. So we teamed up with a few local businesses and kind of said, Hey, we're going to have an eight week kickball week. We can have anywhere from like,
20 people to 100, we were being, you know, very generous with that. And thankfully, a brewery called Warped Wing kind of no pun intended, took us under their wing, let us just kind of be there. And we chatted with just anybody and everyone we could. We were there a lot, right? So handing out club cards, just like talking to people, honestly, which is really hard because I'm not from here, right? So like Dayton is a very,
Lance (05:19.563)
Wow, see, like, yeah.
Kelsey (05:29.842)
a tight -knit community, a lot of people that grow up here stay here. So when you're trying to get your foot in the door and do something that is also just like a little bit different, you kind of just have to put yourself out there. So that's what we did. You know, you came up with a pretty bare minimum website and then just went after it and worked really, really hard from January to April, just learning and, you know, kind of figuring it out as we went.
Lance (05:59.275)
Wow, so I have not heard that. I've heard a lot of different stories about how I get it off the ground. I haven't heard that one. So he went to a brewery and just hung out and just talked.
Kelsey (06:06.642)
Yeah, just chatting with people. You know, I think the whole point, right, is to grow your community. And I realized really quick that if I was going to actually make it in this community, I had to like be there and on the ground and chatting with the people who are actually going to be playing in our leagues.
Lance (06:24.971)
Okay, got it. I imagine not all 84 people came through the brewery. You probably found people who knew people. Okay, that's awesome. So then you got 84 people, you got the kickball. And I also haven't heard of people, so did you, a lot of folks like, you know, do sponsorships with places like that brewery, because there is this like, you know, thing that it works well together, right? And then you can pack the brewery out and make them money and stuff. I've never heard of anybody starting there. It makes a lot of sense. That's a very cool like hack that you did.
Kelsey (06:29.042)
absolutely, correct, yeah.
Kelsey (06:45.681)
Right.
Lance (06:53.611)
Did that grow into like sponsorships where they're, they're sponsored?
Kelsey (06:56.211)
For sure, yeah. So we had kind of, that's why we approached them in the first place because we knew that A, like, it's good to have sponsorships, it's good to have people in the community, businesses that already are established. So we worked with a few different ones at the beginning and that led into, hey, we're gonna actually, this is gonna work and now we're gonna have our after parties with you. So at any given point we would play, you know, you play your game.
you would go to the bar afterwards, do like a social mini game. So think like minute to win it games, yard games, just different things. That way you're A, mingling with other teams and your own team. B, you're helping other local business and C, if you're not necessarily good at the sports side of things, you still have a chance to like do well in the league by having photo points and social points on the bar.
Lance (07:48.267)
Nice, okay. And was that sort of formalized, the bar stuff? You said you had this stuff kind of set up, was it like, okay, go play the formal league, then just come here and hang out? Or were you also in these after parties, like structuring games?
Kelsey (08:00.5)
So they have changed a little bit in nature, but generally, especially at the beginning, they were very structured. So like, we had someone hired to run the mini game. So, you know, all the details would be, you show up at your game for whatever time you meet and you play the same team that you played your kickball or tee ball, whatever game was, you play them in your mini game. And then you just have like time to hang out. So I wouldn't say that everybody on average would go to the after parties. I would say probably like,
50 to 75 % on any given night would attend at least some of it.
Lance (08:31.819)
that's still a lot was it are they super close in location?
Kelsey (08:35.028)
Yes, we play within 10 minutes. So luckily, the area of data that we typically play and we've expanded now, but it's all within like our downtown is fairly easily traveled. So we were able to like, move back and forth pretty easily.
Lance (08:50.987)
Okay, so you started with the brewery, you found your people. I think the other thing that I hear, it's actually what I hear I think most of the time, most people say is the hardest of everything in terms of really, really growing is space, like facility space, fields. So it sounds like you maybe agree with that, but how did you find your first fields and like, how do you do it now?
Kelsey (09:03.988)
Mm hmm.
