How to Host Your League

League Partnering

There can be a lot of positives to working with a league host. Many of the pros and cons can be attributed to partnering with a city or some other league organization. It’s not guaranteed that every partnership will include all of these things, but oftentimes they can!

Pros

Field Provided
- It’s much easier to work with many cities as they’ll provide a better field with less hassle
Extra marketing from league partner
You market on your channels and any other channel you would like and they market on theirs to get the word out.
League registration/schedule/standings hosting
You can send players to register on their site, and they often host your league schedule on their end as well and update it while the league runs based on the information you send them.
Ease of scheduling
When it’s time to run the league a city or facility owner will generally block out your league time for the season.
Less documentation work
Working with a league organization can often times allow you to avoid having to get permits and insurance or worry about liability as they will already have that and you are running the league under their organization.

Cons

Revenue sharing
With TASR they partner with several cities around Texas and have done $80/league with a 50% revenue share meaning they get $40 of every team and the city gets $40 of every league.
May not have full control over league price
- This is not an issue everyone bumps into, but it’s feasible that a city or league partner has a set price they want to keep at so that could conflict with a standard you have.
May not have control over how the league is run
- This one can really be dependent on the city and you, some cities may want to take over the whole process and not run with your suggestions which may not be an ideal situation. Other cities may sit back and let you take care of what you need to. Gauge these critera as you work with a city and get an idea of how they will be to work with, and how that will work with your management style. People have had different experiences, groups in Texas have had some positive experiences while others in Utah have had some negative ones.

After all that, you just provide the sets and balls and show up to run the league each week.

Overview

This option can take the load off a lot of the planning at the cost of the revenue share. This is a great option if you are looking to get multiple leagues going across many places. It makes a lot of the preseason prep work easier and lets you focus more so on your marketing and the simple day-of running of the league. Finally, remember that each city or league partner is different and the pros and cons could slightly differentiate depending on how they operate.

Hosting from Scratch

Running a league on your own accord is a lot more reflective of setting up a tournament. When hosting on your own you will need to be sure the field is rented each week, have the proper permits for renting the field, and have proper insurance and liablity covered if required.

Pros:

Keep All the Revenue
Granted this is a large pro especially for 2 specific cases:
- Large leagues. If you have a large enough league the benefit of going your own route definitely outweighs partnering if financial gain is one of your main goals.
- Low Expenses. If you have a field and/or lights you can use for free or for relatively cheap this is another reason to go at it your own. One of the large boons of a partnership is curtailing expenses, but if you don’t have to worry about the largest expense in a field then that’s a good reason to go at it on your own.
Full League control
- You won’t need to worry about making sure any restrictions or guidelines of a league partner are fulfilled. It’s all yours.

Cons

Field permit + lights + possible insurance
- This will most likely be the largest expense you have over the course of the league especially if you are wanting lights as an option. Having a connection or just hosting on an open field can reduce this cost, but for a completely official league, I would avoid just hoping on a field without reservation unless you know it’s permitted. Although it may be free you risk being kicked off or fine which isn’t a good look for a league and could lead to more costs.
Smaller marketing pool
- You won’t have access to the people in the league partners pool, but if you already have a pretty big marketing pool and don’t think that a partner would add much then you aren’t missing out on much.
League Registration/ Management
- Granted this one isn’t that much of a con because you’ll have to set up do set up and management whether you’re running the league on your own or partnering, but you do lose out on the possibility of the league providing registration services or hosting the schedule and standings. You may want all of this on your sight anyway. For TASR they had it on both their site and their partner's site.

After all that, you provide the sets and balls, update standings weekly, make sure the field rentals run through the season then show up to run the league each week.

Overview

The benefits of running a league all on your own are potentially higher than partnering, it just depends on a few factors. The more league participants or the lower the expenses the more you benefit from running it on your own. Entering into this option you should be prepared for the planing upfront and each week in order to make sure your participants are informed each week although this is a factor in some fashion no matter how you go about hosting. You also may not even have the option to partner with another entity, in that case then this is the perfect option for you!