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KC Crew: Running Adult Sports Leagues
68 Plays1 year ago
In the fast-paced world of sports, where youth athletes often dominate the spotlight, there's a remarkable resurgence happening among adults. Young professionals looking for connection in KC are reaping the benefits of KC Crew's Adult Leagues. They're redefining the way grown-ups engage in sports, emphasizing camaraderie, fun, and fitness. Let's delve into this exciting movement and discover how KC Crew's Adult Leagues are transforming the game for adults.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Reintroduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Today we got to sit down with Greg and Mitch of Casey Crew. And this is one of my favorite episodes we've done so far, not only because I started Casey Crew 11 years ago, but Greg and Mitch were some of the first employees ever to really help me start Casey Crew, who went away for a couple years in the corporate world, and then came back a couple years ago to help Casey Crew maximize what it could offer.
Focus on Adult League Programming
00:00:16
Speaker
In this episode, we went on a deep dive of adult league programming and working with facilities and injuries and so much other knowledge around adult league programming that we had to split into two episodes. So make sure you check this one out and look for the future episode part two for running leagues. I hope you enjoy this episode with Casey Crew.
00:00:38
Speaker
What's up, everybody? Do you own or manage a facility? Well, you are in the right place. Welcome to the Facility Playbook. I'm Luke Wade, founder and CEO of Facility Ally. And this podcast is about helping facility managers and owners learn from pioneers and veterans in the industry who have already built and managed successful sports facilities, entertainment venues and clubs. Did you know that most of those facilities I just mentioned use between four and six different softwares to manage their reservations, memberships, lessons, leagues, camps and clinics and more?
Facility Ally Promotion
00:01:07
Speaker
revolutionize your facility with Facility Ally's all-in-one system. Learn more at facilityallyy.com. And today I'm really excited to be here at the Casey Crue offices and wear two hats today, but introduce Greg Malloy, General Manager of Casey Crue, Manager of General Things, and Mitch LaMendola, League Director among many other things with Casey Crue. Thanks guys for joining me today. I know you didn't have an option, but I appreciate
00:01:34
Speaker
Appreciate you being here. Thanks for having us. Tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to Casey Crew.
Greg's Journey to General Manager
00:01:39
Speaker
Yeah, so I joined Casey Crew back in 2014. I came from Omaha originally, came down to Kansas City, went to school at Rockhurst, and a couple years through I had a buddy, Graham Jewell, and he told me about this cool opportunity. Um, softball, get paid some beer money, and you can have a couple beers while you're doing it. Now, probably weren't supposed to do that, but
00:01:59
Speaker
I thought it was a cool way to make some cash in college and started doing that part-time. So started with softball and then found out Casey Crue does everything. So kickball, sand volleyball, indoor volleyball, pickleball, karaoke. I mean, the list goes on. Like I've done a little bit of everything that we did and loved every piece of it. Started doing our events as well. So 5K's, pub curls, tailgates, again, did it all. Loved it.
00:02:24
Speaker
And then eventually did two years part-time, kind of worked my way to the top. And when I graduated, ended up being the first full-time hire here. So I was the lead commissioner, did that for a couple of years, left, and then came back two years later. So yeah, now I'm happy to kind of be running the show here and making sure things are running smooth.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yep, love having you.
Mitch's Path to League Director
00:02:43
Speaker
Yep, and my story is going to sound the exact same as Greg's, basically. Both went to Rutgers University, both played soccer there, so that's how I got to know Greg, and he brought me in to KC Crew, softball my first thing as well, even though I was a soccer guy, softball at Swope Park out in Kansas City, Missouri. Great, really enjoyed it, started doing everything, kickball,
00:03:02
Speaker
helped with events, helped in the office a little bit here and there, worked my way up. I was co-commissioned with Greg for about six months, so I did that for about a year and a half. And then when I graduated college, went into the corporate world a little bit, got some experience there, and then Greg pulled me back as his lead director almost two years ago now.
00:03:22
Speaker
Basically the same person, both have beards, both play soccer, both wear hats, now both full-time with K.C. Crew, so it's been fun. Yeah, and both are rock stars, A-players, and for those of you that don't know, I started
KC Crew's Origin and Growth
00:03:35
Speaker
K.C. Crew about 11 years ago, and so found Mitch and Greg really early on. They were at my kitchen table in my garage, building this with me, sorting shirts, just doing everything, and so they were a really big part of me growing K.C. Crew in the beginning.