Kelsey (09:13.044)
So, I mean, now I know the city obviously more. I did a lot of like Google Maps, just like kind of, you know, playing around finding where there was fields and things like that. I'm sure we've all done it. And thankfully there's a facility that it's a private facility. So you're allowed to bring your dogs, your adult beverages, et cetera, which really works off well for the dynamic of our group. But they, gosh, we had,
tornadoes back in 2018, which actually destroyed their whole indoor facility. So we played there for a while. But since they became part of our community, and we had the people to kind of help them out when things got tough, we were able to just kind of rally behind them, get everything back in order. And then by creating that partnership, we now have like fairly stable fields almost year round. They have a massive grass.
field that we usually start on. So the kiddos usually take priority, which is fine. They have beautiful turf fields for like mid -range softball fields and then for T -ball -esque kid diamonds. And we usually play on those. So come like middle of July, the kids will start slowing down and we get to move to those. So like half the season we'll play on grass fields and just make our own fields. And then half of the games we'll play on the nicer turf fields. So you kind of get a little bit of both at least.
Lance (10:41.451)
Yeah, totally. Have you thought about or tried to expand and find other facility space?
Kelsey (10:47.99)
Yeah, so we play there. We've worked with the city quite a bit. Again, it just goes down to youth sports. And for us and for adults, we find it's better to have, we like to have our whole year planned ahead of time. Not necessarily like final details, but just giving people an idea of location and the way that the city of Dayton just runs. You can't plan ahead that far, right? So you can't book your fields or your courts or whatever until much closer than we would like.
I think ultimate goal would be to have our own facility, right? So like we could do substantially more, but having your own facility with turf fields is one of those things where, you know, not necessarily on the docket yet.
Lance (11:32.683)
Yeah, yeah, that's a lot. Okay, so that's interesting. Did you meet your husband doing this, by the way?
Kelsey (11:34.453)
Mm -hmm.
Kelsey (11:39.286)
I didn't actually. His family vacations in my hometown and I was home after college. So, and that's how I lived in Ohio.
Lance (11:49.803)
Got it, okay. Got it, makes sense. And then I guess another question, I don't usually ask people this, but I'm curious, like, you know, for somebody who might listen to this and think, you know, they want to start their own business, they don't want to work somewhere or whatever, like, how much did it cost you to get this thing off the ground?
Kelsey (12:08.118)
So I will say I did have a job. Like I had a job when I was starting all this. I actually had three jobs at the time. That sounds like a lot, but you know, you had a grind when you're 20 something years old. I worked at Starbucks all through college, transferred it when I got here. So I was doing that like early morning, 5 a shift. Then I would go and teach chemistry and biology at a private school and then I would nanny. So then.
Lance (12:19.179)
Hello there.
Kelsey (12:36.183)
This all came into play like after hours, right? So like after all of that was said and done, I'm like, how do I meet people? And I'll be completely honest at the beginning, it was very much like some kickballs, some club cards. Like it was fairly not like for lack of a word janky, the league turned out fine, but financially it wasn't like a huge investment because I didn't have the funds, right? Like I was 23. I definitely did not have the money to be doing that. So.
Lance (12:57.483)
You didn't have to put like a ton. Yeah.
Kelsey (13:06.358)
I think now if I were to do it differently, I mean, I'm so thankful that we were able to make it work, but the costs are significantly higher when you actually like sit down and start planning multiple leagues a week and year, et cetera. But yeah, at the beginning it was very cost effective because it had to be.
Lance (13:20.203)
right.
Lance (13:25.451)
Right, yeah. Well, I think that's got to be encouraging. And also, yeah, super impressive. I mean, sounds like you are working a lot of hours a week to get it going. So that's, yeah.
Kelsey (13:34.871)
Yeah, I have the privilege now of having flexibility with my time, which I think if you if that's a goal in life, keeping that in mind while you're doing those long days and long hours is just it's pretty crucial.
Lance (13:44.779)
Yeah, totally. And then how did you grow from the 84 to like where you are now in terms of like on the player side? Did you ever do like, did you think about social media as like a key channel? Did you do advertising? Was it all word of mouth? Like how did you?
