A family friend once asked Arion Herbert and his wife Erika if they had ever watched kickball. Yes, kickball—the game most people played as kids on the playground. The thought of a professional version of the game never occurred to the Herberts.
The couple took their friend’s advice and were blown away at the sight of adults playing the game in a competitive setting. Always one to organize events for others, Arion decided to establish an adult kickball tournament in his hometown of Charlotte, N.C. This first event proved a real hit, attracting a dozen teams from the Southeast to vie for $1,500 in prize money.
“We thought afterward: if teams would come to Charlotte for $1,500, what would they do for more?” says Arion. “We upped the prize money to $2,000 for the next event, and we had more teams. We knew we were onto something.”
How to play
Kickball (also known as “soccer baseball” in most of Canada and “football rounders” in the United Kingdom) is a team sport and league game. As in baseball, one team tries to score by having its players return a ball from the home base to the field and then circle the bases, while the other team tries to stop them by tagging them with the ball before they can return to the home base. Instead of hitting a small, hard ball with a bat, players kick an inflated rubber ball; this is what makes it so accessible to young children. As in baseball, teams alternate half-innings. The team with the most runs after a predetermined number of innings wins. Games usually run an hour to an hour and a half.
The game is typically played on a softball diamond or soccer field with an 8.5- to 16-in. diameter inflated rubber ball. As in baseball/softball, the game uses three bases, a pitcher’s mound, and a home plate. Sometimes, in less formal games, the field is not bounded as in softball or baseball, rather it is open. This may result in informal rule changes to accommodate the field, such as home runs being counted by number of bounces instead of by distance. Kickball was mostly considered a child’s game in the United States until the 1970s when many U.S. cities created kickball leagues for adults. Some cities have multiple organized leagues for adults over 21 years of age.
Growing up, growing bigger
Four years ago, Herbert felt the early success of the tournaments proved they could be branded and brought to a bigger, national stage. From this, he created Turf Wars, a branded, organized version of his earlier events held in cities across the country with more sizeable cash prizes.
These events are organized by Legacy Sports USA. According to its website, Legacy Sports organizes sporting tournament events for all ages and at all levels to “develop skills and enjoy training and competition.”
“Legacy has a background in running and conducting high profile, big events and it was perfect for us to partner with them to help facilitate Turf Wars,” says Hebert. Turf Wars are also part of Herbert’s Main Attraction Recreational Sports (MARS) umbrella organization.
Instead of natural grass, Herbert explained Turf Wars are held on turf soccer fields with up to four games on one field. Games start on Saturday with the co-ed divisions. On Sunday, the men’s and women’s divisions compete. MARS offers both pro and social games. The pro divisions are for more competitive players aiming at cash prizes, while the social divisions are teams just playing for fun.
In 2021, the group hosted four tournaments in Richmond, Va.; Charlotte; Atlanta; and Gatlinburg, Tenn.—each drawing 40-plus teams. Turf Wars 2022 took place in nearly all the same cities, only moving the Georgia event from Atlanta to Savannah. This year, Turf Wars will stage events at Auburn University in Alabama.; Washington, D.C.; Charlotte; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Mesa, Ariz. Next year, the organization plans to mark its first international foray with an event in the Dominican Republic.
“This year marks the first time we have gone west of the Mississippi River, and we are very excited to bring the sport and our tournament to that area of the country,” says Herbert. “Next year’s event in the Dominican Republic is also exciting since we are bringing kickball as an organized, high-profile event to a foreign country.”
The growth of Turf Wars was brought to a large audience thanks to an ESPN feature several years ago that captured action during a competition. The network also captured other snippets of play later on to feature on its top plays segments.
“That really gave us exposure,” says Herbert. “We have had a tremendous following and impact on social media, which is also driving awareness and participation. We are negotiating more television coverage.”
According to Herbert, the sport of kickball is only going up to bigger and better things. “We are something similar to pickleball and cornhole, which now have a huge following and participation and have really taken off in the last few years. It’s because of television exposure and other forms of the media, especially social media.”
Herbert himself was recognized by SportsEvents magazine readers as one of the Best Live or Virtual Sports Event Planners in 2022 for his work with Turf Wars.
An intuitive sport
Herbert attributes the sport’s organic growth to its accessible and intuitive nature.
“The attraction of kickball is you don’t have to be a former college or pro athlete to compete, even at a high level. We all played the game at some point in our lives, and it is easy to understand and play, whether it is at a competitive or at a recreational level,” he says.
“If you go into a grocery store and ask someone if they played football not many would say they have,” Herbert continued. “Yet, you ask them about kickball, and you can bet pretty sure everyone has played it at some point. The game brings us back to childhood and is something where people can go out, compete, and have nothing but fun for an hour or an hour and a half.”
Turf Wars leads the way
Herbert believes Turf Wars is setting the standard when it comes to kickball tournaments.
“Tito’s Vodka is a main sponsor and we have worked with a number of businesses, such as those in the health care and sports medicine fields, as well as sponsors at the local level where we hold the events,” he explains. “Once they realize how just many players are involved and—importantly—how we are getting national attention and a big social media presence, they want to come on board. No one can compete with us in the amount of prize money we offer ($10,000 for some select major events) and the number of teams we draw.”
Herbert says some events do better than others and he and his team are constantly analyzing new potential tournament venues.
“We want this to be a sustainable undertaking and having a good number of teams is vital to an event’s success. We allocate prize money based on the number of teams that enter.”
Even with the confidence in his brand, Hebert admits he is surprised just how soon this level of success came.
“Turf Wars wasn’t something I was aggressively pursuing at first, but the opportunity presented itself and we took advantage. It was long time overdue to have kickball on a regional and national stage,” he says.
