How KC Crew Hit a Homerun, with founder Luke Wade

KC Crew founder Luke Wade loves playing sports. But as an urban dweller, he tired of driving to the suburbs to play in organized leagues. So, he started forming leagues for fellow downtown Kansas City residents who wanted to participate in leagues closer to where they lived. In its first year, KC Crew signed up nearly 1,000 participants. That was in 2012. During the next two years, the company saw a 32 percent increase in sign ups. Luke finally quit his full-time job in 2015 and turned all his attention to the growing company. That year, participation grew by 53 percent, to 3,600. Since then, his partnerships with KCMO Parks and Recreation, Kemper Arena and other venues has resulted in even more growth. Tune in to learn how Wade has continued to expand the company geographically as well as beyond traditional sports to include pickleball, skee ball, cornhole and other activities and community events such as pubcrawls. He's also introduced software called League Ally that will be central to the company's expansion Visit the archives to listen to all the episodes of Smart Companies Thinking Bigger.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices