Uncover the secrets behind the Williamsburg Softball League's success, from its unique field setup to its strong community partnerships, and see how it became a highly sought-after league with a waitlist and sold-out seasons.
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Welcome to Episode #13 of the Sold Out podcast where we interview league organizers across the country for tips and tricks on how to sell out leagues.
The Williamsburg Softball League (WSL), a dynamic co-ed league based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, features 16 teams with about 20-25 players each, totaling around 320-330 participants. Games are held on Sundays from March to October, with multiple time slots throughout the day. A distinctive aspect of the league is its field setup, where two games are played simultaneously on adjacent fields, with home runs determined by the ball rolling through to the other game.
Holland took over as commissioner 11 years ago and has since focused on building a strong community. This includes forming partnerships with local businesses and organizing events such as parties and trips to Cozumel, Mexico. While the league is competitive, it also emphasizes good sportsmanship, with rules and suspensions in place to maintain a positive atmosphere. The WSL is highly sought after, boasting a waitlist for teams and a sold-out Fall League.
In this episode, we discuss the league's waitlist and draft process, the unique format of the games, and the sponsorship model. Unlike the Fall League, which is a draft league with 224 participants, the summer league doesn’t have a waitlist; players are often scouted during the fall and picked up for the summer. WSL games are nine innings long, played over two hours, with a requirement that each team has at least two female players on the field at all times. Each team secures its own sponsor, and the league hosts parties at the sponsor's location to help them recoup their investment.
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.
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Lance (00:00.762)
Alright, today we have Holland from WSL. Thanks for being here, Holland. So yeah, let's start with some of the basics about your league, where you're located, what you're running, and how many players you have or teams participating.
Holland (00:03.977)
Thank
Holland (00:12.297)
Okay, great. Well, first off, thank you very much for reaching out. This is cool. It's first time I've done a podcast about softball and specifically about my league, so this is great. The league is the Williamsburg Softball League, and we based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We have 16 teams. Each team has about 20 to 25 players, so we have about, I'd say an average of about 320 to 330 players that come down. We play only on Sundays.
Lance (00:14.447)
Yeah.
Holland (00:42.089)
game start at 11 a We have 11 a slots, 1 o 'clock, 3 o 'clock, and 5 o 'clock. So that's every Sunday beginning at the end of March until roughly the end of September slash first week of October depending on weather and rain outs. And everything is based in Williamsburg. We have two fields and they play back -to -back with each other since they're small. so literally you'll have an outfielder facing this way watching the game on field one.
and you'll have an outfielder facing this way watching the game on field two. So you could be literally a feet apart.
Lance (01:16.442)
Wow, so is there a line for home runs or something in between them?
Holland (01:19.677)
There's no lines. Basically, if the ball just goes through and rolls through, and you can get around the bases as quick as you can, that's a home run. So you will have balls that could travel all the way into the infield of the other game that's going on, could bounce off somewhere, and blah, blah, and the runner can go around, and that's a home run in the Williamsburg Softball League.
Lance (01:27.974)
Okay,
Lance (01:42.534)
Yeah, yeah, I got it. Okay. Those teams kind of sound kind of big, I guess. 20 to 25, and there's nine people playing, right, on the field. 10 on the field,
Holland (01:50.761)
We have 10 on the field. So we have four outfielders, four across, and then an infield of our regular four diamond and then a pitcher and a catcher. So 10 total.
Lance (02:00.454)
10 total on and then so what's the thinking on having 20 to 25 players? I guess that's that's 10 people on the bench kind of at any time at least Okay
Holland (02:07.465)
Yeah, so you'll have, well it's a popular league, so that's kind of the issue that we run into. So a lot of people try to get in. Believe it or not, since we do have the Williamsburg Softball League, it has actually overflown. And now across the street, there's an asphalt field there. And we actually have another league there of four teams of about 10, 15 players as well. That also goes
at the same time. I would say that's almost like the minor leagues of the WSL. So it's a very popular league that people are trying to get into quite a bit.
Lance (02:39.972)
Yeah. Cool. Well, let's start with maybe the backstory and how it got here to being this kind of popular league and how it kind of developed the format and all that. So did you start this originally?
Holland (02:44.403)
Sure.
Holland (02:52.105)
I did not start this. The league started in 2000 in Williamsburg. There's an area of the park where there's what's called a red brick house that back in the day was a pretty rundown, but it was just a bathroom or whatever. It's been since redone. It's beautiful. And the league actually started over there, actually in the shadow of 9 -11, believe it or not. That's actually kind of how it came about, the city and all this stuff, you as you can imagine.
