The Flex Prize League is a flexible schedule league that allows you the flexibility to choose the day and time that works best for you to play each match. At the end of the season, prizes will be awarded to the top placing teams, and may also be awarded for other achievements or commendations.
The league is divided into different regions, skill levels, and sometimes age groups. Our League Coordinators take all of the signups and available information to carefully craft what they believe to be the best and most fair competition with what they are given. They do their best at each task involving league creation, including: to keep travel times short (as close to our 35 minute maximum window as possible), pair players that are looking for teammates, combine and merge skill levels and age groups when needed, communicate with everybody involved when issues or questions arrive, etc.
You are expected to play all of your matches each season, and to ensure this is possible, we provide ample time (BYE weeks and Make-up weeks) to do so. Furthermore, each week is a suggestion, meaning that while the schedule is laid out to have you play one match per week, you can play more than that (perks of being flexible scheduling).
This is not a Team-based league. It is Doubles vs Doubles or Singles vs Singles (depending on which division you are playing in). You will have the same partner all season long and play against other pairs of Doubles throughout the season.
Each season's length will vary depending on the amount of teams. Some divisions may have playoffs, some may have a split season with their final matches being seeded, etc. We want to provide the most play that we can for each division, as some may have 5 teams, while others may have 10.
You can expect a minimum number of matches equivalent to how many teams there are in your division minus one. In a perfect world, we aim to provide about 10 matches each season.
The courts that you regularly play at, or the courts near you (that you choose) will be considered your Home courts. Your opposing team will have their own Home courts. Some are fortunate enough to have private courts that they can invite guests to.
Each match will see one team assigned as Home and the other as Away. This is a suggestion of where to play. Expect about 50% of your matches to be Away matches. Teams can opt to find a court anywhere available, reserve a court, play at the Away team's court, etc. This is for you to decide.
If playing on a public court or a court that is busy, please respect the local court's rules. If there is a paddle system in effect, you can play your first game, then take a quick break, then play your second game, etc. If there is an hour time-limit on staying on the court, you should be fine to finish your entire match. You can always ask if you may play your match in it's entirety. If you choose to play somewhere that requires a fee, we are not responsible for that. You can reach out to us and we can try and negotiate something there, but no promises.
At the beginning of each season, every player in your division has access to materials for your selected division (ex. Mixed 3.5 - Region 8). These materials consist of contact information, rules, schedules, standings, etc. You will use these to help play your season.
You will see from the schedule, each match that you will play that season (excluding playoffs, seeded, etc.). An example is as follows:
Seeing that you play Team 3 for your first match and you are the Home team. You can reach out with a text to say that you are free any day this week after 5:30pm. They may respond saying that Tuesday at 6pm works best for them. Confirm the day, time, and courts - then play the match.
Each match will have a suggested week to be played. This is laid out in such a fashion to encourage one match per week. You are very much allowed to play more than one match per week and to play your matches in any order. We only ask that by the time the season ends, you have played all of your scheduled matches. Regarding the matches, it is each players' responsibility to communicate with their opponents to schedule their matches. We do not reserve courts or times for you.
Scoring rules and other rules will be presented to you at the start of the season. Expect something similar to 3 games to 11, win by 2.
For scoring and standings, each point you win will be calculated whether you win or lose. There is a maximum amount of points that can be earned per match by either team. The standings will reflect how many points you've taken, given, etc. We use this to decide the winners. So, in effect, every point matters! If the rules state differently at the beginning of the season, those rules will hold true.
All signups are meticulously looked at and organized. League coordinators do their best based on these signups to organize fair, fun, and local competition. Signing up does not guarantee play as there are sometimes not enough open spots, not enough competition, etc.
Due to the changing dynamics of every season, you are not guaranteed to be in the exact skill level and age group that you chose. For instance, if you signed up as 55 and older at a 2.5 skill level in Region 2. Coordinators will look at all variables and see that there are not enough Region 2, 2.5 players at 55 and older, so they will improvise. They may merge the 2.5 skill levels from under 55 and over 55. They may see a lot of looking for players in one region between 2.5 and 3.0 and decide that the best option for optimal competition is to make 6 teams of a 2.5 and a 3.0 player, instead of only having 3 teams at each skill level. There are many variable and dynamics that come into play and all are considered, from age, skill levels, injuries that are disclosed, schedule conflicts that we're made aware of, past performances, comments made to us, ... this list goes on. We weigh all of those factors to hopefully provide good competition as local to you as we can.
There will be times where it is simply too difficult to make a division work, so we will not run that division. Factors outside of our normal tolerances, like a team being further away from the competition than we would like, we will reach out and inform/ask them about it.
No!
We are humans looking over a lot of data and making informed decisions that will affect your pickleball experience for the duration of the season. We will make mistakes, and we will make hard decisions.
Our promise is that every decision made is carefully thought out, and it is in our best interest to provide you with a good pickleball experience while playing with us. We genuinely care about each player and their experience.