00:03:47
Speaker
went out and dabbled in the corporate world for a little bit, and I was very happy to bring them back. And now you guys are running KC Crew day to day, every single day, the last two years, and really has allowed me to expand more into the facility ally role and grow that. So really appreciate that. So for you guys, I'd love to hear what is KC Crew to you.
00:04:05
Speaker
You want to take that one first? Cool. So to me, KC Crew is a fun, social place for adults to be active, meet new people, do something after work, something that they love. So if the stress of everyday life, they can come out to KC Crew and just enjoy themselves. So whether it be playing softball, kickball, pickleball, like Greg said, karaoke league, we do a little bit of everything, something for everybody, and the freedom for people to play when they want, where they want, and with whoever they want.
00:04:34
Speaker
whether it be our leagues or our fun events, our pub crawls, things like that, just a place for people to be active and be with other people. Awesome.
Demographics and Reach of KC Crew
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah. And we're, so we're Kansas City's largest adult sports league as well. So about 15,000 annual players playing with us from all different parts of Kansas City. So the airport to Liberty, to Lee Summit, to Olathe. It's just cool to see, you know, it might be a softball league at Penn Valley, but you got two people who live in the Northwest, two people from Lee Summit coming together, meeting, competing against each other.
00:05:03
Speaker
or they went through the free agent system. So they didn't know anybody or didn't have enough for a team. So they went through our free agent system where people from out of town or don't have a full team can come together, we'll mix and match you. And you meet 10 other people in Kansas City and make memories that can last for a lifetime.
00:05:20
Speaker
Awesome. And you say largest, what does that mean exactly? Largest for adults. And so how many people, what's the age range? Yeah. So core demographic with us, about 75% of our players are that 25 to 34. So it's all, you know, kind of young professionals throughout Kansas City, all different kinds of industries. Like I touched on all different parts of Kansas City as well. And then our leagues stretch anywhere from
00:05:42
Speaker
T shots up north and then essentially all the way through downtown, midtown, and then down into Overland Park. And Mitch, you can touch on a couple of those locations. And I hear the main man down there. Let's say, yeah, it's great to see 15,000 people playing our leagues every year. So we have five different seasons, winter, spring, summer, fall, holiday. So there are seven-week leagues where people commit to playing seven weeks, Sunday or through Thursday. Some people play multiple leagues, maybe sometimes multiple times a night if they're playing sand volleyball.
00:06:12
Speaker
We play at different rec community centers down in Overland Park, Matt Ross community and Tomahawk Ridge. And then we have pickleball locations all over the city as well. So we just have offerings everywhere in the city. That's kind of what makes us the largest is we have some, we're playing somewhere for everybody. Hopefully we're only a five minute drive, 10 minute drive from where they live if they want to play a sport.
Social Aspect and Origins of KC Crew
00:06:34
Speaker
And yeah, so normally I would ask you, you know, why did Casey Crew start? But since I started it, I can kind of touch on that. And I think to your point is, you know, people want to play socially where they live, right? Recreational players are looking to play down the road from them and then go to the bar nearby with their team, meet new people, have fun. And so that was me 11 years ago, you know, I was 27 years old, looking to play downtown, but I was driving all over the city. And if you want more information on how I started Casey Crew, make sure you watch the introductory episode.
00:07:02
Speaker
I was looking for something for myself, built it for my friends, and now today we still offer it for those type of people. All my friends still playing it, I still play in it. And so that's essentially why KC Crew got started. And then to the recreational point, people want to, like I said, drive down the road and then they want to go to the bar nearby, meet friends in their area, whereas the more competitive players are going to drive farther. So like our cornhole leagues, our basketball leagues, more of the competitive sports are going to drive further. So maybe let's take a step back real quick and define a league. What is a league?
00:07:31
Speaker
Well that's, I know I'm league director, but that's like asking what is life, you know? What's the meaning of life? So I think I define a league as a place for adults to gather, socialize, meet new people, and be active. So it can be any sport, any, it doesn't even have to be a sport. Karaoke, I don't think you can consider that a sport. Don't tell them that.