And so the league started there and then it gradually grew to basically it was like four teams and then it grew to about six or eight. And now over time has grown to like I said, 16 teams. I've been the commissioner for 11 years. So this is actually my 11th year. The commissioner before me, a very nice guy, buddy of mine named Joe, and he was the commissioner for also about 10 years. So it seems like the commissionership ranges for about a decade.
And then before Joe was another person who actually got the league kind of off the ground and rolling
Lance (03:58.765)
Okay. And that person, I guess, still owns the league? is it a for -profit or a non -profit or has it set
Holland (04:05.267)
So we're an LLC, it's a non -profit, but I actually do own all the permits, the LLC, it's all in my name, yeah.
Lance (04:14.054)
Got it. Okay, so you kind of bought it from the person before you were transferred or something and now you're full. Got it. All right. So, yeah, maybe we can talk then about how, I guess, yeah, so maybe not the original kind of how it got started, but, know, as you took over, kind of, I guess, why did you take over and what's sort of maybe unique about this league? Did you make any changes when you sort of took over or? Yeah.
Holland (04:38.953)
Sure, that's a really good question. So Joe, Joe's fantastic guy, he's a buddy of mine. He lived in Williamsburg at the time, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I was there as well, I was in the league, I've been in the league since 2006. And he was moving to New Jersey, he had gotten engaged, he wanted to do the whole, you know, the family and whatnot. And he wanted to basically, essentially retire. And from commissioning and playing.
as often, so much softball. And of course, the commute from Jersey to Brooklyn, you never know with traffic and you have to go through the bridge, the tunnel, et cetera. So he actually approached me one time previously about becoming the commissioner. I was a little bit hesitant other than just busy and work and all this fun stuff. And then he convinced me to take it over and I did.
The thing that makes it unique, and when I took over the league, was we are very fortunate, if you were to come to Williamsburg or if anyone just visits, in that specific area of Williamsburg, we are right in the center of a dozen bars, restaurants, stores, the Parkview Market, which everyone goes to. And so we were able to build up this community within.
the neighborhood and relationships with these bars and with these businesses so that they could work with us by sponsoring teams and then hosting us for parties or drink discounts or drink specials. Even naming, for example, like we'll have a party and my team is the Scorpions and they will have on the menu that night a drink called the Scorpion. And that's like a drink special and as opposed to getting a beer for X amount of dollars, you could buy that drink.
Lance (06:15.56)
Mmm
Lance (06:25.688)
I'm wacko.
Holland (06:31.785)
for a little bit cheaper, but it's just to get more players in. So when I took over the league, I don't know, I think what I wanted was, I think anyone in theory can create a softball league, right? I could just go out and we could create a softball league on a Tuesday or whatever. When I was given the league, I wanted to have a community built around a softball league. And I was fortunate that this area is very, very popular.
Lance (06:57.892)
Mm -hmm.
Holland (07:01.801)
the foot traffic going through Williamsburg, McCarran Park where we play is extraordinary. And we're talking thousands of people come by and watch us. And so they're either like rollerblading or skateboarding, riding their bikes. There's families with their children, are baby carriages. And it just became very well known, very popular. And I just continuously promote via Facebook.
And then the league just really on its own just blew up. I mean, we have so many different organizations that we have now and things that we do. We have a fall league that spins off of this. We have spring training. We actually go down to Cozumel, Mexico with a lot of us and we play the locals in Cozumel, which is awesome. We've only done it when we did it last year. We're sorry, this year in February and we'll do it next year in February. That's a lot of fun. So it's really just keeping everyone engaged.
Lance (07:40.41)
Mm -hmm.
Lance (07:46.02)
What? Wow. Yeah.
Holland (07:57.929)
And just making it like a lifestyle and a part of the community with all the insanity and everything that's hectic in New York City. This gives everyone an opportunity to get away from that and to go somewhere to a park and play softball with your friends. And like I said, it's from 11 a and it roughly goes to 7 p every Sunday from March until October and then fall league starts and that goes to December.
So we're basically keeping these everyone busy from March until December, playing softball every Sunday from 11 o 'clock until
Lance (08:32.688)
So how have you, I mean, I imagine a lot of leagues want the kind of engagement that I hear you talking about. mean, that kind of engagement where as a community you fly to another country and play, I mean, that's kind of wild. So was it like that when you took over and is it, you you've mentioned a lot about like that area and the foot traffic. And so there's something about this permit that you have that's, guess, very valuable and a big part of this whole thing.
Holland (08:58.391)
Right.
