Junior Flight League

[zeke41]

I was going to post this under the Visioning Meeting Thread, because I feel like this is also something that could and should be established by teams later, but I figured it was worth a new thread with a new discussion.

We are kicking off our Jr. Flight league this September, and we've gotten a great response from our community. Obviously, this is a way to stimulate more interest for our team, but we are handling this much differently than the typical youth basketball league. Here's how:

We're using the Jr. Leagues to train our staff and new interns how to run game day operations. This goes for the different clocks, the stat book, and particularly for our computer stats program. One of the challenges that EVERY team that we have played seems to have is handling the computerized stat programs. The Jr. league is a much slower paced game, which helps staff get a better handle on spotting and recording.

Another benefit is utilizing our players as the coaches for those teams. This enables us to keep some of those players employed throughout the year, as we plan to do a 7 game plus playoffs each season. It also gives the kids an opportunity to get to know players making a go at a pro career, and gives those players experience as coaches, since that is a natural progression for players these days!

The last benefit I'll mention is the ability to grab sponsors willing to support youth basketball yet leery of sponsoring a new pro team. We've nabbed a couple of new sponsors just from our Jr. Flight League. One of those, Avalon Park Jewelers, has put up a $600 custom-made MVP ring for each season.

So this has been a great move for us that has already started paying off. I'd like to see more teams doing this. I know that AAU has an unofficial lock on youth leagues, but how cool would it be to have leagues going within the regular pro teams. Imagine every CBL team having a Jr. League as well, and having a championship tournament between all of those teams as well. Youth teams that are serious and competitive do tend to take some travel trips in the summer. I think it would be nice to see, for example, the Jr. Flight Champs take on the Jr. Cary Champs...maybe knock them off as payback for beating us in the CBL Championship this year.

I'm just sharing ideas. Any thoughts?

[JeffKuntz]

I think youth academies are a great idea.. They can gain you exposure and make you all kinds of new contacts..

Some of the kids who play on these teams have parents who are in positions to be future sponsors.. Plus as you said it's a great way to keep your players involved and active, and you can often gain more acceptance when you're trying to promote something that's good for kids..

The only drawback is that adults who run the other youth leagues will be hesitant to support your pro team, for fear that they might start losing their kids to your program.. so like inviting other youth teams to your games now becomes more likely to get you a "no thank you" answer..

But over-all the good outweighs the bad..

Communicate a lot, even if it's just through a newsletter, with the youth academy parents.. as I mentioned they can help you in other ways down the road..

[zeke41]

The only drawback is that adults who run the other youth leagues will be hesitant to support your pro team, for fear that they might start losing their kids to your program.. so like inviting other youth teams to your games now becomes more likely to get you a "no thank you" answer..


Good point Jeff. We actually tried to partner with an existing league - Central Florida Hoops - but the relationship turned sour. They just weren't running the league with the same level of professionalism that I wanted. We even partnered with them for our tryouts. While everyone else does a one-day tryout, we do an entire Flight School Scout League for the same price - $100. The guys get 7 games plus a championship, and we get a nice look at each player instead of a one day shot. I've just never felt comfortable with $50-$100 tryout fees for a few hours of basketball. It's just not worth it, and with our franchise now launched, we aren't looking for 10-15 guys anymore. It's more like 5-7 now, most of which (unless the talent proves otherwise) will end up role players at best.

Central Florida Hoops was a Jr. Magic affiliated league. The Magic pulled their Jr. Magic status from them, and when I started getting emails from people (including the Magic) regarding some unfortunate issues, I knew it was time to part ways. What's sad (and actually not so sad for an entrepreneur like myself) is that the standards in the leagues around us are so low, it's not hard to offer something more prestigious.

I see our Jr. Flight League becoming "the" league to play in. Instead of approaching all of those other leagues with ticket deals to attend Flight games, we should have a bulk of them playing for us anyway. I haven't found a league that tracks stats and posts them online, has professional players as coaches, webcasts games, and offers a $600 MVP ring for each season, let alone for only $100/season. Even the YMCA here charges $125 for non-members. This Jr. Flight League should be very beneficial in giving our capital resources a boost while also giving our players a reason to stay around and remain actively involved in basketball. Taking it up a notch by squaring our Jr. Flight championship teams against Championship teams from league mates will just take things through the roof!