00:07:52
Speaker
necessarily. I mean, they're amazing singers. I would never step up and compete against them. But it's something for people to be active and be with other people on a weekly basis. So that's what I think makes a league is it's something you're coming back week after week and competing against other people in that same sport and in that same, you see him every week type of thing. Sure. And on the technical side, so our leagues, we run seven weeks total. So it's six weeks of regular season and then a tournament for the top number of teams once the regular season culminates.
00:08:20
Speaker
We do have a couple of buffer weeks because in Kansas City, we all know how the weather is. It snows in spring. It's 10 degrees in summer. You never know what's going to happen.
League Operations and Structure
00:08:29
Speaker
So we build in as many rainout weeks as possible during those seasons just so we can make sure we get all seven games in for everyone because that's the last thing we want to have people come out and then not have them get to play all their games. So we work really hard, Mitch and Matt.
00:08:41
Speaker
They really go above and beyond to reach out with all of our facilities. They work very closely. We've built excellent relationships with really, you know, Casey Parks. Why now Parks and Rec, all the different organizations, OP. What's the name? Is it Overland Park? Overland Park, Rec.
00:08:58
Speaker
Um, but yeah, we've built relationships with them where, you know, they'll work with us. If we need to figure out a way to squeeze a league in, we've gotten ourselves to a point where it's an easy thing for us. We just got to have a conversation with them. And the only thing I would add to that is a league can really be anything you want it to be to Mitch. What Mitch said, you know, it doesn't have to be a sport, you know, most of our activities, our leagues are sports, but karaoke, you know, cornhole.
00:09:19
Speaker
different we've also ran like urban you know playground leagues we've done a bunch of different things and it could be anything you want it doesn't have to be just monday night every monday for seven weeks it can be eight weeks it can be shorter you know we're we're trying a new thing in the holiday where it's a shorter season to try and get it in before winter happens so a league can really be anything you want it to be
00:09:36
Speaker
You can run it however it works for you and your community. And I think that's the biggest thing is we're very feedback driven. We've been feedback driven since day one. And so listening to your community, if you offer something and they don't like it, listen to them and try and give them something in a unique, creative way. So I think that's really important. So maybe talk, Mitch, to your point, to my point, what's something maybe that we've heard from our community that we've changed and given it back to them?
00:10:02
Speaker
I know I just put you on the spot, but I know we've had rules like basketball and a couple other things where we've changed it around based on the feedback from our community. We've had the pitching net rule. Yeah, so we're trying, like you said, feedback. I'm always asking for feedback. I'll try it in one league because we have leagues every night of the week at different locations. So something I like to do is, for instance, we have a softball rule where if it used to be if it hit anywhere near the pitcher, it wasn't out, but that can be kind of a
00:10:27
Speaker
objective and from league to league if you're like well this umpire calls it this way this umpire calls it this way so to be more consistent something we're trying is a pitching net at one of our locations where if it still hits the pitcher it's an out because we don't want anybody to get hurt while it's all about coming out to play and go to work the next day
00:10:42
Speaker
But implementing a pitching net where the pitcher does have an opportunity to stand behind it after the pitch So there is safety and if it hits that pitching net we've tried if his pitching net It's live ball that didn't think over well. So after feedback this season we're now doing if it hits the pitching net It is a foul ball. So kind of Encouraging people to use it for safety. So I'm always adjusting rules if people like hey, we don't like this rule Cornhole wise we
00:11:08
Speaker
We're going over our hour limit. We used to play up to five games at a minimum of three. People, miscommunication, thought it was always five games, and they would try to play more, but bars closed at a certain time. So we wanted to honor everybody's time. And I lowered it down to three games, only three games, and people were like, we're getting done in half an hour.
00:11:28
Speaker
said okay we're going to do it up to five games but as soon as the hour hits whoever is winning wins so you can be winning 11 to 10 you win that fourth game because you're up and that's gone really well the last three leagues and so always changing and providing feed based on feedback yep i love that and i think that's really important because that was the whole reason i started casey crew was i was looking for something for me and my friends downtown but i also didn't like how other leagues were ran and so
00:11:51
Speaker
from day one listening to feedback, you know, it was originally my idea, how do we make this better, but then it was listening to feedback. And so we've been running softball leagues for 11 years, and this year we're adding the pitching net based on feedback. So we never stop improving, we never stop listening to feedback, otherwise there could be a new KC Crew come someday and do it better
Partnerships and Facility Management
00:12:08
Speaker
than us. So we at the end of the day are just a facilitator of activity for our participants, and so if we can give it to them in the way they want it, that's what we're here for.