Lance (08:59.13)
But I mean, how would you, if you were talking to somebody else, like how would you recommend building such an engaged community? Is it all about like location or are there other things that you're doing that are creating something that's kind of this, I guess, electric?
Holland (09:13.47)
First off is to make it safe. So we're a co -ed league. So we do make it safe for males, females, anyone to play. We're very open to anyone who wants to play. It's competitive. So people actually come down that want to play competitive softball. We have like my first baseman on my softball team on Sunday, the Scorpions, her name is Kendall Dawson. She played with Alabama. She actually won the college world series.
They even had a story about that team on ESPN, on the 40 -40 one of those. It's fantastic. So the competition within the league is incredible. So that helps bring additional talent. One of the things we've really strived to stay away from is making it a money league. I'm not sure if you're very familiar with money leagues in Texas, but in New York City and Brooklyn.
You basically, a bunch of teams show up, they put money in a pot, and then they all play for it. It could go upwards of like $12 ,000, $15 ,000 to win that pot. Yes, and I've been in these leagues, and they're insane, and people wanna kill each other. Which makes no sense, because at the end of the day, you're gonna get paid out as a player, maybe a few hundred bucks. But it's so competitive, so we've, that's literally one of the rules that when I took over the commissionership, that we do not make it a money league. So it's not a money league. So it's competition, everyone hanging out.
Lance (10:13.338)
Wow, I never heard of
Lance (10:18.918)
Call it a bet.
Holland (10:35.913)
feeling safe, having a good time, and then just getting people involved. I think probably the one thing that I did is I really diversified a lot my responsibilities. So we actually have like a party crew, people that plan parties. We have people that organize the Hall of Fame. We have a Hall of Fame committee. We have an umpire committee. We have this. So it's really been like all these different responsibilities that other people have that I don't do.
that they do for the league. Now they're compensated, so we charge, we do charge a fee for every team, every team has a fee. That goes to like the permits, and then all that other additional monies go to all those individuals to work for the league. So it's not a volunteer ship, it's not, can you do us a favor, or, you know, can you help me out? It's, I'm gonna pay you X amount of dollars for the league, and so then in return, I expect a service. And that's worked out very, very well.
Lance (11:07.118)
Hmm.
Lance (11:32.528)
Yep, got
Holland (11:35.209)
Volunteership in my opinion doesn't really work that well paying someone to actually do work is
Lance (11:38.032)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, so when you're setting up these committees, is it multiple people and they're each getting paid like a weekly fee or something like that to, this is your responsibility and here's your email address and here's how work comes to you and what you do and that kind of
Holland (11:52.551)
All right, so most of the committees, I'll pay them upfront at the beginning of the year. Once I get the monies from the teams, I will pay them at the beginning of the year. We have a grounds crew that we do. And so there'll be individuals that'll come down to do it. There's roughly like four or five different individuals. So at the end of that day, end of Sunday or Monday morning, I'll pay those individuals who came down. So that's the only really weekly fee that I have to keep up. Yeah, ongoing fee.
Lance (11:57.496)
Okay. Yep.
Lance (12:13.902)
Hmm, like ongoing. Right. Well, probably umpires as well are a weekly fee.
Holland (12:20.467)
So umpires, so we have a unique thing here with the WSL. Our umpires also play in the WSL. So we make our umpires learn the rules, which you can go on our site and click on rules. They have to learn these rules. Then they have to take a test to pass these rules. Once they've taken the test and passed them, now they're qualified to ump. So now I have a guy who also is paid. He's a very good guy. His name is Pete.
He manages the umpire scheduling. So every Sunday, or roughly, sorry, more like Thursday, Friday, he'll reach out to his ump pool and then he'll slot all the umps for the game. So those umps will then umpire the game. They have to wear a WSL umpire shirt. They have to have a clicker. They need to know the rules. And they get paid $80 a game for one nine inning game. That's how our league works. We don't have two sevens, three six innings. It's all one nine inning game. So they'll get paid $80.
And then around the middle of the week, Tuesday, Wednesday, I actually will send out a survey to our managers and asking them to grade our umpires. And so from them I get the learnings, what we're kind of short on, what people, what umpires aren't following. And it could be something as simple as they don't know when to call, you know, when there's a foul ball or when there's, you know, when there's a first and second.
whatever, infield fly rule, you know, they don't know whether to call that. So there could be certain things like that. And so then I use this to then help the umpires improve and become.
