From a bar or tavern’sperspective, the advantage of hosting a bar league is threefold, according toRyan Wickens, founder of the popular Quizmaster Trivia and Bradford BeachSoccer League. In many cases, employees of the bar play on the bar’s team,which provides motivation and improves morale in the work environment. Also,players wear the bar’s jersey or T-shirt, which promotes the business. Thirdly,and most importantly, in exchange for paying a team’s registration fee to play,the bar can expect the team, as well as friends and family members who attendthe game as spectators, to return to the bar for drinks.
From a player’sperspective, the advantage of playing on a bar league team is that, asmentioned, the bar will cover the cost to play, which usually runs $200 or so.
“Plus, bar leagues tendto involve a lot of drinking,” Wickens adds. “So it’s a lot more fun becausepeople don’t take it as seriously.”
MilwaukeeRec
Milwaukee’s bar league culture wouldn’t benearly as strong and prolific as it is today without the assistance of theMilwaukee Public Schools (MPS) Department of Recreation & CommunityServices. The organization was the first of its kind in 1911, when pioneeringstate legislation assigned the local public school system the responsibility ofconducting recreation programs. According to associate supervisor Katie Seitz,bars sponsor approximately 85% of Milwaukee Rec leagues. All of thedepartment’s basketball and volleyball leagues use MPS courts, and thesoftball, kickball and football leagues play on fields owned and operated bythe school district.
Organization
A bar league is a groupof amateur athletes who are sponsored by a particular bar or tavern to competeagainst each other, either as a team or as individuals, in a specific sport.While there are a number of ways to organize a bar league, a round-robinschedule is the most common form of league structure. The goal is for each teamto play a relatively balanced schedule against other teams in the league, withthe results of the individual games being used to name an overall champion.Many local bar leagues also use playoffs, where teams advance after competingin a regular session of league format.
Brawn
Sports such asvolleyball, softball, bowling, basketball, soccer, football and hockey make upthe majority of sports played in Milwaukeebar leagues. They require a certain amount of athleticism to be enjoyed, andafter a good game a beer from the sponsoring bar is a near-necessity. Gamestypically played in Europe, like hurling and rugby, have garnered an intensefollowing in Milwaukee, and are eagerly supported by establishments known forpouring a right pint, like the Irish Pub, Judge’s Irish Pub, County Clare, TrinityThree Irish Pubs, McBob's Pub & Grill, the Milwaukee Ale House and Packy'sPub.
It’sElementary
For those who missed outon elementary school rites of passage like a speeding rubber ball to the face,there are a number of local bars and taverns that sponsor the sports of ourchildhood, including dodgeball and kickball. The Midwestern UnconventionalSports Association (MUSA) formed during the fall of 2000 in Milwaukee “with the goal of bringing togetherpeople in sports which really can not be taken too seriously.” With the help ofsponsors such as O’Brien’s Pub, Fifth Ward Pub & Grill, Judge’s Irish Pub,Matty's Bar & Grille and Colonel Hart’s, the organization was able to growfrom six teams to more than 300 teams with 4,000-plus participants in six citiesand two states.
NoNeed to Break a Sweat
There also are a numberof bar leagues in Milwaukeethat require little, if any, physicality on the player’s part. Wickenscurrently hosts his Quizmaster pub quiz at 13 area establishments. Members ofthe live-hosted trivia league meet weekly at the same bar and compete in teamsagainst others. Each quiz, which lasts about two hours, is made up of 30questions that are split into six rounds and total 45 points. The roundsinclude history and politics, geography, music, film and television, sports andleisure, and a bonus round that varies each week. Team scores over apredetermined number of weeks (usually 6-8 weeks) are accumulated and the teamwith the highest cumulative score at the end of that period is crowned leaguechampion and wins a prize.
Another popular localbar league activity that doesn’t induce an elevated heart rate is fantasysports, a game where participants act as owners to build a team that competesagainst other fantasy owners based on the statistics generated by the realindividual players or teams of a professional sport.
Brains
Skill and strategy, notstrength and speed, are central to popular bar league sports such as billiards,darts, horseshoes and beanbags (also known as corn-holing). Tavern owners lovehosting these kinds of leaguesthey don’t require a lot of upkeep, and they canbe played with a beer in hand.
Straight-UpDrinking Games
Along with flip cup,beer pong has officially evolved from college rite of passage to an organizedleague sport with Milwaukee’sown College House Beer Pong League. Teams generally consist of two players whostand at opposite ends of a ping-pong table. On each side of the table, teamsassemble three triangles made up of six cups, each filled one-third full withbeer. The idea is to land your team’s ball into all of the other team’s cupsbefore they do the same to yours. When one team lands a ball, the other teamhas to drink the cup of beer.
Whether it involvesdrinking, sports, brain or brawn, name your game and you’re likely to find agrowing number of like-minded friends in Milwaukee’sbar league circuit.
