The following steps are required to join the Wait List for a sport. Complete this process after you have attempted the regular team registration process and discovered that your desired leagues / days / times are already full. Then, scroll down for some answers to frequently asked questions about our wait list process.

Honestly, not terrible. Even if you’re #20 on the list. Over the past few years, we have seen that better than 70% of the wait list teams get a spot in the league. Of course, not all wait list teams respond when we reach out, which means we move on to teams lower on the list. That helps. As do a few other things, outlined below.

It’s a supply and demand issue, really. For indoor sports, Intramural Sports has limited access to Tully Gym for our games & matches. With only 3 courts over at most 6 hours per night, five nights per week, there’s simply a limit to the number of teams we can accommodate. We cannot start earlier in the evening due to other users in the gym (Physical Education classes and the FSU varsity volleyball team). And, we want to make sure we give those teams in the league a quality experience with a standard number of matches in the regular season. We could reduce the number of matches per team to get in more teams, but who wants 2 regular season matches before the playoffs in a major sport? We want to provide a quality experience, which sacrifices the quantity of teams at times.

For outdoor sports, with the Rec SportsPlex, it’s not really a space issue, but a prime time issue. Even with that much space, only so many games can go on at one time. Typically we play 6-8 games simultaneously in flag football and soccer and the maximum of 5 in softball. Only so many teams get the prime 8:00, 8:30, 9:00 spots. We do play from 6:30 until 11:30 at the Rec SportsPlex. Due to neighborhood considerations, we do not schedule later into the night. And, earlier times just prove too inconvenient for teams to play. Sure there are a few teams that would take a 6:00 start on a weeknight, but not many. And, often that just creates too many forfeits at that time.

Actually, no. We do not open all available spaces for registration at the start of the sign-up period. Why not? Well, we’re pretty good at gauging the number of teams in each league and division (men’s, women’s, co-rec, competitive, recreational, etc) based on the history of our league. But, things do change every year. Therefore, we open about 90% of the available spots during the initial registration period. And, we save the last 10% to open for those teams on the wait list based on the demand, such as the number of co-rec wait list teams versus the number of men’s wait list teams. All the prime times are available, but we tend to save the very early and very late times to add new spots during the meeting.

Given the way the registration system works, some teams have 2 or 3 people logging in to try to get a spot. Sometimes, that means the same team has 2 or more registrations in our leagues. By rule, teams can play in only one spot. We drop those multiple registrations. But, instead of dropping them during the registration process and creating a free-for-all among teams trying to get those spaces, we wait and open those positions for those teams on the Wait List. Honestly, would you rather check back everyday to see if a spot opens up (kind of like class registration), or just put yourself on a list, in order, and wait to be placed at the end of registration? Let’s just say the latter seems more fair to all interested teams.

And, there are times when teams register then determine that they don’t have enough players or would rather combine with another team. That’s fine as it frees up more space for other teams. Once they cancel, we also hold that spot to be filled by Wait List teams.

Know that no one can delete a registration from the system. It’s not a possible function of the process. So there’s no chance someone could get a spot, then time it right to give it to someone else. We work from the wait list to avoid the “unfair” practice.

There may be a handful of teams in each league (typically 5 or less) that do not get a spot in a league. We get down to a number that just doesn’t make a complete league. We can’t start a league with just 2 teams. You’d play each other every week.

Instead, these wait list teams are our first teams to call when openings become available during the season. We experience a number of no-shows and other forfeits during the first 2 weeks of the regular season. When those happen, we drop the no-show team and call our wait list teams (in order, still) to ask if they want that spot for the rest of the season. This tends to get all the rest of teams in, it just takes some patience.

Wait list teams remaining on the list after spots have been filled and awaiting forfeits and no-shows are welcome to contact our office to inquire about their status on the list. We can tell you what number you are, for example. However, we have to wait for games to be played before we know who no-shows. So sometimes there a bit of a wait between the schedules being released and when we’ll have some real information for you.

After 2 weeks of the regular season, we encourage wait list team members to search for another team to join. At that point, the odds have dropped to a point that it is not realistic to wait any longer. But, know that if your players play for another team that is in the league, then we add your wait list team, those players are NOT eligible to switch back over to your team. That first team is their team of record for the season.

We’re happy to help. Despite all this process, our goal is to get all interested teams in the league. It just takes a detailed procedure to get 200-300 teams placed and scheduled for play. Call 850-644-2430, stop by our office in 1035 Tully Gym (next door to the Leach Center), or click the link to email us now and we’ll try to answer!