Lance (13:54.95)
yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's something we put in our app as well as like a survey that goes out after every match where you can rate referees. so you see those. And in our system, we often see like, you know, rated between 4 .2 and 4 .8 stars. It's on a five star scale or something like that. But yeah, that's interesting that you're going through that and you're really operationalizing it. Like each week taking that data, making use of it, turning around, giving it to the umpires. And you've seen that that works really well. And that feedback, like you're getting good feedback each week.
Holland (14:22.985)
Yeah, well the interesting thing is it's kind of like the great equalizer because I can literally play a game against a guy named Kenny. Kenny's a good kid. I could play against him and then he can literally umpire the next game on the other field at 3 p And so then he'll umpire that game and then next week I'm now umping his game. And now I don't actually ump anymore but I could be umping his game. So it's like everyone has to understand each other.
relationships and so then when I send out this survey to the managers, I'm very specific to call out that these are your friends. These are fellows who are in the league. They play with you, they play against you, they could be on your team. So let's not be too harsh in our comments. Let's make it, let's be clear in what we're trying to actually improve and fix and not just bash and I think it just goes a long way to make our umpires more qualified and more knowledgeable in the world because they play in the league.
Lance (15:03.824)
Yep.
Holland (15:20.041)
They know the rules and then they're
Lance (15:20.102)
Yep. So do all of them play in the league? Like you've never hired an outside umpire? These are all sort of self -developed. Nice, okay yeah. Talking to another league that did this.
Holland (15:24.915)
We do not hire outside umpires at all, not in the WSL. If we do tournaments or whatever and we do that on Sundays, we could hire outside umpires, but that's outside of the actual WSL purview.
Lance (15:33.082)
Okay.
The normals. Okay. I do want to get into like the format of the nine innings and all that kind of stuff. But actually before that, I kind of want to go, we kind of skipped over it. You mentioned the league is, it's coed it's open, but it's very competitive, but it sounds like it's also very community driven. Sometimes those things seem to be kind of an opposition of each other. I was just talking to another league that, went so far as to, you know, not even do playoffs at the end of the year, because they just don't want there to be this focus on competition.
Holland (15:49.866)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Lance (16:06.062)
and said they're actually kind of grading sportsmanship each week and that's actually what you get rewarded for is like your sportsmanship performance and they want it to be a very kind of family friendly great atmosphere. And so you do see the cinch and then the opposite end is probably that the money leagues you mentioned that I had not heard of where it's like intense competition. So how do you get it to be balanced? When you say coed is it, and you also say open, it like literally anybody can play on any team? Do you have like any requirements? Like there has to be three girls or four girls, anything like that.
And then yeah, how do you ensure that it's both great fun and all that, but competitive and how do you balance those things?
Holland (16:42.793)
So, I guess going back to the first part of the question is when I did take over the league 11 years ago, I'm not gonna lie and say that it was an easy transition from making it a bar league to a more competitive league that we have now. So the actual original name was the Williamsburg Softball Bar League. This was actually the original name of the league 25 years ago, and it was actual people who worked at bars that would go to the park and then play.
Lance (17:01.625)
Mmm.
Holland (17:10.825)
as like I said the area was more popular and people started to play more. It just naturally got more more more competitive. When I took it over around 11 years ago, was, it had just started kind of that cusp of now it's becoming a more competitive league. How that happened was there was only 14 teams in the league. My previous commissioner Joe got additional permits so he did an expansion of four teams and one of those teams,
that came in brought in the team from Manhattan, from the city to Brooklyn, that was a really good team. And all of a sudden it kind of created like this arms race within the league where, holy cow, this team over here brought in like four studs. So then my team, which was perennially pretty good, was like, okay, now we're gonna bring in two guys that are studs. And then it just naturally got more competitive. In terms of keeping it sportsmanship,
Lance (17:56.923)
Yep.
Lance (18:02.522)
Mmm.
Holland (18:10.077)
Honestly, we have rules. We have very specific rules about keeping it sportsman sports, good sportsmanship. I'm not going to, I'm not going to sugar coat it and say that every year is perfect. but there are suspensions all the time. actually this year we haven't had one knock on, knock on wood. We haven't had a suspension, but we, we inevitably have a few a year. We haven't really had to eject anyone out of the league for a few years. I think everyone really understands that we have a very special.
league going on here and it means a lot to everybody so they're not really bringing in troublesome individuals that are gonna start fights or arguments or all that fun stuff and I'll be honest I won the league if there's a problem they're just they're out here that's and that works
Lance (18:56.708)
Yeah, yeah. So you set the rules and force them in. It also sounds like the league is sold out. Like people want to play in this league more than... So you have a wait list and I imagine that gives you a lot of power to control the sort of culture and what you want, right? If a league is like desperate to get another couple of teams, I think that's where you can end up in kind of a tough spot is because you get some teams that maybe don't fit, but you want there to be more competition and you're kind of in
Holland (19:10.217)
Yeah.