Kelsey (14:01.4)
a lot of it was word of mouth, just, you know, those core people bringing, you know, five friends. So it's really valuable at the beginning. We don't do this as much anymore, which I, to be honest, it's just something we've like dropped the ball on, but it works really well. people that already are loyal to you and play with you for years upon years, they like are obviously getting some of out of it, something out of it. So using them and their resources, I mean, everybody has a different life story.
different jobs, different location that they live, just really utilizing them. Because that way they already know what the league is about. They're not going to pick people or they're not going to invite people that wouldn't fit kind of what you're already doing. So really just doing like player retention credits, having the people that are already in it kind of work for you in a roundabout way. So like that's one part of it obviously, because that's a super vital.
way to get new people. But it's just continuing to do those things, right? Like there's different markets everywhere you look. And like I mentioned, I was a teacher, my now husband was a teacher. And, you know, teachers are the perfect age range category that you're looking for. So really like tapping into that market. I mentioned working at Starbucks, tapping into that market. So really like anybody that I spoke with, I mentioned this too, which is like,
clearly annoying and you have to be willing to share your story over and over again. But that's just part of it.
Lance (15:35.467)
Got it, okay. And so, yeah, the putting players to work for you, was that organic in the sense that you were hitting people up and being like, hey, I wanna watch a soccer league, do you know anybody? Or did you ever do, you mentioned like credits and stuff, did you do any kind of referral, like sort of paid, hey, if you bring a team, I'll give you 50 bucks, or did you do anything like that?
Kelsey (15:55.737)
Right. So on an individual basis, we did do financial referrals for a short period of time. And then it was mostly like, just, you know, becoming friends with everyone, right? Like if you make this community, so I played in the league for the first like four years, like I was doing it because it was like for me, essentially, I didn't really see it as like my livelihood, I guess.
So it was just like finding good friends and utilizing that. It sounds horrible, right? Like you're just paying your friends to make you get other people. But the whole point is like the more people that are involved and the more people that are exposed to this, the greater the community becomes. And that's like the whole purpose.
Lance (16:45.035)
Got it, yeah. Cool, that makes sense. So I guess as you've, it sounds like originally there was a strong social component. You wanted friends, you wanted to create something where people could come together. When you think about the experience, I guess, kind of at a higher level that you're offering, how do you think about your experience for your players versus competition or other options that people have? And sometimes I ask this question and people say that they're really competing against Netflix or whatever.
So I'm just to hear just your sort of general response, but sort of, I guess, specifically whenever you're running this business, like what are you going for when it comes to your players that makes them come back again and again, that makes them choose you over Netflix or you over some other league that they could join? Like how are you thinking about that?
Kelsey (17:14.041)
Mm -hmm.
Kelsey (17:32.538)
So, I mean, I'll be completely frank with you. We do have another social sports league in Dayton that runs like very similar to how we do. And I, for the first little bit was just very set on like, I have to know everything they're doing. I like compared myself very heavily to them. And then I just realized like that is like an unhealthy way to live life in general for anything. So, and I grew up a little bit, you know, you get older and you realize these things. So,
Lance (17:50.347)
Mmm.
Lance (17:54.475)
Yeah.
Kelsey (18:01.083)
Once I realized that, it really changed my mindset on exactly what I wanted to be providing to my customers who are going to set us apart. And I think that key component is just being there listening. So I can't be there every time anymore. I used to know every person's name, a little bit about them. You can do that when there's one legal week, 200 -ish people, but after there's multiple nights, you just can't.
So that being said, doing things like after week surveys, just really being in tune with what the people are asking for. I know everybody can attest, well, if you started before COVID and then like moving forward after, there's been a shift in what people are looking for, what that third space for people looks like. And so it's just kind of like pivoting and making sure that we're still doing what people are looking for. And that doesn't always look the same.
as what my idea originally was, right? Like we've changed some of what we're doing. Sometimes I think it's for the best and other times I'm not as interested in it. So I wish that it wouldn't have changed, but it's really just, you know, making changes when you feel like they're necessary.
Lance (19:18.058)
So what are some of these changes that you're?