00:12:16
Speaker
And to touch on that a little bit further is we don't really necessarily need or own a location. To what Greg was saying is, you know, we rent out space, we market it, we staff it, we run it all, and then we rent the space in bulk. And so we're the middleman or the middlewoman for these facilities to reach a young demographic and provide an activity without them being able to do it themselves. So they have space, we have the people, and we have the know-how, so we come in and partner with these facilities on big scale.
00:12:41
Speaker
A lot of times we get bulk rentals. So maybe let's talk about, you know, how does a partnership start and then what are, you know, what are the typical steps on creating a partnership that works for everybody? Yeah. So usually you just connect us with someone that you started talking to. But no, we're actually working with Epic Center at KC. Can I get that right? Yes. They use Facility Ally and they were previous podcast guests. So check them out. Yeah. They, Kevin and the team, they rock over there. We met with them.
00:13:10
Speaker
a couple weeks ago, but we're actually working on running some pickleball leagues there and then pickleball tournaments as well. So they just got, I think, is it 12? I think it's eight indoor, four outdoor. Yeah, 12 total courts. We met with them out there, checked out the space. And it's really, you know, from there, it's, you know, how do we make it work? So we know what we want to do. We want to bring leagues in. We want to bring the demographic in. So now we get to the nitty gritty core rental costs. What does that look like? Is it a percentage? Is it a fixed rate?
00:13:36
Speaker
We essentially look at, you know, what are you guys doing? And then another thing that we really focus on is, you know, when's your off hours? When are you struggling to bring people in? Give us that time. We'll fill that. We'll bring those people in. We'll help generate more revenue that way. So again, we try and make everything a win, win, win. So a win for us, we're getting to put on the league, win for the facility, they're filling their gap, win for the players, they get to play and have fun. So.
00:13:59
Speaker
That's a huge piece that we focus on for every single thing that we do for all of our leagues. As I said, we're the middle person doing the facilitating of the leagues. We don't own our own facilities. So the win-win-win is probably the biggest aspect when you partner with somebody. If it's not a win for your facility that you're running leagues at, they're not going to want to have you there. If it's not a win for the players, you're at a weird time, they're not going to come play.
00:14:23
Speaker
If it's not a win for you as a lead provider, it's more struggle for you, more hassle to run a league and it's worth it, then if those things don't line up, then it doesn't make sense to run that league. So that's why we ask, hey, we're missing pickleball on Tuesdays out in this location. Is that an off day for you? Yes, great. We're going to bring it out there. But if a location doesn't need us, there's no point for us to compete with other people if they're already filling every day of the week. Awesome for them. So we really want to bring it.
00:14:51
Speaker
have a league when they need people in there. Yeah, that makes sense. And one of the ways I explain this as a win-win-win is every year a pro sports team may reach out to you and say, hey, we're going to offer you a discount to all of your members. Will you email this out to all 40,000 participants?
00:15:06
Speaker
You know, right off the bat, you're like, oh, cool, I get to work with the sports team and I get to associate my name with it. And then I get to offer it to my players. But, you know, that's a win to the sports team and that's a win to my players. But as a company, we also have to consider, you know, could we email about something else and benefit the company? Could we offer something better to our participants? So at that position, it's not really a win for the company. And so I always turn it around and say, yeah, we'd love to offer that to our participants. Thanks for offering. Will you also offer a discount to your ticket holders or your participants about Casey Crew? And a lot of times it's no.
00:15:36
Speaker
And in that situation, it gets really clear on not a win-win-win, it's just a win-win. And so those are some really easy ways to evaluate. If you're willing to partner and do something for them, they should be willing to do it for you. And in that situation, it may not make sense for you as that lead to make that partnership.
00:15:53
Speaker
So, yeah. And to that point, when we're talking about leagues and working with a facility, something we try to do is, since we're bringing people in every week to pickleball or a bar or something, hey, your normal rental rate is this, but this is guaranteed rentals every week. Can we get a little lower rate so we can offer it at a lower price to our participants? So it's a win for our participants that are playing in an awesome location. They're not having to pay that high rental fee every week.