Holland (19:19.464)
Yeah, exactly. So I started a Fall League about 10 years ago because of the popularity. And I'm waiting for additional permits, which usually 224 players. Right now, the Fall League is 168. And we sold 168 spots in the Fall League in seven days. That's how quick it just goes. An instant like this sells out. Fall League doesn't start till October, and it's already sold out
Lance (19:41.414)
Yep.
Holland (19:46.089)
actually sold out last week. So it was like sold out on July 25th for October. If I get additional permits, which I'm waiting on, then it will go up to 224 and then could even go further depending upon how many permits I do get. But yeah, it's just extraordinarily popular and it's one of the, I would argue to say it's one of the best leagues in the city. That includes all the boroughs, absolutely.
Lance (19:48.037)
Yeah, well.
Lance (20:08.164)
Yeah, so how do you, mean, is the waitlist people just, it's in order of like, how does somebody get off the waitlist? They just have to hopefully.
Holland (20:14.729)
So in the WSL, in the summer league, all these teams have been in the league literally for like 15, 10, 15, 25 years. Like my team has been in the league since 2004. So we're talking, what year? Yeah, 20 years. 20 years, this team, this brand has been in the league. So there is no wait list. It's just basically like someone will come down in the fall league, maybe they get spotted by another team, and then they get picked up for the summer. The fall league...
Lance (20:22.469)
Yep.
Holland (20:44.009)
which is whole other animal, is actually a draft league. So out of these 168 people that joined, there's 12 teams and each team will draft a total of 14 players per team.
Lance (20:47.612)
cool.
Lance (20:54.992)
What made you want to do a draft league and how do you run that? Or how are you going
Holland (20:59.377)
It was all basically, long story short, I'm from Los Angeles and we play year round in LA and you're in Texas obviously, I'm sure you all play year round as well for the most part. So when I first came to New York, I didn't understand the mindset of like, wait, we only played from April till September, like Labor Day, we shut down, like what am I supposed to do with myself? September, October, November, December, January, February, March. And so I just casually applied to the Parks Department, the Brooklyn Parks Department for those.
Lance (21:10.298)
Yep. Yep.
Holland (21:27.625)
feels the softball feels McCarran Park same location same time same everything and this is a while ago this is 10 years ago and magically they just showed up in the mail one day and I had to pay for them or I lose them now no one else had them but I was like okay I have these things it's a few grand well at the time it was like probably a decent amount of money and I'm like okay can you lose these things or I could pay for them but now since this these permits in my hand start like in a week what am I gonna do how am I gonna get a lead together
And so I was out with a buddy of mine, maybe drinking a little bit too much sake, having some sushi. And I was like, dude, I got the permits for Fall League, what am I supposed to do? And we were like, why don't we just make it a draft league? Why don't we just, everyone sign up and then you just pick players and we'll do that. And that was the first year and that was only, that was 10 years ago. This is year 11 of the Fall League that'll start. And the first year was literally like 44 people signed up. And now last year we sold
Lance (22:01.709)
Hahaha
Holland (22:27.521)
224 spots. So in 10 years, we went from 44 to 224 spots. And that's just for the fall league animal. That's a whole other thing. And so people will go in there and then the kind of the cream of that crop will then hopefully get drafted or drafted will get picked up by then the summer team for the next year. So that's how you basically break into the
Lance (22:41.904)
picked
Lance (22:46.991)
cool, okay. And then how do you, I'm curious, how do you run the draft league? then we'll start there, but I mean, how do you actually pull it
Holland (22:55.109)
man, so the draft league, so it'll be at a bar, a bar called, yeah, it's at Crystal Lake. It's a bar, it's on Grant, it's in Williamsburg, and has a huge back room. And so we will have 18 teams, and a team must consist of a manager and a co -manager, male -female combination. So there's literally 18 booths. I think it's actually more like 10 booths, and then there's a middle.
Lance (23:01.176)
okay, okay.
Holland (23:21.481)
big long middle tables, like knights of the round table in this room. And there are 18 teams, like I said too, so 36 people in a room, and we have a draft board, and I will send out the sheet of the 224 players who have signed up for the draft, and each sheet, or the sheets have everyone when they sign up via Eventbrite, has obviously their name, their email, their phone number, but then it has what position they want to play, what secondary position they want to play.
Lance (23:24.238)
Yeah.