Kelsey (19:20.891)
So we used to do basic, primarily social sports, as I would like to call them. So every sport we play is social. However, adding in those things like soccer, pickleball has become like absolutely massive. And we do, you know, we have so many teams in that realm now that we do break it into different categories, different leagues. That way you still, if you're a beginner, you've never played, there's still a place for you. But like, I'm not going to go play soccer. It's a much...
higher level of competitiveness than kickball, even though it's still a social league. So I think that is one of the reasons. And then also having the bar aspect of things. So the bar is a full bar. However, it's also just a hangout spot. So not only on league nights, but just at any given point, if you need to go and like have a mocktail, have a cocktail.
plays in board games, whatever, with a friend, you have a place that you should feel comfortable bringing friends or coming in, meeting new friends. But the goal is that someone from the league is always, not necessarily always around, but you can kind of pop in and have that sort of pseudo community built in.
Lance (20:34.507)
Thanks for watching!
Nice. Okay. Well, let's talk about that. I think you're the only, well, we have one person we work with, they have a bar and there's a soccer field indoor next to a bar and that's kind of the model there. This sounds a little different because you were renting space and then you thought that you would go do a bar and it sounds like you still maybe want to do a facility someday. So this bar is not a facility except for maybe some bar games like axe throwing. So how did this come about?
Kelsey (20:59.74)
Bye.
Kelsey (21:03.323)
So basically we just knew we wanted to, well, I knew that just running the lease wasn't sustainable. So after my second year of teaching, I quit and just went all in. And then I just was spilling ideas and axing and bar back in the day, they were like super lucrative. So we thought, Hey, what the heck? So I started looking at.
different facilities, different locations, lots fell through. But finally we kind of just like met the right people and started developing just the X -raying bar. And that was just kind of meant as a separate business completely, just a totally different thing. Started working on the business plan. One thing led to another. And really we just realized that by doing these after parties, doing the mini games, just having a little bit more control of what that club.
how it's feel looks like. It just made more sense to, instead of doing like half the job, just go all in and have a much larger facility. So we have about 5 ,000 square feet, ax throwing, different yard games, cornhole, video games. So that in and of itself is its own business. It just so happens that both businesses are geared towards being a social community.
Lance (22:25.771)
When you started the bar, because there's another league that I know of and he does volleyball, but the bar was first and then he thought about volleyball as a way to just bring people in. And so it gives you a different dynamic in terms of how you're going to think about pricing and all kinds of stuff, but those leagues are packed and it means his bar is packed all the time. Did you find that like that was kind of a secret advantage? It's not secret because you thought about it the whole time, but that whenever you heard the bar, you just instantly had...
Kelsey (22:38.364)
Mm -hmm.
Lance (22:55.371)
Customers.
Kelsey (22:57.213)
I think so. I think so it's only been two and a half years or so. And I think just like with the league, I had never bartended before. I had never, you know, owned a brick and mortar business. I had never applied for a liquor license. Like there's a lot of things I had to learn. So I would say that we're still in a learning stage, even being two and a half years in. But that's part of like, always pivoting, right? Like, so you're always learning new things. I would say that at first it,
Definitely we did have an influx just because we had already built that base of loyal customers. So it's just kind of like one in the same. but now we're kind of like coming full circle. And even though we have the clubhouse, we, we really just want to be back in the community. So this coming up season, we are kind of going back to our roots. So we're bringing in different sponsor bars and we're just switching it around. So now that we have more going on throughout the week.
We have the flexibility to still have people at the bar, but also be supporting other locations in the community and just giving people, especially a lot of our people are new to the area and we want to expose them to different things throughout the season.
Lance (24:04.263)
Thank you.
Lance (24:11.179)
So when the bar started, you sort of pointed the two at each other and said, hey everybody, go to this bar. And then now the bar's in an okay spot, and so you're kind of separating them a little bit. And they're still the crossover, but you're back working with other bars.
Kelsey (24:16.349)
Right.
Kelsey (24:25.982)
Right. And we'll always have, obviously, like, if I could, I would send every single person to the bar because that's where we like, you would make the most money. However, you know, not banking. So if I banked on the bar being sustainable, just with our league members, we would fail. I think if you get too comfortable with that and those are just your people coming in, well, eventually it's just the same people that are probably going to get bored no matter how cool of a facility it is or whatever it may be.
Lance (24:33.866)
Order.
Kelsey (24:55.422)
So I think it's just keeping it fresh and not only relying on the people that we have already loyal to us.
