The Adults Play Sports online directory is the only one of its kind.
It is dedicated exclusively to adult sports (nothing for the kiddos here), so you can quickly and easily find an adult sports league near you. Now, what used to take hours can be done in minutes.
This post will cover how to use the APS directory to find adult sports leagues, lessons, trainers, camps, clinics, and even tournaments anywhere in North America. It will also cover more traditional search options.
The Quick Backstory
Back in my twenties, I would scour Craigslist to find places to play soccer. Very few leagues had their own personal websites back in the day. While that has changed, the search process can still be frustrating.
You’ve got to sift through a lot of junk to find the treasure–an adult sports league that’s perfect for you.
My goal with the Adults Play Sports directory is to create the largest aggregation of adult sports resources all in one place.
You’ll save time. You’ll save energy. And perhaps you’ll find a league you wouldn’t have otherwise found on your own.
The Adults Play Sports directory is something I wish existed when I wanted to find a new sports league or trainer. And the feedback so far has been very positive from other adult athletes.
How To Use Adults Play Sports Directory
The APS directory currently has nearly 3000 listings of adult sports options in the United States and Canada. This is the first year of APS, so that number will only continue to grow.
Segments You Can Search By
The current categories of the APS directory include Leagues & Organizations, Trainers, Lessons, Camps & Clinics, and Tournaments.
The list of adult sports you can search for is extensive but includes soccer, basketball, volleyball, rugby, hockey, football, kickball, dodgeball, rowing, and swimming. You’ll even find roller derby on the list.
To filter your choices down even further, you can search by gender (men’s, women’s, co-ed), age (over 40s, senior (50s and older)), skill level (beginner, intermediate, competitive), LGBTQ+, and more.
If you’d rather just view a map with adult sports listings, you can do that, too.
Save Your Search
Since the directory is currently in its growth phase, you might not yet find what you’re looking for in your area. In that event, there’s a nifty option to save your search. When you do this, you’ll get notified by email when listings that meet your search specifications are added to the directory. How cool is that?
Or, you can always shoot an email to request listings in your area sooner.
Review Your Sports League (Or Trainer)
People like reading reviews. It helps them make decisions. It’s why sites like Yelp are so popular.
The same goes for adult sports leagues and trainers. Many of them grow in popularity because of word-of-mouth referrals. Many of them are also not-for-profit or small businesses without huge marketing budgets. Why not help them out by leaving a review to get the word out about them?
They’ll appreciate it, and so will others researching adult sports resources.
Once in an individual listing, you’ll see an option to leave a review. You can either click the “Reviews” tab to jump to the section or simply scroll down to it to leave a review.
Get In The Directory
Anyone can add a listing in the Adults Play Sports directory absolutely free. The more, the merrier because it gives adults looking for sports resources even more options to choose from.
You can add an adult sports league, trainer, tournament, etc., here. If your listing is already in the directory, you can claim it. Claiming your listing will allow you to edit your listing, add images, etc., and will also show a “Verified” badge.
Adults Play Sports also offers additional cost-effective opportunities to elevate your listing. Featured listings are displayed at the top of searches and on other prominent locations of the website. You can also add special offers for adult athletes who visit your listing.
Read more about our special packages at the bottom of the main directory page.
Traditional Ways To Search For An Adult Sports League Near You
Online Search
Jumping online to search for an adult sports league via Google, Bing, or another search engine is the way most people search for an adult sports league to join.
This is always a great option, but it’s time-consuming. You’ll have to sift through a lot of irrelevant search results to find adult sports leagues that are a good fit. Some might be buried so far in the results that you end up missing them.
Once you click on a league’s website, you still might have to do additional digging to find out whether they offer co-ed or women’s options, whether they are for beginners or competitive. This information certainly isn’t always easy to find.
I tried my best to filter this information in the directory on your behalf. It isn’t perfect because the information is gleaned directly from the league websites, but it should save you the time and effort of having to search through it yourself.
As Adults Play Sports grows, my intent is to work more closely with adult sports leagues to improve the information they provide about their league offerings and how interested parties can sign up.
Social Media
You can search through Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites to find adult sports leagues near you, but again, it might be difficult to find contact information or more granular information about what they offer.
Local Parks & Rec Websites
Many towns and cities offer adult sports through their parks and recreation divisions. After visiting hundreds of their websites, it’s clear that many of them are difficult to navigate for adults looking to join a league. The information is often buried. It’s often a mystery if there are gender or skill divisions.
Sports Apps and Platforms
There are platforms like Meetup and SportsEngine. With Meetup, it’s not just a sports platform, so you’ll still have to wade through other extraneous stuff to hopefully find what you’re looking for. With SportsEngine, the focus is primarily on kids, so the search for adult sports is clunky and cumbersome.
There are great complementary apps, like Gametime Hero, which recently launched and allows you to find sports partners and games wherever you travel. You can read more about Gametime Hero in this blog post.