00:16:17
Speaker
It's a win for the facility. No one was renting it anyways at that time. They're still getting rental money and it's a win for us because we have a new location we can offer leagues at.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, and I love that because at the end of the day, we're coming in and offering a service that benefits them. And so, if we can do that and guarantee them revenue, although discounted over a longer period of time, most places prefer to sign a six-month deal guaranteed at a less amount than, oh, I hope I get rentals every single day. And so, that's where we look at the partnership again as a win-win. Like, we're going to bring all these people in. We're going to do all this work to promote you, market you, bring people in the door.
00:16:48
Speaker
And for that, could we get a discount? And I think that's where a lot of facilities or organizations like KC Crew or sports leagues get themselves in trouble is they just go in and pay the same rental rate as everyone else. And then it's really hard to make money doing that as a league. And so, you know, when we first got started running pickleball leagues, everybody out there was like, no way we can make money doing pickleball. No way we can make money doing pickleball. And to be honest, in the beginning, we weren't making money doing pickleball leagues.
00:17:12
Speaker
but we evaluated it, we went through the process, we started negotiating rates, we went back to facilities, asked for discounts, like we have to have this rate, otherwise it doesn't make sense. And so the facilities that wouldn't give us that rate, we didn't run a league there. And so those are things you really have to look at is does it make sense for your financial model to do this? And that way you have power because you're bringing people into that facility and otherwise they're just hoping to
Financial Strategies and Viability
00:17:34
Speaker
get rentals. So maybe talk about our breakeven document at a high level, what we use there to essentially the profitability of a league is really important.
00:17:41
Speaker
I didn't start doing this in the beginning and so we weren't making any money but along the way we really learned like we need this document and if we don't you know we have break evens minimum so I'll let you talk about that a little bit Mitch. Yeah so basically at a high level it's we have all of our locations in there for all of our sports and say hey if we pay this much for court how many teams do we need how many players do we need to make X amount of money to make a percentage and if it doesn't meet a certain amount we don't do it there or if we say hey
00:18:07
Speaker
This is the rate that we can do. This is the highest we can do. I know it's not your normal rate, but we lose money, so it's not a win for us. So I can play around with it, and I say, hey, at this location, I'm going to let you know two weeks before leagues start, I need at least eight teams in this league to run the league. So I break even documents letting me know, based on eight teams at X number of players per team at this rental cost, we're making this much percentage profit.
00:18:34
Speaker
So that's where I really plug everything in, can play around with it. We have employee costs in there, equipment costs, insurance costs, tax costs. So every little thing you can adjust and play around with it to make sure that we're actually making money on that lead.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yep, and I think it's really important a lot of people don't think about these other costs, insurance per person, equipment. You're buying new equipment, you may buy it for all your leagues everywhere, but at the end of the day, you can break it down to a per league cost. So really tying all that in gives you your actual profit on that league. And that's part of our negotiating power too. We go to a facility and we actually request, can we make changes up until two weeks before the league starts? And what that allows us to do is pre-sell all of our leagues.
00:19:13
Speaker
It allows us to pre-sell all of our leagues, and if those leagues don't hit the numbers we need them to hit, we're able to give those courts back to the facility or those fields back without really costing us any money and refunding the people that didn't get in or moving them around.
Registration and Scheduling Process
00:19:25
Speaker
So maybe let's talk a little bit about that process of what does registration look like, planning it out, start a registration, consolidation, management. I mean, it's all the way through, right? So maybe high level talk through that process.
00:19:36
Speaker
Well, so registration is always happening for us. Even though it's not always live on our website, we're always planning the next season as the season's happening. So we use a lot of technology, thanks to you, in teaching us how to do it with Google Sheets, Google Forms, Google Docs. That way we can all work on it at the same time. I'm reaching out to facilities. I like to do year contracts if possible. That way I know
00:20:00
Speaker
I'm going to have down the line three months. I'm not always reaching out, hey, how about this next three months? How about this next three months? It's like, hey, for the 2023, we're going to have X number of courts on X number of days. So I can plug those into our league plan, and then it has all the details, price per person, price t-shirt costs, things you should know, every little detail. We use League Ally, subsidiary facility ally, and hopefully merge together soon so we can be part of that family.
