Hello,
Have you ever asked yourself, "why doesn't this exist already?" I asked myself this very question right before launching Balizinha. I wanted to play soccer and wanted to play in a specific style, and I wanted to do it at a time that I had available. I also didn't want to deal with any of the toxicity that is often associated with ad hoc games, poor organization, and bad players and being on a terrible team because I was the new guy. Launching the group gave me more control.
I searched everywhere, and that's when I stumbled across meetup.com. Although the game times that I could make were not available, it gave me a way to create my own event. When I launched the group, meetup.com was sending a lot of players to Balizinha, but they were the non-committal type. For my first game, I had 11 people registered, but only 4 people showed up which was infuriating to me (on a later post, I will highlight how Panna Social Leagues is working to resolve this problem).
One day I threw an event, and no one showed up (no one, zero, zilch, nada). This was definitely my lowest point in organizing, I had this terrible feeling in my stomach. I took "no one showing up" as rejection, and it made me physically ill. At that moment, I knew that I WAS an organizer. I didn't feel like giving up, I felt like going harder. How did I turn it around? Well, make sure to subscribe to my blog to get...just kidding, I wouldn't do that to you :)
When I fail at something, I always say to myself, "okay, this is a moment where I could call it quits. If I stopped right now, this thing would seize to exist. This logic helps me move forward with no fear." From that moment, with no players, I came up with the player cap idea. My first capped event was 18, and although I didn't hit the cap, I was surprisingly close. Which gave me the insight that restrictions are where beautiful things happen. I started restricting other stuff like if you reserved a spot and did not show up, it would be cause for a week ban. I also didn't open registration until 10 days before a game, so players would have a better idea of their schedule. The capped games and the smaller window created scarcity, and that really spiked the demand.
Happy organizing!
Written by Fredson Gomes - cofounder of Panna Social Leagues and organizer of BalizinhaFC
