Roller Derby On and Off the Flat Track

I’ve been meaning to start this blog for quite some time now, and ironically, the very reason I’ve been delayed is the topic I plan to focus on here: how we Ohio Roller Girls balance our work, home, derby, and derbywork lives.

When I’m talking to someone who is unfamiliar with modern derby, and we land on the subject of my league title (President) and start talking about what exactly is entailed in the “business-side” of derby, probably the thing that shocks people the most is that no one involved gets paid to do this.

At first glance, that may not be all that shocking; after all, lots of people play recreational softball, soccer, etc. and don’t get paid. They sign up at the beginning of a season, pay their team fee to the organization running the league, and hit the field.

But that’s where roller derby branches off into something of an anomoly in the recreational sports world.  There is no overarching organization running the league — the members of league run the league.  Furthermore, since we play our games in front of a public audience, for the price of a ticket, that blurs the line between what most people think about in terms of amateur v. professional sports.

So what does modern roller derby’s philosophy of “by the skaters, for the skaters” really mean?

It means that all decisions are made by the skaters in the league — whether it’s what uniforms we’re wearing or what kind of logo is going on our merchandise, those decisions are made by our own members, not a corporate entity.  It means that all of the work is getting done by that same group of people too. So if you showed up about two hours before the start of one of our games as a fly-on-the-wall, you’d see the same skaters, refs and statisticians you yell for or at during the game taping down the rope around the track, hanging sponsor banners, setting up the ticket table at the door and making sure all the trackside-seating signs are in place. 

It also means that all that day-to-day stuff that professional sports organizations have staffs of hundreds to do — the marketing, finance, negotiation of venue contracts, practice scheduling, training — all that is done by the skaters too.

So after all that spiel, the next boggled question I usually get is either “how do you have time for all that?” or “why?” 

Every league divides up the work differently.  But by and large, the model that most leagues work with has some sort of democratic vote for executive leadership — usually a Board of Directors — and then everyone in the league has a job or two as well. The Board has regular meetings, and does the core knitty-gritty business work, setting out the plans for how things will run, writing policies and the like, and then everyone pitches in from there. So, your favorite jammer might also be responsible for organizing the inventory or merch, and someone you’ve noticed running a timer on the infield just might also be the webmaster. From accounting, marketing plans, making sure everyone is on the league’s insurance policy — a skater, ref or other league member is doing all that work.

So how much time does it take? It varies.  We try to match up people’s jobs with their lives. So someone who is able to hop on and edit a spreadsheet during their lunch hour at work gets a job that works with that, while the less computer-savvy might take reponsibility for hanging up posters and flyers around town.  We try our best to do well at a division of labor. Everyone’s reponsible for about five hours of work a month minimum, but the sky-is-the-limit of course with how much time you can put in. There are weeks I’ve put in 20-30 hours for roller derby, on top of my day job, and I know I’m far from the only one. 

And that brings us to “why?” Why don’t we just sell out to someone else who could run this for us? Why do we do it at all? And that can be hard to explain to people at times. But  it’s about the love of the sport, and the particularly unique culture that comes with it. For me, it’s about the fact that when I joined this league in 2006, I suddenly had more friends than I ever had before, and was getting to play the only sport I’d ever fallen in love with.  Now, four years later, it’s about the fact that I can travel to nearly any city in the U.S. and meet someone involved in roller derby, skate with another team at practice, go to events like WFTDA’s National Tournament next weekend and feel surrounded by like minds — people who love the same sport I do, who know the blood, sweat, and tears it takes to put together a successful team, to raise funds to pay for it all, to sweat it out waiting to see if your ticket sales are going to mean the next game breaks even or turns enough profit to take it to the next level.

We have one more away game this season (11/21 in Grand Rapids, MI). After that, we’ll be less in the public eye until our fifth season starts at home in March.  But we won’t be taking a break.  Sure, we ramp down practices in December to give ourselves a little time off the track, but come January, we’re back to practicing 2-4 days a week, and making all our preparations to make our fifth season our most successful yet, both on the track and off.

So next time you come to a game, if this is all news to you, take a look around at all the things going on and realize “a roller girl did this.” It just might give you a new perspective on the sport. And if you’re so inclined, and want to help us out, take a spin over to our Contact page and let us know what you’d like to do to pitch in, and become a part of roller derby, and OHRG.