Lance (25:03.211)
Got it, okay. So, I guess, these relationships that you have then with other community partners and breweries and all that, are these formalized sponsorship agreements where they're paying you and you're like, okay, I'll send people your way? Or are you doing any kind of paid sponsorships for these leagues?
Kelsey (25:22.495)
I would say that we do not capitalize on those opportunities as much as we should. Is probably a nice way of putting it. I sometimes feel unable to separate like the friendships versus the business relationships, which is just, you know, that's just me as a person. That being said though, I do like, for example, last year or last season, our pickleball league was sponsored by McGro -
Lance (25:29.003)
Okay.
Kelsey (25:51.392)
Michelob Ultra, and we were able to come up with that partnership because all of our distributors at the bar. So I would have never thought to like reach out to a brand like that, but they have a lot of resources that smaller community businesses don't necessarily have. so as far as like paid sponsorships, I would rather make those, those partnerships versus asking like other small businesses and Dayton to.
pay to be a sponsor.
Lance (26:21.963)
Yeah, that makes sense. But it kind of gets to a question I have, which is, because you made a comment earlier before you were talking about the bar that just running the leagues wouldn't be sustainable. So what I mean, what made you say that? And I guess, can you talk I mean, profit?
Kelsey (26:33.503)
Mm -hmm.
Kelsey (26:37.631)
so, okay, I guess that's probably not the best way to put it. It would probably be sustainable, right? For myself, it would probably be like normal living. I personally like, you know, some of the finer things in life. I like to travel and you know, so, so I'm going to be completely honest. I think that, you know, that, and then also time is super valuable to me. So.
Lance (26:54.443)
You're in the...
Kelsey (27:04.609)
If I wanted to be doing all of this alone still and putting in like the long, long hours for both businesses, like easily it can make do. But, you know, one of the biggest things I've learned is that you have to learn how to delegate, especially if you do want your time. And so for me spending more on having employees and having both baskets to be worked on. It's also, you know, it's one of those things where.
Lance (27:26.763)
Mm.
Kelsey (27:33.216)
I, as an entrepreneur, don't want to do the same thing every single day. I like my days to look different. And by kind of dipping in to both, every single day is different, which can be good, can be bad, but that's just a personal choice.
Lance (27:48.267)
Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, I know running leagues is hard. I've done it. And so to be all in on that all the time and yeah, no, that kind of makes sense. So how have you thought about, I guess, like technology in all of this space, both with your bar and with the leagues and like, has that evolved over time?
Kelsey (28:08.354)
significantly. We actually we started with the apps and we still use League apps. It is a it's just it's just the software we found that works for what we need. Currently, we are always looking for upgraded technology. I think if I think there's like three different things, three different apps programs we use that if it could all be one item, we would just be set and it would be magical.
So, League Apps is the backend. That's all of our registration, et cetera. We really pride ourselves on being... So, our leagues are free agent, small group, or full team. That way, if you're brand new to the area, you don't know anybody, which is the whole point of it, we can help you find a team. So, a lot of leagues are, you know, they say you have to find your team, or you have to find your group, whatever it may be. We do that. League Apps makes that really, really easy.
As far as communication with our players, we use Spond. It's, I don't know if you're familiar, it's a like Facebook and sport messaging group. That's super helpful. And then for our tournament type things, we use Scoreholio, which that will be like your X -raying leagues, your cornhole leagues on tournament nights. So week eight of most of our bigger leagues will have a tournament. So you have like a full championship night.
Lance (29:08.907)
Mm -hmm.
Lance (29:21.739)
Hmm.
Kelsey (29:32.673)
And then Pickleball is our big one that we use score Holy for. And it just is super user friendly on the player side and automatically text you to your phone, what games you have next and what court. And then you can put your score in on your own. So for that, those are the three pieces that kind of form our whole tech base.
Lance (29:54.059)
Yeah. Okay. Well, we can talk offline because yeah, we do a lot of stuff. But I've seen, yeah, Spawn, we don't do everything that like Spawn does, but that premise of all in one is on point with the way we think about it. But you know, every business is different. It's got a lot, there's a lot of nuance and the way you guys were thinking about it. So yeah, what was my next question? So yeah, so another piece of that though, that's all in one, at least for us is like the staffing side. And we think about that.