00:20:29
Speaker
uh... we plug all into our uh... league plan document and we build each individual league out so before registration even opens we're planning out a month in advance before registration happens about which leagues do we want to run at every location we look at the past season the past year did leaks fill do we sell this league out do we need to offer more more leagues at that location uh... and then we look at the breakeven document and our post-season money breakdown like oh this league
00:20:55
Speaker
made money. This league didn't. Let's not run this one again. So we're always evaluating past seasons for the future seasons. As we plan our league document and build those leagues in League Ally, we open registration and registration opens about five weeks before the league starts. So we're pushing leagues as leagues are happening. I think that's a very important thing if you're looking to run leagues is
00:21:21
Speaker
opening registration while these are happening, that way people can be on the radar because people might not sign up right away. But if you email them in person, all your umpires or league officials are telling them, hey, registration is open for next season. People start gathering their team because a team of 10 softball players might take a little bit, a couple weeks to formulate.
00:21:41
Speaker
So you're opening that up and giving them time to sign up. As registration opens up, we close registration down about a week and a half before leagues start. And that's where we really dive in and start consolidating. If this league only has three players or three teams in it, where can we move them so they can still play? So if it's, hey, can you play in another league on another night? Or can you play in the same night at a different location? So we're reaching out to captains of teams and say, hey,
00:22:09
Speaker
What works for you guys? We want you to play. I think that's what makes us different than other people. We should all like, hey, sorry, don't have a league for you. See you later. And I was like, hey, we're going to work with you. Although that's how we used to do it. Unfortunately, I didn't think about that. And I used to just refund people immediately when the league wasn't going to happen without even asking if they wanted to switch. And the only reason I changed that is because someone responded and said, why did you refund me? I would have moved leagues. And I immediately was like, why am I not asking people who've already given me their money?
00:22:35
Speaker
to move to a different league or a different location before just refunding all their money. And most people are willing to switch, which was a huge light bulb for us a long time. I'd say that's feedback right there. People are like, hey, I'll do this. And you're like, cool, we'll start doing that forward. And we haven't changed since, only gotten better on it. And once leagues, once you have everything consolidated and figured out, then we make schedules for all leagues. So we try not to make schedules until we have a confirmed league with a number of teams in it, because there's nothing worse than having to redo a schedule once it's already published.
00:23:03
Speaker
Yep, and then building all the schedules, and so let's maybe talk about the number of teams. How many teams do you guys typically manage in a season? So for our big seasons, spring, summer, fall, we'll have in the upper 700s. So it's 100 basketball teams, 200 plus pickleball teams.
00:23:20
Speaker
200 sand volleyball teams so each league can have anywhere from four teams to up to 16 teams for a kickball league and then in our smaller seasons in our winter we'll have in the upper 400s and that's only because we can't play in negative 10 degree weather in Kansas City in the in the winter so
00:23:41
Speaker
We'll have anywhere from 100 leagues to 150 leagues happening at a time with all those teams. And 4,000 participants down to about 2,500 in the winter. And the winter is something where you go from 2,500 up to 4,000 spring, summer, and fall. So as a company, it becomes really hard to navigate that.
Seasonal Adaptations and Innovations
00:24:00
Speaker
And like, how do you budget that? And so we're constantly thinking of how do we grow our winter seasons? How do we grow our holiday seasons?
00:24:05
Speaker
and last year actually was the first time we tried an outdoor kickball league in the in the holiday season and I was like no way it'll work and teams sign up so even you can get in your own way sometimes so really to truly test something you got to put it out there and before that you've got to run your break evens you've got to do your due diligence and get feedback and if people are asking for stuff obviously try and give it to them
00:24:24
Speaker
but sometimes you can get in your own way, so the best way to truly figure it out is do your due diligence, put it out there, see what the people want, and if they feel it, even better. I know we've done that multiple times where I was like, no way, that'll work, and I ended up working, so that's really cool. So, you know, we're adults. I'm getting old. I'm almost 40 years old, and I know a lot of people have gotten injured in the league, so maybe let's talk about our process there and, you know, what's it look like when someone gets injured in our leagues.
