Rum Beer & Football

Photography by Tisha Gale.

There’s a Sunday league in New York that’s looking to change the way that pick-up is played in North America. Draft days, film, fantasy leagues with their players, stats, you name it. If it’s cool and it makes the experience of amateur footy better, they’re probably trying to implement it. Ahead of their summer season, we caught up with Charles, the founder of the league, as well as Sebas and Ziham, two previous champions. This is the story of Rum Beer and Football. 

Charles

What was your experience playing soccer in New York?

Soccer has always felt like it’s going on an upward trajectory here. For me personally, I got to the point where I was just playing in random leagues in New York City, where you can earn anywhere from a good couple of hundred dollars to play, or maybe some pupusas or something. The leagues over here take care of you pretty well. My experience here has been very eclectic in terms of playing soccer, just because there are so many different leagues and so many different types of places to play. There are leagues from Haiti, there are African leagues, there are Ecuadorian leagues, there’s everything. I feel like I’ve been blessed to get to experience all those different leagues.

How did those experiences inspire you to start Rum Beer and Football?

The initial inspiration was really the people. We had a pickup session going on, and that’s where a lot of our managers now met. We would organize pretty cool pick-up sessions, and it was great vibes. It then eventually started getting a lot more competitive. We had shirts and skins going on, and every week each team would recruit new people to try to one-up the other side. The next logical step after weeks of competition was to try to join a league since we had a bunch of great players. But one day, over some beers and rum, we decided that maybe we didn’t have to do that. Maybe we could form our own thing. That’s how the league was born.

Since then, you guys have implemented pretty cool ideas into your league – things that one might not see too often. What are some of those ideas, and how did they come to be?

We have so many people that have played in all these other leagues and come from many different backgrounds. So we all just had a bunch of different ideas to build on top of other leagues that we might have played in. It was all about taking some of those best ideas and combining them to make something cool that we would all enjoy.

One of the first things we decided to implement was a draft night. We’ve all experienced how teams get chosen on the street or at school. You have captains, and you just choose one by one. So we decided to have a draft night with everyone who signed up for the league, and we eventually decided to have one every season because that way the teams get to change from time to time. It always keeps the community tight because someone who might be your rival this season could be your teammate the next.

We also started keeping track of statistics. I think naturally, players want to know how to improve and keep track of their progress, like in terms of goals or assists. But we also included other fun stats like nutmegs or blocked shots by defenders. Through those stats, we’ve even been able to come out with FIFA cards for players in the league, which change based on form throughout the season. It all just goes back to treating ourselves as professionals while still playing in a pick-up environment.

You also have a fantasy league, right?

Yeah, and it just goes back to treating ourselves as professionals, but in a fun way. If people can play fantasy league with teams from the Premier League and La Liga, wouldn’t it be cool to do the same for Rum Beer and Football? So I just got an app where you can input everyone’s name before the season starts, and then you just upload the stats that we keep track of every game, and it comes back with points for each player. That’s also another fun component we’ve added recently.

Initially, before you guys implemented all of these different concepts, how did you recruit people into the league? What was the biggest selling point?

For any new captains and managers, I tried to explain to them that they would get to create their own things. You get to come up with a team name, design a kit, you get to customize everything. You can grow your team however you want it to grow, and maybe there’s more freedom than in other leagues. There are teams that have joined us that have really embraced that and ran with it. It’s really a testament to the hard work of the managers and the captains that the league has been able to grow. They’ve made these teams from scratch, and it’s great to see where it’s all at now.

How many people are in charge of running the league at this point, and what does it take?

Everyone helps out, but there are a few key people, and that’s the managers. They're the ones that are volunteering to help with organization, setting up the field, and staying afterward to pick up trash. There’s a lot of logistical stuff that they have to handle, but thankfully there’s one manager per team, which makes things easier for me when things kick off. The managers also do a great job at keeping the players dialed in, which is so important because we don’t want to have a season where players are not having fun or not showing up. Having that engagement is very important.

With so many different managers and captains, how do you guys make big decisions?

All of us just hang out, so many of these big decisions or topics just come up while we’re having a drink. It’s not like you finish a game and then go email an administrator. We all hang out, we all talk, so it’s easy. Even in between games we can decide issues pretty fast. But we’ve settled stuff in many different ways, whether it’s over a WhatsApp group chat, a Zoom call, or over a drink. We’ve also had polls at the end of the season where we ask how things can improve. After season 1, for example, we got bigger goals because the players voted for that. So we’re still constantly evolving and figuring out the best way to do things. But it’s all through getting input from what the people want.

In the end, we want everyone to be happy. If people are gonna be waking up early on Sunday and sacrificing the number of beers they have on a Saturday night, then of course we want everyone to be having fun and playing in a league that they’ve had a say in.

What has it been like to see the league grow over the past two years?

