“With Mighty, we could grow to hundreds of people. We have the tools to pull that off now.”

Colleen Pyle

Co-Founder

It’s no secret that making friends was a heck of a lot easier on the playground; as an adult, it can be tough. Without the social catalysts of the classroom or the office, opportunities to meet people don’t arrive as readily. Some love the nightlife to make new connections, but just as many can’t hit the bars or clubs to find fresh faces. Colleen & Zach felt the frustration, too, so they decided to put a grown-up spin on the trusty recess model. Inspired by her husband Zach’s longtime love for team sports, they thought: what if they invited a few people to play a wide spread of non-competitive pick-up games in the park? They called it Summer of Balls. Word spread, and, now, they’ve created a community of nearly 100 people.

“Our unofficial tagline is: being aggressively recreational,” Colleen says. “That's something I wanted to convey as we grew this. As someone who didn't grow up playing team sports, I wanted people to feel really comfortable for all skill levels. We also wanted it to be a way to meet people. The community piece is important, and that's not something I've seen from our local sports organizations.”

When their largest group ever enrolled for this year’s summer season (around 60 people), they knew they needed a better way to organize their members beyond a group chat. But Colleen didn’t have to search for a solution. She knew Mighty Networks was exactly what they needed because she had seen its success firsthand — she works there.

“I'm laughing that my side gig now has so much overlap with my full-time gig,” Colleen says. “It’s great. And such a cheeky name is now in the mouths of my co-workers.”

What started as a group of 8 pals grew to 60 in just a few years, with no external marketing. It turned out they weren’t the only ones who wanted to join in a game of soccer, kickball, ultimate frisbee, or basketball and meet new folks at the same time.

“More and more people were hearing about us in the early years and trying to Google, Summer of Balls,” Colleen recalls. “We're like, ‘Oh, no, it's not actually anything substantial.’”

But enough people brought their friends onto the field that Colleen and Zach decided to start an Instagram account, a WhatsApp group chat, and a basic website. Still, those platforms couldn’t quite fulfill their needs, especially if they wanted to welcome even more new people. By this point, Summer of Balls also hosted adult summer camps for long weekends and ski trips that required member dues to facilitate. They decided to transition their members to Mighty Networks for their upcoming 2025 season.

“I wanted something where we had control of group messages because it would become a chaotic mess with replies and everyone's phone blowing up with WhatsApp messages,” says Zach. “Being able to control the messaging with Mighty and give people a place to have conversations that are separate and not overwhelming is really beneficial.”

In Summer of Balls discussion spaces, they can check out the leaderboard and upcoming brackets or connect with their team to workshop cheers and uniforms or amp each other up for the next game. Colleen also loves having the ability to show so many photos of seasons past so potential members can see their community’s approachability.

“There's a hype loop. We want a place where it's high energy,” she says. “Getting Mighty, where we could organize and have dedicated conversations, is really helpful. We'd never be able to do that in WhatsApp or Instagram.”

Although Colleen and Zach are excited to see how Mighty’s features will make growing Summer of Balls easier, they initially struggled with common anxieties many hosts face in taking their community to the next level.

“There's been anxiety around charging our friends money for things that we used to do for free. No doubt about it,” Zach says. “That was one of the reasons why we needed the legitimacy of a platform like Mighty. We said, ‘Hey, we’re still excited for you to come hang out, but we're putting a lot of time and effort into this and we want to grow it. Help Colleen and Zach not run into the red doing all this work.’”

They settled on $90 as the membership cost for one 13-week summer league season plus a “super cool” jersey. And now, they’ll have better tools to help people plan and pay for larger one-off events like their adult summer camp, which takes Zach and Colleen longer to prepare. The future for Summer of Balls feels boundless, but Zach and Colleen feel like they have more control over how their vision plays out with Mighty Networks.

“We would love to franchise, but at this stage, we believe we have curated a very specific vibe that we need to evaluate what it would take to replicate in other geographies,” Colleen explains. “The key to expanding is having a strong precedent of how we run things and what the energy you need to bring to the table if you're going to facilitate a group to be ‘aggressively recreational’.”

“With Mighty, this thing could get to hundreds of people per location or chapter. It's totally within our reach. Summer camp could be 200 people or more, no problem,” Zach says. “We have the tools to pull that off now. It’s up to us how we do that.”