Fresh off the heels of the United Youth Football League tournament, the Otis M. Andrews Sports Complex is about to be busy once again.
This time, from Feb. 15 to 16, the park will host two different tournaments simultaneously: the Let It Fly Flag Football Tournament and the Kick It 3v3 Soccer Tournament.
“With three or four successful sports fests, we’re looking to take our properties everywhere,” Kick It Event Manager Brandon London says. “Let It Fly is based in Florida and always has a pretty darn good tournament, so we thought we’d try to do soccer there at the same time.”
Although this is the first time that the Kick It tournament has ventured to the Tampa area, this is familiar territory for Let It Fly.
“Tampa has been the finale of our Florida series: Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville and Tampa,” Let It Fly Event Manager Jake Priest says. “We chose Plant City because the Tampa event has been successful over the last 10, 15 years, and it’s less expensive than USF. And, this facility is really nice, and the people are great to work with, too.”
Both men, who are with the North American Sports Group, say the goal is to make this an annual event in the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World.
LET IT FLY
The flag football tournament didn’t begin as Let It Fly. Upon its inception nearly 20 years ago, it was an NFL property called “Air It Out.” Things changed over the past two decades, and the tournament eventually evolved into its current state.
The competition still follows the NFL’s flag football rules. Competition is open to children as young as 5 years old, and there is no maximum age. The youth divisions, which run all the way up to the high school level, play a 5-on-5 game. Adults, who can play in the Top Gun division for a $2,000 cash prize, play 4-on-4. The limit is seven players per team.
The Saturday action will go down in the form of a round-robin tournament, and Sunday’s action will shift to a single-elimination tournament.
“We currently have 13 teams signed up, but most don’t sign up until the day before or the week of,” Priest says. “So, this is good for us so far. We’re expecting 60 to 100 teams to come out, mostly from the Tampa area.”
According to Priest, there are teams from Miami, Jacksonville and southern Georgia coming to Plant City to play in the tournament.
KICK IT
The Kick It brand has been around since 1989, predating Let It Fly by a few years, and has grown into the largest 3v3 soccer tour in the country. Each year, the organization hosts 60 to 70 local tournaments nationwide, which lead into eight to 10 regional competitions. Those regional competitions lead to qualification for the championship tournament, held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports, on Martin Luther King Day weekend.
Tournament play in Florida, however, is relatively new for the soccer tournament. Among other things, this event will help the organization make the connections it needs to stick around for a while.
“We don’t have a database full of players and coaches here, like we do in all of our other states,” London says. “We’re starting out small, and, hopefully, we’ll make enough connections and push in the marker to expand.”
The goal is to have a greater pull among travel teams all over the state. Unlike the flag football tournament, all of Kick It’s Florida teams hail from the Tampa area. The only others are three Elite travel teams from Colorado. London hopes to build both connections and familiarity with this tournament.
“We’d like for people to attach this tourney with the facility,” London says. “We’d like to keep the relationship between us and the facility really good and, if there’s a big, giant tourney with a bunch of teams here, people will remember that it was held here.”
The tournament features 28 age groups among boys and girls, starting with age 6, and also features a co-ed division for players aged 18 and up.
London says the two-day event also will have a “festival-style atmosphere,” complete with concessions, merchandise, and activities for kids. They aim to turn the Plant City event into another Sports Fest, something to build a stronger relationship with the community and keep the people coming back for more.
“We like to create that kind of atmosphere rather than just coming out to the fields and playing a few games,” Priest says.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.