Holland (23:48.265)
what Sunday team in the WSL they already play for. And so then everyone gets these sheets and it's 224 players and it's their responsibility then to draft their team. So we do it in one night, it takes like three hours. And we have a huge draft board, I actually had one in here, I should have brought it out. And everyone gets marked off and you get about a minute and half to pick your player. And it goes from next next, it's a serpentine, so we go one to 18, 18 to one.
Lance (24:01.956)
Yeah,
Holland (24:17.129)
and we do it all in one night and it's an event. And then I invite all the players who have been drafted at 224 down to the bar. And so you'll have a solid few hundred people that will be at the bar watching what teams they're getting played on. Because I could play on my team, the Scorpions, in the summer, and I could play against my rivals on a team called the Susies, which is a fantastic team, but they're one of our rivals. They're one of the really good teams. And all of sudden now I'm playing with like three of those people in the fall.
Lance (24:45.86)
Yeah, that seems like it's got a great social, it's like more social component where you meet people and
Holland (24:47.155)
So it's, yeah, exactly. It's a lot of integration. now the player that I played against who I thought was like an aggressive, tough player, now all of in the fall I'm having beers with this guy at the bar and I'm like, this guy's hilarious. He's a great player and he's a good dude. And that's what that's, that's what happened.
Lance (25:01.978)
Yeah, yeah. How do people choose? It seems like kind of limited information to draft somebody. I I guess over time you start to know people,
Holland (25:11.803)
Over time you get to know people, yeah.
Lance (25:13.508)
Yeah, but there's not a lot of data. If somebody's new and they show up and they sign up on Eventbrite, then they're not
Holland (25:18.825)
Sure. Well, here's a little story. In year number two, was a manager and I was managing a team called year two of Fall League, I'm sorry, the draft league. And I was managing a team with a buddy of mine named Caesar and I was getting towards the end of the draft list. This time I think we only had 10 teams in the league and we're literally at like round number, I think it was like round 12. And a buddy of mine, David Martin, looked at the sheets and he saw that there was a name of an individual that hadn't been drafted. His name is Julio.
Angel Soriano, never heard of this kid. He signed up for the Folly, he goes, you gotta sign this guy, this guy is like a stud. So I drafted him. This guy played AAA for the Baltimore Orioles as a pitcher. He came down and we hit the ball 280 feet, he played on the Folly, we won the championship, and then I brought him over to the summer, and he was my shortstop on my summer team.
Lance (26:07.142)
Holy cow.
Holland (26:14.077)
So you can even look him up, baseball reference, Julio Angel Soriano, really nice guy, became a very good friend of mine. He met his future wife in the league. They got married, they moved to Los Angeles, have two babies. It's a Williamsburg, it's a Williamsburg softball miracle.
Lance (26:16.205)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lance (26:22.896)
Yep. Awesome.
Lance (26:28.902)
I love it. That's great. I love the idea of the draft League. I see that, you know, a number of places and the social, the mixing and the matching. There's a lot to that. We haven't done much with that with our software, but I'm hoping to at some point try to find a way to make that easier for people because the benefits for adults just seems awesome.
Holland (26:48.041)
Yeah, and it's also giving the opportunity for players that don't get a manage in the summer, they can now manage a team in the fall. I'm very like equitable, I'm like, okay, y 'all got your summer teams that have been in the league for 100 years, like y 'all, let's give these new people the opportunity to manage teams in the fall. They can understand the success, the joys of managing, the frustrations, the difficulties of dealing with people, or actually a learning experience of like,
Lance (26:55.493)
Yeah.
Lance (27:05.356)
Mm -hmm.
Holland (27:16.349)
Let me learn how to work with players and all this stuff. So it gives a whole other new group of people the opportunity to do this.
Lance (27:19.439)
Yeah,
Lance (27:23.462)
Totally. I think maybe a couple more major questions. One is around format and then the sponsorship stuff. But let's talk about format first. So it's nine innings. It's done over two hours. I guess maybe just give an overview of the exact format and kind of why you've done that. Maybe what's different than some other softball leagues.
Holland (27:41.504)
Sure. Sure, well why would we do it? I don't know, that's how was when I started and I didn't want to change it. So we play one night in in game. Obviously three outs. We play with balls and strikes. There's no mat so there is a catcher. The balls, the land obviously in a certain area and generally we have a strike zone that we've defined. There are 10 people on the field. Two have to be women minimum.
Lance (27:46.156)
Okay.