Player Injury Management
00:24:51
Speaker
Yeah, so I think we have a really cool process. We try to partner with a physical therapy partner, so currently Canada City and Performance Rehab. They're our local PT partner and they have locations all over the city. So what we do is, even if we don't have a PT partner at that time, if someone gets hurt in our leagues, we fill out an injury report. Our staff does that onsite, gets their name, their
00:25:14
Speaker
phone number, their team name, what happened, try as much detail as possible, what location, and that's for a couple reasons. One, for insurance-wise, just so you have a record of it, because unfortunately, sports are awesome until someone gets hurt. Just so you have a record, that way someone comes and asks about something, you can go and look back at it. But then also, we follow up with every player that gets hurt, whether it be a stubbed toe to, I broke something.
00:25:38
Speaker
As a company, I care about our players, we care about our players, and we want everybody to feel cared about as well. So I call everybody, give a follow-up email if they don't answer, and say, hey, how are you doing? That's my first question. Sometimes they're doing great. Like, I'm old. I heard something. Or like, I'm out for the season.
00:25:58
Speaker
great what can I do to make it to help you because that's a sometimes a life-altering event they have to get surgery and things like that well let's find someone else for your team and help cover that cost so you don't have to pay for a whole season that you now can't play so I work with people we try to work with people because we're all human
00:26:16
Speaker
And then I will refer them to our PT partner. So currently KC and Performance Rehab does free consults. So if you get hurt in our leagues, we'll all reach out to you, then they'll reach out to you and you can go see them for free. So if you're like, hey, I hurt my knee, I'm not sure what it is if something is torn or if it's just a bruise and I need time to heal, you go see them, they'll do evaluation on you and say, hey, I think you just need time, ice and rest. Or we think you need to go see a specialist.
00:26:42
Speaker
We have partners with specialists, we can get you in quicker. So we're trying to provide a service for our players where we care about them after the league as well. So even if you're not playing currently with us, reach out to me. I can help you with what's going on. Yep. And I think that to deep dive on that for a second, you know,
00:26:57
Speaker
One, you know, it started out where, you know, people were getting injured in the league and it was from our side as a business, it's like, yeah, you don't want anybody to get injured, but what can, you know, how can we help them? And it started out where we just had, every time someone get injured in our league, and the rule is, if any, if play ever stops for an injury, our staff is trained to fill out an incident report. And this incident report tracks all of that information. In the past, we were just using it for insurance purposes so that we could, you know, help cover the player, help them out if something happened.
00:27:23
Speaker
Well, well then we saw the opportunity where we have all this data on like we've got this many knee injuries and basketball. Like we had all this data that we could use to essentially help a PT partner essentially match them up and make it better for everyone. And so now we have this data that's a win for our PT partner. It's also a win for our participants. Now they're getting care from us. They're getting follow-up and we're making sure that they're getting the care they need right away. And so that came later with the PT partner. And so again, I think that's another situation where
00:27:49
Speaker
win-win-win is really important and it not only became a win for everyone but it came another touch point from us to build a relationship with our customers because Mitch calls every single one of them I'm in the office I hear him he's very very nice and he calls every single one of them like and you know if it's a stubbed toe they laugh like oh it's so funny you're calling me right but that's that's an experience that they now are going to remember that Casey Crew even though it was just a stubbed toe called me because they cared about it and so that's another touch point to build a relationship in a community
00:28:16
Speaker
with your customers that can be, you know, big and helpful. And so I think that's another opportunity that we took from a negative thing like getting injured and spun it into a positive thing for everyone involved. So really love what we've done there and that's been really cool to partner with partners like
Conclusion and Future Topics
00:28:30
Speaker
that. Use Facility Ally. Check it out at facilityallie.com. If you're looking to get into leagues, rentals, those sort of things, you can do all that, manage it all with Facility Ally. Or ask us.
00:28:39
Speaker
Or, yeah, or hire us, consulting. So, yeah, today we deep dive on leagues. Obviously, we've been talking about leagues. KC crew does much, much more. We're going to have a future conversation on tournaments, corporate events, nonprofit fundraising. We got a lot going on with these guys, all using Facility Ally. So look for future episodes. Thanks for joining us today about leagues, but we can't wait to see you next time. Thanks for joining us on the Facility Playbook.