There’s no denying that creating a youth sports league in your community can be very rewarding. Your league will offer local kids something to do in their spare time and help them to learn some valuable life skills in the process.
You’re likely reading this article today because you’ve noticed there isn’t a local youth sports league in your area, but you’re keen to set one up. The trouble is, you have never dealt with such an undertaking before, and you’re not sure how to get started.
If you’re passionate about setting up a local youth sports league in your community and you want some expert advice on the subject, check out the following tips to help you get started:
1. Choose A Good Location
Before you can do anything, you must first find an excellent location for your youth sports league. The place where you will operate your business must be central for your community, ideally within a short walking distance of where most kids live.
It’s worth discussing your ideas with your local schools, sports complexes, and so forth, as one of them will ultimately provide you with the perfect solution for your youth sports league. Plus, they may even offer you the use of training facilities for free.
2. Work Out Your Costs
While it’s wishful thinking that your youth sports league won’t have any overheads, the truth is you will need to bear some costs. For example, if you get team uniforms printed online, you’ll need to pay for those costs.
Moreover, the venue for your youth sports league might require some rent payments, albeit at discounted rates. Once you know your costs, you can then tell all the parents what they’ll need to pay for their kids to be a part of your youth sports league.
3. Introduce Your League To The Community
Once you’ve done the groundwork for creating your new youth sports league, you’ll need to get local kids involved and become a part of it. Otherwise, there’s no point creating a youth sports league if there aren’t any children playing in it!
You might think that you have a challenging task ahead of you. The truth is, spreading the word about your youth sports league is easier than you might have anticipated. For example, you can share information about it with your local schools.
4. Keep Everything Organized
In some respects, you have to treat running a youth sports league in the same way that you would run a business.
You must keep records of your income and expenses and details of each child, such as contact information for parents and notes on things like medicine each child may require while they’re in your care.
It doesn’t matter whether you keep electronic records or you decide to go “old school” and write everything down on paper. What’s important is you have sufficient records that satisfy all tax and data protection laws.
5. Make Sure Your League Is Safe
Another thing you must do is ensure that your youth sports league is safe for all participants. As you can appreciate, safety is a broad subject, but in this context, you need to think about risks like COVID-19, sports equipment, and the safety of all venues your league attends.
The last thing you want to happen is for many of your league’s participants to become ill or seriously injured. Make sure that you carry out a proper risk assessment of your venue, the sports equipment your league uses, and COVID-19 social distancing protocols in your area.
6. Buy What You Need
You mustn’t overspend on the things you need, such as sports equipment, team uniforms, training equipment, and so forth. When you work out your youth sports league’s costs as per point two on this page, you’ll have a fair idea of what you need to spend on essentials.
However, you must also ensure that you aren’t spending money unnecessarily. After all: it’s the parents of your youth league team participants that are likely funding the items you are classing as costs!
7. Get Other Adults To Help
One final thing to do is have other adults help you to run and maintain your youth sports league. Don’t assume you can manage everything on your own because that just won’t be possible.
It’s worth asking for volunteers like some of the parents, or perhaps teachers from local schools that want to play an active role in your youth sports league. They will help the kids stay motivated and focused on developing their sports skills.
Thank you for reading!
