For those of you who took the time to fill out our 2018 End of Year Survey, we appreciate you taking the time. The PSL staff has taken this information and will be applying it to our 2019 leagues where applicable. Your feedback is vital in helping us provide the best possible experiences day in and day out for you and your teams.  If you have additional areas where you have suggestions or other feedback, we are always available to hear from you. Contact us at any time!

Not all feedback was positive, and that’s okay. We are constantly trying to improve our leagues, tournaments, and activities. 2018 presented its own set of challenges for the PSL. Some were in our control while others weren’t. The purpose of this blog post is to address the common themes that resonated throughout your responses.

Communications about game cancellations:

The PSL communicates about game cancellations via the Rainout Line and Twitter. You can download the Rainout line app, set up notifications to be received via email or text. Check out all of that information on our Policies Page under Weather Policies

The PSL also has a standard for how and when we will cancel our games.

• Almost daily, PSL staff travels to fields in the afternoon to assess the condition of the field
• Our goal is to have the Rainout Line updated by 5pm on weekdays and 8am on weekends.
• Due to traffic or incoming weather, there are times when the updates are released 15 – 20 minutes later
• After these designated times, PSL staff relies on our officials to assess the condition of the fields when they arrive on site.
  • Some nights we can have over 10 outdoor facilities in use. It is impossible for PSL staff to get to all the fields after 5pm if additional weather passes through.
• PSL WILL NOT CANCEL GAMES BASED ON A FORECAST OR RADAR. They are just too unreliable for us to trust.
• Often there is inclement weather on one side of the city and not the other, so we base playing our games on the weather conditions at each individual field.

PSL team fees go up every year or are too expensive:

As a program of an organization who values inclusion, we do everything we can to keep the costs for our leagues as low as we can. There are some true costs that are more expensive than others depending on the sport. In 2018 there were two changes to the pricing structure. Your PUMP membership fee increased to $15/year and all transactions were charged a 3.8% processing fee.

This year, we have switched platforms for your PSL league software as well as integrated this platform within our PUMP website.  Now all PUMP membership fees will be handled through the PUMP website and will no longer be a part of your league fee invoice. Additionally, the new league software does not allow for a percentage based processing fee. Instead you will see a $5.95 transaction fee on each team fee. On this new system, captains have the OPTION to invoice their teammates directly through the website using Team Payer. This is a really great feature on the new system that gives the captains complete control of how much they want to charge each player on their team. Please note each team payer transaction incurs a $3.95 transaction fee.

With all that being said, the team fees are different in 2019 but the average cost per player increase is less than $5 even when using the team payer function!

Field conditions were bad, games were moved to different location, leagues weren’t finished:

As stated earlier, 2018 was met with many new challenges and some of them were out of our control. 2018’s record setting amount of total rain for Pittsburgh was one that was not in our control but had the largest impact on our programming. There was just so much water that most fields could not absorb all of it. Another thing that happened in 2018 is that the City of Pittsburgh brought in a laser grader to regrade their fields. Long term this is a great thing that will help the fields absorb water better but last year with all the rain, it took longer than expected to get to some of the fields we play our games at. These factors caused many more games than usual to be canceled. Often times this forced us to relocate games to a field that was able to be played on. Sometimes we were unable to secure these facilities until later in the day. Ultimately, in some cases, we simply ran out of time and could not finish some softball leagues. In these instances, Ky reached out to the captains and discussed a plan forward.

Now what? So far this year, we have met with members of the City of Pittsburgh and Public Works to hear their plans for field maintenance and they listened to our feedback as well.  We also have worked with Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and the City of Pittsburgh on their Parks Listening Tour. They are taking feedback via surveys about the parks and want your help. We encourage you to take the survey or attend a meeting!

Now we just need Mother Nature to do her part!

Players are unaware of the Hometown Hot Spot Program or want more bars near their fields:

If you aren’t aware of our current Hometown Hot Spot Program, please go to our website and check it out now!  If you have any ideas for good locations to be a part of our program, let us know!  In 2019, we will be taking a fresh look at our Hometown Hot Spots Program with the intent to grow it to fit our members’ needs! Be on the lookout for more information on the program and how you can get involved coming soon!

Thanks for filling out the survey!

The two lucky winners are Elizabeth Brown and Matt Foreman! Each person has been emailed and will receive a $25 gift certificate to Bigham Tavern or Social.