Discover how Mike Zimmerman grew X-Flag Football from one league to a national powerhouse with 12-14 leagues every season—packed with tips on player loyalty, expansion strategies, and operational efficiency that every league organizer can learn from.
.svg){kind=icon}
Welcome to Episode #14 of the Sold Out podcast where we interview league organizers across the country for tips and tricks on how to sell out and grow leagues.
Mike Zimmerman, founder of X-Flag Football, has built a successful sports business over 17 years, running competitive flag football leagues scaling across Southern California and multiple states. Starting with a single league in 2007, X-Flag Football now operates 12-14 leagues each season and hosts three national tournaments annually, with up to 400 teams participating across seven states. Driven by a mission to create "a league for the players by the players," Mike emphasizes customization, player experience, and well-organized operations, which have fueled the league’s sustained growth and loyal following.
In this conversation, Mike shares his journey from launching X-Flag Football, learning from early mistakes, and finding ways to differentiate his league from competitors. He also dives into the business strategies that have helped him build lasting connections with players, expand into new markets, and maintain a strong culture of competitiveness and sportsmanship.
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 (00:01.535)
Alright, today we have Mike from X -Flag Football. Thanks for being here, Mike. So let's just get started with the basics. What leagues are you running and where, how many teams do you have participating?
Michael Zimmerman (00:15.214)
So I have been running flag football for 17 years. I've been playing for 20, 21 years actually. I'm based in Southern California, San Diego. Today I have about 12 to 14 leagues running every season. Plus I do three national tournaments a year. So between all that, I'm in seven states.
And I have anywhere between 300 to 400 teams a year playing at my events in my leagues. So yeah, like I said, I've been doing this a long, long time. yeah, I love it. It's what I get to do for a living. I get to run a sports business. And I still play our mission statement.
When we first started in 2007, we were a league for the players by the players and I'm still doing it 17 years later.
Lance (01:22.603)
Yeah, that's an impressive run you're on. So can you talk more about how it got started? So you said you've been playing 20 years. So you played a few years and thought, I could do this better than what's out there. And how did that go?
Michael Zimmerman (01:35.649)
Yeah, so I played football at the University of San Diego, and I got my business degree from there. And then right out of college, you devoted your whole life to sports. And I played football, baseball, and basketball in high school, and then played my college football all five years. Actually, I had a red shirt from my shoulder. So you play sports.
Personally, played sports from five years old to 21 straight. I never stopped, played straight through and you dedicate your life to something like a concept like that and then it just gets done and that's tough to deal with. So my best friend, James Trevely, and he played at SDSU and neither of us went pro.
Lance (02:21.984)
Yeah.
Michael Zimmerman (02:32.016)
We're like, hey, we got to do something. So I was looking around and on a street sign actually, there was an advertisement for a league called Top Gun. And they've since went out of business. But we started with them in 2003. It was our very first season. And we loved it. In Southern California, we play three times a year out here. So we.
Lance (02:59.488)
Mm
Michael Zimmerman (03:00.688)
We started playing and we loved it. It was just awesome and gave us a chance to still be athletic and still be competitive and still be athletes. So during that time, 2003, four, five, six, we were playing year round and we were like the top team and we'd normally go 10 and 0.
Lance (03:22.237)
I was kind of wondering if you played college ball and then you got into flag football if that would be a different kind of competition.
Michael Zimmerman (03:29.328)
Yeah, we used to really kill people and like, so my team, I'm kind of a Star Wars nerd. So we've been the dark side. So dark side has been my team since 2003. And we used to play like the Imperial death march at games. People hated us. Like we were scoring a hundred points in game. So yeah. So, but during that time, you know, as the business side of me, I started looking at it.
Lance (03:48.031)
Not bad.
Michael Zimmerman (03:57.507)
several times we were kicked off fields. I'm like, how are we kicked off fields? And later on, as a businessman, I come to realize he's not actually running the fields. He's just showing up and bootlegging. And then there'll be a group that actually run to the field, and then we're kicked off. that kind of upset my team and some other teams. And there was just some other stuff that the rest were really bad. And that's always a complaint for any adult league is the staff.
