Taking Action takes spreading the word to another level. Instead of just telling people about it, taking action means being proactive in creating and organizing your own events as well as others with Freestyle and Captains in your area. Taking action is for those Captains who really want to get involved in the project, those who live and breathe soccer. Freestyle highlights the efforts of Captains on On the Pitch, Freestyle’s community extension.
For Captains Who Take Action
The best thing a Freestyle Captain could do is to step up and take action. So to give back to the early Captains that help us in launching Freestyle, we will be rewarding them with incentives to help them along the way in the Captains Incentives Program. First, every Captains that takes action gets a free Freestyle shirt as well as a kit for them to start a Freestyle hub in their community.
In addition, we will be offering monetary rewards for Captains bringing in groups of users and Captains. The rewards are based on both the number of captains recruited and number of users brought on Freestyle. Compensations are broken down at the 10, 25, 50, and 100-user levels. For more about the incentives program, contact our Captains Director to apply for the program.
There are many ways you can promote soccer. Here are just a few ideas.
Promote Your Groups
The best way for you to get people on Freestyle is for you to use Freestyle and promote your own groups. Invite friends and other soccer lovers to your meetups, pickup groups, teams, and leagues and start interacting in them. As your groups grow, more people will start joining them by themselves.
Play Pickup
Captains should always be looking to start pickup groups wherever they may be and putting them on Freestyle. Even if you don’t realize it, playing pickup is an easy way to promote soccer. It gets you talking to and connecting with other soccer lovers. Just create a pickup group on Freestyle, invite your friends and get playing. Even if you don’t have people to play with, you can always find other players in your area and invite them to your group. Pickup groups on Freestyle have a lot of features you will enjoy.
Captains who take action and create pickup groups can request friendly kits. Friendly kits consist of everything necessary to start a successful pickup group, such as official Freestyle cones, pennies, balls, and goals. Just post a request in the Global Captains Group.
Watch Matches at Bars
Like playing pickup, creating a meetup and organizing a group of people to go watch soccer matches at a local bar is another great way to promote soccer. It’s easy for fans to connect with each other once they start talking about soccer. You don’t even have to know the people in your meetup. Just invite people in your area on Freestyle and start getting to know them. Once you’re there, you can recruit other people at the bar watching the match into your meetup.
Here are some other event ideas to get you going:
• Tournaments
• Video Game Competitions
• Skills Competitions
• Brackets/Raffles
• Outreach Events
Recruit Other Captains
It’s easier for you to organize and run events if you have a group to work with you. As a Captain, you should always be on the lookout to find new Captains in your community. This is why we have you join/create a local Captains group; so that you can do more together and have more fun.
If you think someone has the potential to be a Captain, approach them about Freestyle and direct them to the website so then can check it out themselves. You can also tell them about your own personal experience being a Captain for Freestyle. You can find Captains just about anywhere, but be sure to look at soccer related events like pickup games, meetups, and other events in your community as well as friends and family who share your passion.
Establish A Captains Organization at Your School
An easy way for you to start having your own big Freestyle events is to start a chapter of the Project Freestyle Captains organization. With these student organizations, you can request funding from your school to do your own events including regular pickup games, tournaments, video game tournaments, and more. The first of these was founded in Ann Arbor, and they are active in soccer in every way imaginable. For information about creating a chapter at your school, contact our Captains Director on where to start.
Join the Freestyle Beta
If you have an interest in technology or just really like playing with websites, then you should consider joining the Freestyle Beta group. The beta group is for Captains that want to make the Freestyle website their own by testing out new features before they are rolled out to the general public as well as giving their feedback and any new ideas they have. Captains know the website better than most users so we trust them to shape the direction of the website for the future. For more information on getting into the beta, contact our Beta Director to apply for the program.
Ask for Help
And finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help or if you have any new ideas. If you need help running an event or just need flyers to post around town, let us know. We always do what we can to help our Captains. Just post a topic in the Global Captains Group.