Kelsey (29:58.593)
Okay.
Lance (30:22.475)
piece as well and how do you deploy staff, assign them, manage them, all that kind of stuff. So maybe you could talk about that. Like how did you find people to help you?
Kelsey (30:31.907)
Yeah, well, you mentioned Craigslist at the beginning and that does not work well. Yeah, so I wouldn't recommend that route. Obviously we're seven years later, so we, you know, you get better. But really, we just got lucky, right? I'm going back to that. The people in the league want to be there. So instead of, so for a long time, we tried getting like,
Lance (30:35.819)
Yeah, it does not work for us either, yeah.
Kelsey (30:59.394)
sanctioned refs. And so for like soccer, like football, we have sanctioned people that are trained in it and there are refs. However, with like kickball, tee ball, dodge ball, you know, we're not, we're social, right? You don't have to have these like sanctioned refs. Also, it's incredibly hard to find a sanctioned kickball ref. so we just do, player volunteers. They get the week free for, if they do like X amount of roughing, usually it's like three to four times they'll be put on the schedule. We do like a,
team meeting at the beginning of the season for all the refs. Like, do you have any questions? Does that and the other. And we found that it just really makes it more social just because they play in the league, right? So it's like, whatever your ref says, whatever the call they make, that's the call. We're going to move forward. It's a social league. They're in the league just like you, we're all adults. And then we move forward. They're playing in the league. So they'll play like a different team. Right, right, right. Yeah.
Lance (31:51.819)
So they're playing in the league while reffing? I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, OK, because we went down that path before, and then it felt like we needed to separate them because you have a certain kind of bias whenever you're... And it's not like that's going to affect truly their judgment, but has that been an issue for you guys, or you found a way to...
Kelsey (32:04.675)
Yeah.
Kelsey (32:11.139)
Mm -hmm.
Kelsey (32:14.499)
I think that sometimes it can be. I do think from my perspective as a female, I'm almost always at those games that are sanctioned. So eventually I probably won't be able to show up to every single one of them. But it's just really zoning in on the fact that it is a social league. We all have to wake up in the morning and go to work or deal with our families or whatever it may be.
Lance (32:37.355)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kelsey (32:43.845)
And I sometimes, you know, it's only a handful of people, right, that are going to cause issues. and once we've, we've had the same reps, gosh, pretty much over and over, they sign up again. So people respect them. People understand what they're doing. I will say this year we had the pleasure of adding a new member to our staff. He actually helped develop Cincinnati social sports and was, born and raised in Dayton. So he moved back.
Lance (33:06.987)
Mm.
Kelsey (33:11.364)
he reached out to us and he's been a huge asset. So he's an older gentleman, but he's been there, done that kind of thing. He knows what works and what doesn't. He's super old school, so the technology part is definitely still like, that's our job. But he just has kind of those like little things that we can tweak. That's really like made a big difference this year.
Lance (33:33.067)
Okay, yeah, got it. And so I guess that you said sanctioned referees, does that mean that you're using like an assigner for, you know, soccer and stuff like that, or you're just making sure they're sanctioned and you're still sort of assigning them or?
Kelsey (33:45.412)
Correct. Yeah. So basically the way it works at the beginning of every league, or actually when you're registering for almost all of our sports, we have an option of like, do you want a ref? And then we keep a running list of that. That way, like, it's just a good thing to have in your back pocket. And a lot of times people will reach out. They like, you know, for example, for our ax throwing league, the person who runs it loves that. Like that is their thing. And so.
For me, I couldn't ask for a better person than someone who loves what they're doing and is in the league. Right, like you don't have to be like super good at it necessarily to be passionate and to be a good ref.
Lance (34:25.067)
So that kind of translates, I guess, maybe to one of my last questions here, which is like, how did you, or like, what's the criteria for finding great people and what have you done when you found people that maybe weren't a good fit? If you've sort of dealt with that, sounds like a love and passion for the game or sport is pretty key. Are there other things that you look for when you're like going through the interview process?
Kelsey (34:38.757)
Mm -hmm.