But just things that I noticed that I was like, you know what? I truly feel like I can do better. then 2007, we started LLC. There was five of us in the beginning. And we started an LLC. And we built a website. And we kicked off, I believe we had 27 teams.
Lance (04:42.965)
Hmm.
Michael Zimmerman (04:54.993)
Part of the reason of our success is because my team, Darkside, was with this other league and we were like the best team. So because we were starting a league with that brand, that name of that team, it helped us secure 26 other teams to play with us in our first season. And then from there, we just kept growing and Top Gun went out of business.
Lance (05:15.285)
Hmm.
Michael Zimmerman (05:24.537)
I five or six years into my business. I think.
Lance (05:30.207)
So you took all those teams from Top Gun basically, like you knew all of them and were sort of on a text relationship, like, come play in my league, or how did you convince them all to join you?
Michael Zimmerman (05:43.322)
Yeah, just pretty much, we're going to start a new league, and it's going to be a league for the players, by the players. It's kind of what we marketed with. And hey, if you want to play the best team, it's in this league now. So that was kind of a big part of the marketing. And then the other guys who were owners in the beginning, they had another top team. We never lost to them.
Lance (05:52.863)
We're good.
Michael Zimmerman (06:12.444)
they were called Sting Rays. So we had two of the top teams in San Diego playing for us. so it was, know, kind of a, from a business standpoint, was a coup, you know. And then from there, we took over San Diego and then we started moving to other markets, Temecula and Riverside, Irvine, and eventually they went out of business. And...
Lance (06:12.5)
Haha
Lance (06:27.083)
Mm -hmm.
Michael Zimmerman (06:42.162)
We've just been kept going and over that course of time, I bought out all four of my other partners and it's been just me since 2011.
Lance (06:44.459)
price.
Lance (06:54.005)
Did you have like a, did all you guys have jobs at the time and so you were just kind of doing this as a side gig or you knew like I want to go all in on this from the beginning?
Michael Zimmerman (07:02.163)
Everyone had jobs like I was I was the youngest of the founders and so everyone had like full, you know jobs corporate jobs and I was like the youngest like I said, I think I was 27 when we started and So I was like doing promotional stuff. So I just you know, and for me it was
you know sports have always been my passion i was like you know kind of the face of the company anyways so it's just you know everyone knew me everyone saw me at the field everyone played against me so it's kinda easy for me to just transition to taking taking over everything
Lance (07:47.177)
Yeah.
So what, like, I guess I'm curious, you said for the players, by the players, but I what does that really mean? Because I mean, part of it I imagine is, okay, we actually rented the fields, so you're not gonna get booted off, sounds like, and maybe something to do with the referees, but what were the pieces that you thought that you were really honed in on to make sure that people enjoyed it and it felt like it was for the players?
Michael Zimmerman (08:12.478)
Well, you know, a lot of our business strategy was doing the opposite of the bad things that Top Gun did. And Top Gun was run by this guy named Tom. And I actually never had any problems with Tom. His wife, on the other hand, was made a lot of people mad, just a lot of people mad for various different reasons. So.
Lance (08:21.343)
Mm.
Michael Zimmerman (08:37.108)
They didn't play, they weren't players, they were just people collecting money and he was huge. So that whole marketing piece was, hey, as players we know what players want in a product. So we really laid into that heavily. Hey, we're the people on the field so we know what the players want in a product.
And we're not just some guy collecting money. We're in it with you. We love this and that's why we do it. So come play with us. I think that's, least in my mind, that was the strategy of it.
Lance (09:24.395)
It makes sense. I guess I'm still sort of curious though, tactically what you were doing. I mean, were you, like I said, I'm sure you were actually renting fields and people weren't getting booted off, like you had mentioned that sort of thing. But were there other pieces that you really focused in on, like you were taking player feedback and iterating on what the product was or just ensuring it was very well run? Like what was the general sort of focus to sort of actually execute that?
