This winter, LA Throwback is offering a free Saturday or Sunday morning megateam draft league on the beach in Santa Monica/Venice. Which day we choose will depend on the responses to the registration survey by the people that sign up.

What’s a megateam league? Glad you asked. A megateam league is one in which each (mega)team fields two squads, a mixed squad and an open squad, in every round of play. The team plays two games in each round of play, one mixed, one open, and both count toward their record. Before each round of play, the team decides who will play on the mixed squad and who on the open squad in that round. No crossing over between games during a round – you stay on the same squad for the whole game – but each round the squad membership can be different. The team should make sure that everyone who wants to play mixed gets to at least some of the time and ditto for everyone who wants to play open.

The games will be 4×4 on lined fields (more about that below). In the mixed squad game there will be a 2/2 him/her gender balance required at all times. In the open squad game there is no gender requirement at all. One team can have three women on the field while the other has none. Anything goes in open.

This is a draft league. The league kicks off the weekend before LA Throwback Beach Ultimate Fest/Leiout in a two-or-three round hat non-tourney (non- because we won’t play a final round and we won’t name a champ or any of that). The purpose of the non-tourney – besides getting people ready for LA Throwback or Leiout – is for everyone who is registered to play against and get a feel for everyone else. After the final game of the non-tourney, the people who have signed up to be megateam captains will gather at a nearby watering hole and we’ll conduct a draft. You’ll get notified what megateam you are on and what your team color is.

Starting the weekend after MLK weekend, we’ll play every Saturday (or Sunday) morning for as many weeks as it takes for every team to play every other team twice. Depending on the number of teams we have, we may play two rounds to 13 each week, or we may play a single round to 21. We’ll figure it out once we see what we have.

Now, about the free bit…This is not free as in you pay $0 dollars and we do everything for you. This is free as in the community puts it on for itself. We’ll set up the schedule on Ultimate Central (free b/c we are not charging), and we’ll bring the field lines out each Saturday morning, along with a 5-gallon jug of water and a table to put it on. Teams will be responsible for setting up the field lines for their games and for taking them down at the end (properly) and bringing them to Frisbee Central (i.e. where we put the water jug).

On the first day of play (not counting the non-tourney hat) each captain must appoint three people to come learn how to set up a field properly, and three to stick around at the end and learn how to put it away properly. If we find that your team is putting them away improperly, you will be charged double, possibly even triple.

Now, as for attendance. If you sign up for this league, we’re expecting you to play. Please don’t let the fact that it’s free lead you to sign up just as an “option” to play. We’re making decisions based on the #’s, so we need to have a firm idea of what we’re dealing with. We don’t want to make up any rule, other than maybe charging you double or possibly even triple if your flake rate is high, but if the flake rate is high we’ll probably figure something out to lower it in the future. So please, if you sign up, sign up for real. This isn’t pickup. There is a huge amount of glory involved here. The champs of the first ever megateam league will probably go down in history, one way or another.

The league will end with a tourney on the final day, and the historic first ever megateam league champion will be crowned, after which we will retire to a local watering hole, where drinks will be on you!

If that all sounds good to you, then please, register here.