Own, Manage or Work at Pub or Bar? Wouldn't it be nice to have a great crowd on a traditional 'off' night?
What if I told you that you could have a certain amount of traffic on the day or night of your choosing? How? Well, it's actually pretty simple and you have a variety of choices...
You can have special event nights like 'Paint and Sip', 'Guest Celebrity Signings', 'Bud Girls', etc... There's also the 'Big Game Specials', 'Happy Hour', and a whole lot more.
But, the most proven and dependable course to take is hosting Sports Leagues and Tournaments.
Adults Love to Play Games
Adult Social Sports Leagues and Tournaments offer a variety of choices: types of sports, potential customers and demographics, day and night groups, on site and after the game crowds, different levels of involvement and dedicated space they require, etc.
What the Leagues Bring to You (for little or no cost)
- Dependable Flow of Business - It's tough running a business on the 'feast or famine' philosphy. Maybe weekend business keeps you afloat, or the lunch crowds. But what about the downtime? Generally you can find a league which fills seats on the slow nights or days and offers what you're current and new customers are looking for.
- Increased Customer Engagement - Gives your current customers a reason to be in more frequently and for longer periods of time. Added bonus is their friends are going to ask where they have been and a couple will be around to check it out. This leads to recruiting more players and paying customers!
- Increased Merchandise Sales - If you are playing for a team, you like to wear their colors. This get's your name out even more with a person who is wearing it have a little more passion when asked about it...
- Employee Retention -We all know the cost of finding a good employee, keeping them and then having to replace them. Usually they go to a competitor who can give them better shifts and more money. If you have a couple more good shifts, how many of your current employees will you be able to keep?
Searching for the right fit
Types of games and participants
- Old School - These are the bar leagues of your fathers. Pool and Darts are the big ones. These are mainly at night and you will see these customers stop by throughout the week to get together and practice. Downside is, both require you to set aside space, not only during league night or an in-house tournament, but throughout the week because they do gather, and they like to stay out late. And they are primarily male. You can purchase your own table or board, or you can have a Coin Operator (Amusements Company) bring them in. A good coin op will market you to the league and service the equipment in a timely manner. If they are not run by a Coin-Op, a lot of these leagues are 'One Sport Leagues'. They will have administrators and boards and generally these are made up of the league players. If it is a Coin-Op, when choosing darts, electronic is generally better for new league sponsors. You get a cut of the machine money and it simplifies the scheduling, turns and score keeping process.
- Social Leagues - Generally around the larger metros you will find these. They offer several types of sports on several different nights. They are the next generation of the coin-ops/amusement companies and they handle everything from the registration, scheduling, etc. Their demographic is younger upward socially mobile and are more likely to order single malts and cross-cultural appetizers. Most of these leagues' games focus more on the social and the income level is generally higher. Also the participants are about 50/50 male/female ratio. The big games here are college bar games (skee ball, beer pong, etc) in-house, and gym class-backyard-tailgating games (dodgeball, kickball, bocce, cornhole, etc). The in-house games have patrons at your establishment when you want them there, the outdoor less so. Usually everyone meets up before the 'big match' to do a shot and hopefully everyone staggers back in after the game ends. You will see business the night of the league with these, it's just a little murkier when the crowd will get there and they sometimes need to be enticed. The social league administrators understand that it is in both of your interests to bring the patrons back to your establishment. These leagues run at all different times, some on weekend mornings even, so there is some choice.
- Rec Leagues * - These are kind of a mix between the first two types. Much more competitive than the social leagues, larger teams, yet as the name suggests, they are played off-site. Much more athletic leagues (soccer, softball, ultimate, basketball, etc), sometimes they are run by the Social Sports groups, but most of the time they are an entity unto themselves. The demographics on these are mixed. If you are sponsoring a group of these guys and gals, expect to see them for years to come...
Finding a League to fit you vs Creating a League or Tournament
Where to look -depending on the type of establishment (you own, manage, or work for), you probably have a pretty good idea of what crowd you would like to have in.
- Coin Ops, Social Sports Leagues, Rec Leagues, One Sport Leagues - To wrap this up, it's fairly easy to search for these businesses which will help you grow a league night or nights. Just type any key words or terms from this article into Google. Are they always going to have the answer in the form of the sport and night you're looking for? Probably not. But you can ask and if there is enough interest they'll accommodate. They are a business after all, and if there is an opportunity in it for them, I'm sure they will be all over it.
If you cannot find what you are looking for, there's always in-house tournaments. Through these you can generally attract enough participation that other establishments will begin doing it and voilà, you have a bouncing new baby league!
Thanks everyone!
theLEAGUEFEED
A growing resource with articles (original and resteemed) about the adult social sports league community (podcast in the works)
If learning to play these sports, from how to find a league to sign up with, through all stages of learning the game you choose interests you, along with setting up and running leagues, well give me a follow.
If you are posting anything along these lines, leave me know. If it's quality I would love to resteem!
Building Stronger Leagues is name of the game....
and don't forget to Feed the Leagues!
🎱
Swansed