Michael Zimmerman (09:51.049)
Yeah, so the better fields for sure. Top Gun had just, literally he was just showing up to grass fields and we actually ran at the high schools and had the turf fields. We were the first ones to do that. And then we did the apparel. That was kind of my idea and I still do it and I have my own apparel line now. giving championship like custom shirts and
Lance (10:01.117)
yeah, Yeah.
Michael Zimmerman (10:18.453)
Like you see it right now, this one's from 2020, but we put your team name on it, you get to pick the colors, and then we have a design, but we're putting your team name on it, your colors, and no one else had done that. So that was another thing that guys really liked, and guys were, every time they won, they could either get shirts or hoodies.
So we had all of that marketing, all that advertising, but people loved that. People loved getting their championship gear because nobody else had done it. know, like Top Gun used to give out shirts, but it would just say like, Top Gun champ. It was a generic.
Lance (10:55.135)
Yeah, that's what I'm familiar with. So I don't think I've heard what you just said where you do their name, their sort of branding. How do you execute that? So somebody wins on a given night and then you say, OK, can you give me all your shirt sizes? You go order it and then you ship it to their house? Or how do you?
Michael Zimmerman (11:06.526)
It's tough.
Michael Zimmerman (11:14.262)
We give it, we present it the next season. So the next season, it also helps keep them coming back. the next season, we have all their champ gear and we do pictures at the field and it's kind of, you know, a little ceremony, similar to NFL with the, you know, presentation of the little Marty trophy. It's just that on a smaller level, like, hey, these are our champions last season. Let's see if they can keep doing it.
And it's worked. I mean, it's worked for a long, time. So customizing the product for our players. And then, you know, our website is, we've had four versions of the website, but I have a stat app that I've developed, you know, at the iPhone store. So our stat app is really awesome. We hire people to come and take stats of every single play, every single thing that can happen. And then,
Lance (11:44.352)
Yep.
Michael Zimmerman (12:09.322)
Today, this is developed, I do the top three guys in all my categories. So let's say I have a thousand guys playing. The top three guys, the top three passers, the top three receiving yards, the top three interceptions, top three sacks. All the categories that we have stats for, I do custom shirts for them. So put their name on the back, it says, know, most passing yards, second most passing yards, third most passing yards in the season. So.
Guys love those shirts too. And so I guess what has set me apart is just customization to the player and rewarding play through our staff program.
Lance (12:54.237)
Nice. That sounds very cool. Yeah, we've some familiarity with the stats. We have our own software stat tracker and we do some fun stuff like that as well with leaderboards and all that. I know players love that. I feel like a lot of...
Organizers probably struggle with the trade -off because it's like it feels good. It sounds good players like it but man now I got to hire people and I got to go through all this and that can be the tricky part is like how much do you invest in stuff like that and how much does it really matter and drive the needle but sounds like you guys felt like you're aggressively gonna get after that and that that that's gonna distinguish you and you felt like that's been a good investment
Michael Zimmerman (13:33.334)
Absolutely, and you know, like it is tough. Like I just started a league in Arizona and Prescott and you know, finding the staff to be able to take the stats correct. And you know, it's, growing pains as in everything in life, but you know, we hammered that in. Our stats are super important. We want to be, you know, with a 95 % accurate of everything because we are a stat driven league and for 17 years, it's really paid off for us.
So it's just mandatory for us. If we're gonna open up a league, we're gonna have our staff program. This is just like my next step is gonna have a personal player app where they don't even have to go to the website. They're information and it's gonna be really cool. I don't know anybody else who has quite what I'm thinking about. So yeah.
Lance (14:06.037)
Yeah.
Lance (14:27.659)
Is this something you're working on or is it in the idea state at the moment?
Michael Zimmerman (14:31.606)
Yeah, I'm working on. what I have that nobody else has, as far as I know, I'm the oldest adult league in the country that I know of. And I've seen a lot of them. I have 17 years of data. So 17 years of stats. And so I'm going to compile all that information. I'm working on that. And then I'm going to have all time records. So when a brand new guy comes into my league,
He can look at our all -time record page and be like, my god, this guy has 200 ,000 yards in his 15 -year flag career. So that's kind of exciting, and that's something that not a lot of people just can offer because they don't have the history that I have.
Lance (15:07.893)
Yeah.
Lance (15:22.239)
Yeah, well also sounds like, so the stats thing in my mind also goes hand in hand with the persona of your league, which...
you for some people they go for maybe like a really family friendly type of sportsmanship oriented league or summer. It's very much just about like the social component and meeting people. It sounds like your angle is competitive. It's you played college. It was competitive. You went in, you were, you know, come play the best teams. Now you, know, now you do stats. So that's kind of your angle. I do kind of wonder though, cause my knowledge of, of leagues is when people kind of go in that direction, they can often have a really hard time managing sportsmanship.
because people start to feel like it means something to win, their ego and pride gets involved. Have you had to deal with any of that and have you developed sort of a way of handling those things?
Michael Zimmerman (16:10.258)
yeah. So, you know, what you said, I, there's definitely other social leagues out there. And that's like you said, that's not us. Like we, we advertise, we are competitive, you know, flag football league. And I have women's leagues too. And it's the same thing. Like, you know, we're out there to play football and, you know, make it a, family, you know, we, say a family, friendly, safe, you know, football environment.
Like that's what we want to provide. you know, because I've been doing it for so long and, you know, most, most everyone in the league knows me kind of, at least they would know my face. But I've, I guess I've laid down the structure so well, like we have such good bricks of our foundation. Like everyone knows the expectations and I have guys who've been working with me.
15 years. So we don't have too much problem with sportsmanship because we say right in there, any fighting, you're out, you're expelled, no refunds. So because we've laid down the expectations of what we expect, we really haven't ran into too many issues. A couple in 17 years, we've had three or four
Lance (17:26.453)
Hmm.
Michael Zimmerman (17:37.462)
big things happen and then we eliminate those people and then they're done, they don't play with us anymore. 99 % of all the clients get it and they respect our rules and they respect us on a personal level and I think that that goes a long, long way when everyone kind of knows. We've laid down that culture well, same as like
You walk into a college program and they have a culture and you buy into that. So we have our own culture that people have bought into and the new teams learn real quick. Like, this is how it is, this is the culture and they buy into it. we really don't have many issues. And if we do, then we deal with those bad apples and we get rid of them and move on.
Lance (18:31.287)
How does getting the buy -in work? mean, is that you've got your referees out there and do have a coordinator that's always present as well, like somebody from your team, and then there somebody, I don't want to say throws a punch, but you know, it gets a little aggressive and then you're on it pretty quick and then the punishment's pretty severe. Is that kind of how you handle it?
Michael Zimmerman (18:49.206)
Yeah, and so even 17 years in, this is my full -time job. So I'm still personally at three of the locations out of the 14 that I run. then Brian Mitchell, he runs two of my leagues. And I have good people who run the leagues and know the expectations. So in each league that I run, I kind of really train up
the field manager, that's what I call them. So I make sure that that's a very crucial part of the system is the field manager and making sure that they understand, I guess the X flag football way, my expectations, and then they're good at letting the teams know. And we're good at communicating with the teams. We tell everyone before they sign up the expectations. I have like a waiver.
Lance (19:28.725)
Hmm.
Michael Zimmerman (19:47.466)
then everyone signs and it goes over all this and I tell them like, don't just sign this, read it. So from day one, I set those expectations, you know, before you even step on the field, you're signing waivers with code of conduct and all that stuff.
Lance (20:06.091)
Yeah, okay. Makes sense. Well, so you mentioned you're at three out of 14 locations, so has a lot of that growth been recent? Or have you guys been steadily sort of growing in one new location a year type of thing for a while?
Michael Zimmerman (20:20.38)
Yeah, know, I've expanded places just like in any business. There's ups and downs. I used to have a huge league out in Hawaii and that was awesome for about seven years and then that died out. that's actually an interesting story. So I had a guy out there, his name was Sy, great guy.