Kelsey (34:48.773)
I think it's more so just like, there are definitely things that we don't put up with. I will say that. So we have had to, you know, ask people to not be in that position anymore. And that's not to, and nine times out of 10, they're, they're completely cool with that. They're there to play the game and they realize that for whatever reason, like roughing is not for them. And it's usually that they're just into it, right? They just get a little too heated and.
not necessarily while you're reffing, but how you perform as a player on the field. That is primarily what we're looking for. If you can't have good sportsmanship on the field, then you're certainly not going to be able to play for us. So just like keeping those visuals on people, keeping a lot of communication open. We chat with our refs and our employees daily. So it's just keeping good expectations.
Lance (35:37.259)
Mmm.
Got it, okay. And then if somebody's off track, you're pretty quick to say this is not kinda how we do it.
Kelsey (35:45.798)
Yeah. And, and really, like I said, we've gotten very, very lucky over the seven years we've had such few issues that it's, it's really hard to maybe like talk about specific incidents, but I think it's just keeping like, ears, ears and eyes open and making sure that everything's running smoothly.
Lance (36:02.795)
Yeah, okay last question. So What does the next two three four five years? Look like and what what what do you kind of do you see things sort of? changing I've talked to some people recently that They were kind of saying in the in the sort of social sports realm things ebb and flow more than I thought they would and he was talking about You know at one point everything was about like dodgeball and then that kind of faded and we saw something else kind of surge And so do you see any of those kind of surges going on?
Kelsey (36:23.142)
Mm -hmm.
Lance (36:32.203)
now and then more just like personally how do you think about the next few years and what you want to accomplish.
Kelsey (36:38.536)
I definitely agree with that. I had no idea that opinions and things that people want to see and don't want to see would change like this much. I mean, we've tried a lot of sports and we've also like not succeeded at a lot of leagues, right? Like you try and make it work and sometimes ideas just don't stick. So kickball seems, like I said at the beginning, it is like a staple league for most people, but ours was...
smaller this year. But that being said, like I mentioned, soccer and pickleball are just like, can't we can't have enough court space and field space. So, you know, I'm going to just take that as a win. And then as far as moving forward, I said this year in particular, we're really focusing on like, community based charity, charity work. So I mentioned that I was a teacher in the past, that is not
Lance (37:31.85)
Mmm.
Kelsey (37:37.895)
ever going to be my realm again, but I do still really love children. So we actually just partnered with a charity called Isaiah 117 House. And they basically provide a home for children that have been pulled from their home. For whatever reason, they give you or they give the children a place to stay and be taken care of and looked after, fed, given clothes while they're finding a safe space for them. And
Lance (37:46.667)
Hmm.
Kelsey (38:07.079)
So we're doing, we're kicking off that with a kickball tournament in August. And I hope from there, I'll just kind of set the basis for how we move forward as far as like building our community in a different sense, right? So we have the social aspect, we have the sport aspect, but I would really like to just hone in on some of these charity type things that we could get back in.
Lance (38:28.619)
love that. How do you make a partnership like that work? Like is that just like a percent of revenue or you're asking for donations or like attention for them and fundraising campaigns or how do you think about that?
Kelsey (38:40.232)
Yeah, I mean, we have a fairly large mailing list. We have around 10 ,000 people. So we're trying to leverage that for them and, you know, just get exposure. So they're new to the area. They're not a new charity. They have homes. I know there's one in Nashville, there's one farther north in the Cleveland area. so right now they're just trying to get all everything organized for the actual build of the home. And they're like super, super close. So this is.
Lance (38:46.059)
Thanks.
Lance (39:04.747)
Mm.
Kelsey (39:07.72)
For us, our end of the partnership is raising awareness. This kickball tournament, we know how to run the tournament. We know how to run the sport end of things and they don't. So we're doing that for them. And then they're asking for raffles, donations, et cetera. But it'll essentially be the kickball tournament. And then we're asking all of our people to donate items. So like backpacks, shoes, clothing items for the children, things of that nature.
Lance (39:38.699)
Wow, okay, I love that, yeah. Okay, I think that's all the questions. Are there any other things like that that you wanna share or bring attention?
Kelsey (39:48.52)
I don't think so, I think that's just about it.
Lance (39:51.947)
Thanks for your time. This is super good, very helpful. Appreciate it.
Kelsey (39:54.058)
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks.
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