It’s been really exciting for me to see us grow. I have this dilemma of wanting my own team to be successful, but the goal is for the league to be successful, so even when my team isn’t winning, I really like to sit back and just watch other things go well. I like to see that everyone is having a good time and enjoying the vibe. I’m also just passionate about grassroots sports in general. I think it’s so important to play and work at a community level. A lot of people talk about the soccer system as a pyramid, and in order for it to be strong, the base needs to be solid. That’s why it’s felt so special to see so many people join this league and have fun with it. It feels like a lot of us are falling in love with the sport all over again and with the small details that make it so special. We’ve even had consistent sponsors for our teams’ kits, which is perfect because most of these businesses are local. Beyond just having fun, it feels like we’re also connecting with our community beyond the sport.

Where do you hope all of this goes in the future?

We want to start getting more support, so we want to increase the photo and video coverage that we have for our games. We’d also love to put out some merch. In the end, I hope we stay creative and come up with cool ideas to keep improving what this league looks like. We’re working with a great group of people, and we’re having fun.

I also hope that if any of our ideas take off, other leagues will start adopting them. Maybe seeing what we’re about will inspire others to start their own things too. It’ll also be a pie-in-the-sky moment if I ever see other Rum Beer and Footballs sprout around the country – we’ll just be the originals.

Ziham

How did you join Rum Beer and Football?

I’ve been a manager since the very beginning (so end of 2020), and it’s been such a good experience so far. I like to work with people and keep a nice environment, but I can also be pretty competitive. But I really got started because of Charles. We’d been coworkers and friends for quite some time, and he contacted me at the very beginning to tell me what he was planning. He asked me to be a manager, and I remember feeling so proud that he’d thought of me right away for this venture.

For your team, what are some of the responsibilities you’ve had to take on as a manager?

I helped with creating the logo and the design of the jerseys for my team, which is something that I liked a lot. In terms of bigger picture stuff, I just help coordinate everything that we might need as a team. But the decision-making is pretty similar to how the league operates. I like to keep a consensus in the same way we do with Charles when we make decisions for the league. My role is essentially to communicate well and make decisions as a team. It’s not that complicated, to be honest, but being a manager has just helped me meet so many different people since I’m so involved. Being so in touch with the community is something I’ve really liked as a manager.

So your team won a championship in one of the previous seasons. What was that like?

It was amazing. We had lost two games, and I remember going to Charles with four weeks left and just telling him, ‘that’s it, we’re done.’ He was like, ‘no, you guys can still make it!’ I was already counting us out, but the nice thing about our format – which is just table standings – is that you can always get back up and still earn the championship. Every game counts. We won the rest of our games, and we took that first place. I didn’t think it was going to be possible because teams were way above us in the standings, but we won. Everybody will always remember us for being champions.

What are you looking forward to the most this upcoming season?

I’d just love to see this community grow – especially outside of soccer. For example, the sponsors on our jerseys, which help support the league, also get help from us. We support their businesses, so that’s how our community can grow together. When I say I want our community to grow, I don’t just mean in terms of players, but I mean in terms of our local community here in New York. I think we can all help build each other up, and I think that’s beautiful. I want to see that continue.

Sebas

How did you join Rum Beer and Football?

I’ve always loved to play soccer, and I did it pretty competitively while I was growing up. The past few years, though, I’ve had to just slow down how much I play. That brought me to creating my own pick-ups and also just had to be selective about which other ones I showed up to just because of time and life getting in the way. At the end of 2020, when Charles hit me up about the league, it was the perfect match. I was sold from the beginning. Once Charles gave me the rundown, I knew it was gonna be a great level, but also a good vibe. I wanted a place where I wasn’t going to go home limping and also a place where I didn’t have to hold back. There’s definitely a sweet spot, and I think Rum Beer and Football was exactly that.

What has been your favorite part about the league and the role you’ve played in helping it grow?

Similar to Ziham, my favorite part is just making the jerseys -- that's probably the only responsibility that I leave to myself. I was a manager the first season, and I was pretty easygoing. For the next few seasons, I asked someone else to be a manager, which was good for me, but I think it also was cool to have others involved. For the most part, I really like to focus on designing our jerseys from scratch, and I also like to make sure everyone is having a good time. Thankfully, everyone has made that really easy because there have been no conflicts even though most of us are strangers. Everyone has been willing to play whatever role, and that’s been amazing.

What was it like winning a championship with your team Deportivo Buenas Vibras?

At that point, we only had six teams, and every team was so evenly matched. By the last matchday, there were three teams, including us, who had a shot at the title. It was almost like that Manchester City title. All the other results went our way, so we had to win our final game to take the title, and we were playing the last team on the table. They played like the best defense of their life, though, and we just couldn’t score. Thankfully, with like a minute left, we sent in a cross that deflected into their net. We went crazy as soon as it went in. That was enough to put us level at the number one position, but our head-to-head record against them was better, so we took the title. We topped the table, and it was just an unforgettable day of soccer.

What are you looking forward to the most this coming season?

I’m hoping to be able to spread more awareness for the league and find more support for it. It’s not only teams that are benefitting, but also local businesses who sponsor us, creators who help us design jerseys, and just a lot of different people are getting something good out of it. I want to make sure those types of connections continue to grow. This league has been the perfect place for people to get in touch, interact, and grow in a sense. I want more people to experience what we’ve all experienced being part of Rum Beer and Football.

Photography by Tisha Gale.