Lance (20:40.235)
Why did it die out?
Michael Zimmerman (20:48.734)
and he did such a great job but he ended up just kinda rubbing people the wrong way and my way versus the highway and you know it's similar to what happened to Top Gun like if enough people just like hey this guy's being tyrannical and not saying that he was but there was just some guys who didn't like him and
Lance (21:09.067)
Hmm.
Michael Zimmerman (21:18.324)
they ended up, I think they ended up being kicked out of the league. This was a long time ago. there was a saying that I just think is funny, but it was don't support a mainlander. And because of that, they were able to take a lot of our teams and then Sy stepped away and I had another guy come in, but.
Lance (21:37.387)
Okay.
Michael Zimmerman (21:47.562)
he couldn't really hold it together. just, you know, sometimes just something one little pebble's moved and the whole mountain comes down. so that's kind of what happened with the Hawaii League. And it's unfortunate because I love going out there. I went out there twice a year to visit out there. so yeah, you know, it's as in anything, it's hard to keep these things going forever.
Lance (22:02.453)
Bye.
Lance (22:10.485)
Yeah, and I guess I'm curious, like lessons learned. Did you feel like you got?
I think this was, I've dealt with this. know, commissioners running leagues and trying to think about performance and their level of impact. And like you just mentioned, I mean, the impact can be huge, can be make or break for a league, you know, have a person who runs it, handles conflict and welcomes people and builds relationships and all that stuff. Did you take anything from that in terms of maybe there were some warning signs and you could have gotten out in front of it like a year or two sooner and maybe gotten somebody else in there?
prevented it from falling apart and you've kind of thought it's changed the way you think about warning signs or anything like that.
Michael Zimmerman (22:48.327)
Ahem.
Michael Zimmerman (22:52.861)
You know, I didn't necessarily think it was gonna happen like that. And, you know, obviously hindsight's 20 -20. But the problem was, Sy did such a good job and that even the guy who he had come after him, he just wasn't that guy. And it seemed like a lot of guys out there didn't want to be that guy. Like they wanted to play, but...
Lance (22:59.093)
Meh.
Michael Zimmerman (23:21.949)
I looked for the right field manager and I just couldn't find the right guy after Sy. So after Sy, just kind had enough. The next guy up wasn't good enough to keep it all going. And I live 3 ,000 miles away, so there's only so much that I can do and I couldn't find it. And I advertise. I advertise for the league.
just no one was like hungry there to take it over, you know?
Lance (23:55.659)
So how do you find people now? Like if you were going to go and launch a new league and you needed a new person, how do find that, as you just said, that guy? What's the secret sauce to getting somebody like that?
Michael Zimmerman (24:03.581)
Ahem.
Michael Zimmerman (24:07.135)
So my expansion has actually been twofold. I used to play in this national tournament run by Flagmag magazine. And they were a big company. And I ended up buying that company in 2013. And through that purchase, I ended up
acquiring two national tournaments, one in Las Vegas and one in Boston. And then I also acquired Boston leagues and New York league. So that purchase expanded me to the East coast. And that's been great. That's been great for my business. And that happened in 2013. And then other expansions have been through people who play with me in San Diego. They love it. They love the product.
They love the camaraderie and then they'll go move back home and then there'll be nothing. And then they'll be like, Zim, I want what we had in San Diego at my home. And that's actually how I just started in Prescott. Excuse me. Tyler played with me for years out here and then he ended up moving back home and he's like, we don't have anything. I'm like, all right, well, let's start. And we started and we have eight teams our first season. So.
That's been, you and you can't really pick and choose that, that happens when it happens, but that's been a great way for me to expand. It's also how I expanded in Louisiana, same exact thing. So yeah, when my, I guess, satisfied clients move away and there's nothing like what we have in their area, then we can start leagues that way when we have the right people.