Holland (28:08.969)
Some team play with three, some play with four. It doesn't matter, there just has to be a minimum of two females on the field at all times. In terms of the lineup, you could bat 10 as long as two of those are ladies. You could bat 12, or you could bat 13 as long as three of them minimum are ladies. So that's kind of the format. Some kind of call outs, if you do four, so if you have a male in front of a female and the male gets four balls in a row.
Lance (28:28.269)
Mm. Good.
Holland (28:37.351)
The male and the female both walk. So the female gets an automatic walk this way. You actually have to pitch to the male. We have that rule. you have a foul out rule. So once you have two strikes, if you foul foul ball, you're out. There's no courtesies. know, it's just, it's how we keep the games moving. We don't have a mercy rule, if you could believe it, because the competition is really good. It rarely ever gets completely out of control. There are obviously anomalies in certain weeks where teams will,
score 25 runs in this, for the most part, they're all very close games. So there are no mercy rules. The time limit, hopefully, is two hours. So we'll start our first game at roughly 11 .15, 11 .30 a And that will go about a solid hour 45 minutes, maybe two hours. Next game we'll start, you know, 1 .15, 1 .30, and so on and so forth, till three o 'clock, five o 'clock. So our slots are 11 .30. Nope.
Lance (29:33.926)
So are you cutting them off at two hours if the game's not over? Or is it
Holland (29:37.469)
Nope, it just limits batting practice for the game that was gonna happen next.
Lance (29:41.955)
Okay. Have you ever had a game like go just way too long where you're
Holland (29:47.465)
There's been times, I know a couple years ago, we had like an extra inning game that went like 15 innings and it did kind of mess up the schedule. Where the teams after didn't actually get a play because it just messed up the whole thing. I think it was like a three o 'clock game that ended up going almost till six. We don't really have any issues until it starts getting darker later in the summer and then the fall. Middle of summer, even if it goes late, you know, obviously the sun sets here at like 830. So the games running over is an issue, but we will not stop games.
I won't stop the game even if it's running over. A game needs to be completed. I just learned in my time that to play over and pause a game and try and redo it is such a headache. We're just gonna finish this game.
Lance (30:24.23)
That's the way.
Lance (30:28.71)
Sure. Okay, and can they end in ties or not? No ties. Just keep going. Yeah, okay. Well, I guess, yeah, if you were trying to keep it running, I know some people, you know, modify things to have strict, very strict time limits. And that's interesting. You guys can just keep playing. I think a lot of people, know, that you've got your field from this time to this time. And if you're there a minute late, then somebody's, you know, kicking you out and it's a problem.
Holland (30:32.999)
Nope, no ties. There's no ties. There's no ties to softball, Lance.
Holland (30:54.121)
Yeah, we do have a great so it does get a little hairy in the fall. He's on the fall league starts. That'll be like what I say. It's actually end of September first week of October this year. And so it does get a little hairy because those those permits are 11 one and three and they'll end at five. Not there. There's anyone playing after us. It'll just get dark. So we do have to get that that in the fall going summer for the most part. The sun stays out. No one's no one comes down. It's you know, it's Karen is a free for all anyway, so we finish our games.
Lance (31:23.91)
Got it. Okay, I think the maybe the last kind of area I want to dig into because it seems like y 'all are just killing it is the sponsorship piece I noticed on your website. There was like nine sponsors or something. It was just a lot for the size of just one league So yeah, I'm curious like how did were those always kind of there? Is it is it a byproduct of the location and just being around all these other places or and you know if you were I guess mentoring somebody in a different area like how to pull this off like how would
How did you do it? How would you do it if you had to start over? Like, what's the secret there?
Holland (31:56.041)
Yeah, well to be totally, totally honest, every single team is sponsored. Every single one. I don't think I'm only having the thing because I only found enough graphics for all of those. What do I have, four, eight, 12? Yeah, so we 16 teams and every single team is sponsored. The way we do it is I basically tell the managers what the league fee is. It's not really that much money because we just keep it basically.
Lance (32:08.099)
Okay,
Holland (32:22.109)
to keep the lights on. No one here is making money, no one's here making a profit, we're just basically paying for everything, celebrating, having a good time. So we basically say, tell your sponsor to give the money. From that you can get your shirts or yada, yada, yada, whatever you wanna get with that money. Balls, they have to provide their own balls. And what we do is I have what I call my right -handed woman, Samantha, hope maybe she listens to this, I gave her a shout out, Sam Warden, and she is our party planning.
She's our party SAR. So she actually will organize having parties at all the different sponsorship locations. So we will have a party in this bar, that bar. There's a market on the street called the Parkview Market. We go there, everyone buys their food and lunches and everything. So they make their money back. There's actually a hotel down the street called the Dakota Hotel and they have a pool.