Lance (26:01.349)
So that's how you do it. You don't actually say, know what, I'm gonna target Boston or whatever. It's more like if something kind of comes up where the right person's available or you acquired a company and so that had the infrastructure kind of already there. did, in Prescott, how did he get those eight teams? What was the process to do that?
Michael Zimmerman (26:22.719)
So there was like a YMC, YMC Ang League there and Tyler played in that so we had a lot of the contact information and then so because there was already something there but not you I don't know if you've ever played in a sitting league but they just kind of throw it out there and it's not it's not what I do it's not customized so we started talking to these guys and
showing them the website and showing them like our national presence and showing them the national tournaments and the stats and they're like, we're in. So that was one of our you know, easier leagues to get off the ground because we had a guy out there boots on the ground and then he just, you know, marketed X -flag football to these teams who had a YMCN league and they're like, we're in.
Lance (27:20.843)
So he just went in there and took them basically. So y 'all don't or do you do any kind of Instagram ads or Google ads or YouTube, any of that type of stuff? Or is it pretty much always like an organic, like let's just go snipe some teams from a local league.
Michael Zimmerman (27:21.091)
so.
Yeah? Yeah.
Michael Zimmerman (27:39.648)
So, in my 17 years, I've done every marketing you can. I've done TV commercials. I've done radio ads. Yeah, I've been on TV. I've done billboards, radio ads, street signs, marketing. Yeah, I do the Google, Facebook ads, all that stuff. But honestly, just knowing people and the—
Lance (27:45.193)
Yeah. Really?
Michael Zimmerman (28:08.898)
the name of my product has been the best marketing tool because not a of people can say they've been running a flag football league for 17 years. that gives me lot of clout. if I do go start somewhere else, it's easier for people to buy into the longevity of what I've done because that's hard to do.
Lance (28:31.263)
Yeah, yeah that makes sense. Out of all of those different channels that you've tried, was there ever one where you're like, yeah, this is a nice one? Or were they all kind of equally well? If people know your brand or if you have some relationships, like, how did those, what's like your takeaway from all that marketing?
Michael Zimmerman (28:48.511)
Honestly, like the most cost -effective way to market in my opinion is street signs because they're not that much and they always get people to sign up like, know built Yeah, just street signs
Lance (29:00.784)
Phone, yeah, most of time like a phone number like, come play, call this number, that kind of thing.
Michael Zimmerman (29:05.665)
Yeah, and know, the city will yell at you, you get in trouble. But bang for your buck, it's been my most, like the TV commercial was like, know, 10 years ago, was like $10 ,000. I mean, was, it got me, think two teams. So horrible for a company my size to spend all that money. It looked cool. It made me feel good. Like, hey, that's my company on TV, but for...
Lance (29:09.339)
Yeah.
Lance (29:25.61)
Yeah.
Michael Zimmerman (29:35.958)
The results was not great. Radio was not great as far as they got me clients, but the cost benefit analysis of it was not good. So, guerrilla marketing, flyering, and that's also what we did at Prescott. We printed out thousand flyers and we went to softball fields. And that's how we actually got the...
got people excited because all these people were playing softball, but they also had played flag. So we got a flyer in a lot of people's hands and then that got people excited. just kind of the old school ways of marketing, flyering and street signs, like that's the most cost effective for sure.
Lance (30:14.027)
Hmm. Yeah.
Lance (30:23.253)
That's a really, really good tip. I know there's a lot of leagues out there where they're just starting and they're overwhelmed because there are a lot, you know, Instagram and Facebook and...
Michael Zimmerman (30:30.954)
It's hard. It's hard.
you
Lance (30:34.859)
I mean, I haven't even thought that I'm sure TikTok and radio and T I mean, there's so many ways that you can do it. And like you're saying, I mean, you could drop five grand per team acquisition, or you probably could drop like 20 bucks, depending on the way that you do it. So it matters a lot. And, did you ever, you know, when you were launching, did you ever do, like discounts for, Hey, we're launching the league first time. know, there's like a new league special or any of that kind of stuff. Cause I'll share a story from my
We we launched and we had a different business model back in the day where it was like a subscription service that we were Playing around with every four weeks you pull schedule you yada yada and we would say come on in for free We'll give you four weeks free just come try it and the leagues would blow up like we sold out But we also attracted a type of customer that didn't really want to pay So I don't know if you experienced any of that with like discounts and found like a sweet spot with how you think about using discounts
Michael Zimmerman (31:25.483)
Yeah.
Michael Zimmerman (31:32.868)
So my opinion, again, I've been around so long I've done it all. And for my 10 year anniversary, this was my biggest discount. I said put in a team and you get your second team for free. So because I have so many locations here in San Diego, I had lots of teams who would put in a Sunday night team and a Thursday team, a Saturday team and a Tuesday team.
So that was my biggest actual discount of all time. what I like to do is I reward my clients. So I do a referral discount. You go get me new team. You get money off. And then so that's what I believe in. I really believe in the referral. You help me and I help you. And that's kind of I've been doing that for 17 years and it's worked out well. I don't let people play for free.
One of the biggest reasons I don't is because a lot of times if you give someone a free bid, and I have, I've done it before, they don't show up. And then the whole product sucks, you're having forfeits. And so I've come to the realization that if you have not paid, then you're not committed. And so you need that financial commitment to move forward with us. And we've gotten more strict with that over the years because ...
Lance (32:43.339)
True, yep.
Michael Zimmerman (33:00.599)
In the beginning, sure, we went through that growing pain of guys not showing up and guys just paying a little bit. now everyone pays the same price no matter what. Even the guys on my personal team, they pay.
Lance (33:16.555)
Is it all individual fees or is it team fees?
Michael Zimmerman (33:20.238)
So it's been interesting for me because I am so spread out and I'm in different states. Definitely different price market or price points for different states. You can't charge in Louisiana what I charge here in San Diego or Boston. So what I normally do is I do market research of the other leagues in the area. What is softball? What is basketball charging?
and then I set a price point that is in correlation to those other sports because if it's too much for the area, then no one signs up. So it is important to try to get the correct price point for wherever you're at and then market with that. So that is something that I've learned. You can't charge the same price everywhere.
And so yeah, that's something that I've been good at.
Lance (34:20.39)
is.
Is that like, but are people when they're signing up, are they each paying individually to you or are they paying one big team fee and then they just cover, know, figure it out amongst themselves?
Michael Zimmerman (34:33.903)
So I still, I still have Mick. I still do that mix depending on what market I'm in. I used to do just a team fee for years and years and years and years. are you there? Okay. Yeah. So, so I did a team fee for years and years and years. And then just recently, about two years ago, I went to a player fee, for all my Southern California locations. And I like that.
Lance (34:46.923)
I think I lost you there for a second. There we go.
Michael Zimmerman (35:03.223)
lot better. It just feels more even to me. Everyone pays the same price. in my PrepScot League, we did a team fee because on the advice of Tyler, my field manager out there, said, the YMCA did a team fee. We should just do a team fee. So we did a team fee for our first season.
will probably try to move to a player fee. So I still do it both ways depending on where I'm at. But eventually I'd like to get a player fee for every site, even if the player fee is different for Prescott opposed to Southern California.
Lance (35:50.143)
Okay, sweet. I just noticed we're kind of up against the time, so that was a bunch of good stuff though. Super, super helpful. Good insights, I think. Yeah, some good stuff there. Congrats on what you've been able to build. I know that that's a lot of hard work to get there. Yeah, appreciate the time.
Michael Zimmerman (36:06.064)
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Michael Zimmerman (36:10.53)
Okay man, thank you. So how is this gonna be aired? How does all that work?
Lance (36:17.023)
Here, let me pause this real quick.
Michael Zimmerman (36:19.27)
Okay.
The AREENA app and leagues offer an immersive rec sports experience for adults, with stat tracking, skill matching, leaderboards and team messaging. Subscribe and play soccer or basketball year round, or pay by game or match with zero commitments.