We have a WSL pool party there once a year. We just had it a couple weeks ago where we get 100 softball players in the pool. And I'm not gonna lie to you, Lance, it's not cheap. Because everyone's buying drinks. So Koda makes their money back. That bar makes their money back. These people make their money.
Lance (33:29.456)
Yeah.
Lance (33:33.432)
Okay. So y 'all are the middlemen between these bars and the teams having these sponsors like y 'all are connecting a team with the sponsor or the teams are
Holland (33:42.365)
The team themselves will get the sponsorship. They actually will go to the location and say, hey, would you like to sponsor us? We play at McCarran Park. It's X amount of dollars. And then we then say, the league says, we're now gonna have a party at your bar on, what is it, like August
Lance (33:58.676)
so you tell the team, hey, here's the pitch. Go find a place. We'll have a party there. They're going to love it. Just go get them. And they go get their own sponsor. And does that sponsor basically cover the entire cost for each team?
Holland (34:10.089)
It depends on the deal that the team can get, but I will say that 95 % of them, the sponsor covers the entire cost. Well, they make their money back. They do pretty good. We bring the whole week. Like I said, there's 320 people. We have a good party. We could bring 100, 150 for that particular day. Each one buys X amount of drinks or burgers or whatever, and they're going to make their money back. least that's the goal. That is absolutely the
Lance (34:18.352)
Wow, awesome. Okay, and so, yeah, yeah,
Lance (34:39.824)
Got it, okay. And is that all the kinds of sponsors? It's only team sponsors. It's purely based on this kind of party mechanic that you have. There's not like a higher level league sponsor that you put on the website or anything like
Holland (34:52.177)
I, so I, between me and whoever's gonna listen to this, I've had people approach me about sponsoring the WSL, meaning we wanna make it, I'm not gonna tell you the brands, but they've been like a couple decent sized brands that have approached me and said, we wanna be the main sponsors, but either there's zero percent chance that any other, no one, no business is gonna take the WSL or make it, you know, the blah -bitty -blah -bitty -blah.
WSL league. I'm not the permits the permits are gold the league is gold and it's all about just securing that so there's there's no way that anyone that I would give over responsibility for Exactly and there's a chance that's gonna
Lance (35:31.846)
Because you feel like you would have to give something up. mean, they wouldn't just throw you some money and say, our brand on your whatever. That'd be more to it,
Holland (35:40.413)
Yeah, now we want to do this, and now we want to change this, and now want to do that. No. So I say, I've had like two or three. Two of them have been pretty big brands, and I absolutely turned them down.
Lance (35:44.504)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Lance (35:51.792)
Sure. So I'm curious about one thing, because you mentioned earlier, like, the volunteer thing doesn't work. You're going to have to pay your folks. But you also mentioned no one's making money here. So mean, do you pay yourself at all for all this work? Or is this like
Holland (36:04.649)
I basically get what's kind of left over at the end of the whole thing. And then from that, to be totally fair, I end up buying gifts for them, all my favorite people. on top of, I'm a big wine collector. kind of a, actually, let me rephrase that. My girlfriend, my partner of 10 years, she is a huge wine collector. So I basically buy 15 bottles of wine, basically a case from her. And then at the end of the season party, I then...
Lance (36:25.862)
Okay.
Holland (36:34.419)
present them with bottles of wine and that's where that additional expense comes from. whatever is left over. So no, I don't really collect a salary. I just basically get whatever is left over. Whether it be whatever it is.
It wouldn't matter anyway. I I have a job, so it wouldn't really make a difference anyway in terms of what I make salary -wise. So it's just whatever goes out.
Lance (36:58.938)
Yeah, well, mean, yeah, sounds like people should really appreciate what you're doing because you're not in it for the money. And I know these things are work. I know that there's stress and there's problems and there's things that happen and, and you know.
Holland (37:09.927)
Yeah, yeah, like I said earlier, mean, I, we have an incredible league. There are so many good people that are working with me that make it brilliant. I mean, I'm not the only one doing it. If you go on our league, our website, and you just look at the org under more, you look at WSL org, you'll see all the people that work with me, that do all of the work with me to make this league incredible. yeah.
Lance (37:35.674)
Yeah, yeah, cool. Awesome, I think that's all I got. I know we're running up against time. So yeah, appreciate your time with this.
Lance (37:52.122)
Yeah, we'll do. I'll definitely do that. Sounds good. Okay. Alright, thank you. Take care.
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