Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex and Maria Martinez.
Alex and Maria, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Alex and I always wanted to own our own business. He worked in sales and I, Maria, was a school social worker for Miami-Dade County Public Schools. After ten plus years of working for someone else, we decided to take the leap and start our own business. Our kids were young, five and three, so it was difficult to save money. Unfortunately, Alex’s grandmother passed away in 2008, and her gift to us was more than we could ever imagine.
She left us enough money to start our own business. We started looking for franchises that looked interesting since we didn’t have any experience in running a business and we thought that franchising would offer us more support in getting started. We found i9 Sports! Alex, coming from a sports background and my background with families and the school system, we found it to be the perfect fit.
i9 Sports, the nation’s first and largest youth sports league franchise business in the United States, has re-engineered youth sports for kids ages three and up. With over two million registrations in communities from New York to Hawaii, we have replaced a high pressure, adult-centered model with a child-centered model that puts fun first.
We offer youth sports leagues, camps, and clinics for boys and girls ages three and up in today’s most popular sports such as flag football, soccer, basketball, baseball, and ZIP Lacrosse™. In our programs, no child will ever be excluded by a try-out, be made to feel like they aren’t good enough by a league draft, ride the bench for an entire game, or be cut from a team.
Yes, we keep score, but we have created a fun way to help kids develop athletic ability, a love of team sports, and an understanding that how you play a game is as important as the score. We don’t just help kids become better athletes, we help them become better people. We started in 2009 with one park, one sport (flag football), and us managing EVERYTHING ourselves!
Today, we have over 50 employees, including Site Managers, marketing staff, and referees. We are in six parks and continuing to grow. We couldn’t have done it without our great team of employees, i9 Sports corporate support, fellow i9 franchise owners, and our regional director’s guidance. Our kids are now 13 and 16 and have learned many life lessons from owning i9 Sports: family comes first, time is priceless, and everyone deserves a chance.
Has it been a smooth road?
As a business owner, you’re always going to have challenges whether it be financial, staffing, or delegating to others. The challenges depend on the stage of the business that you’re at. For example, at first, money was tight. We had two young kids, Alex left his full-time job to work in the business while I continued to work full time as a school social worker and help Alex run the business. It was a busy and stressful time for us getting the business up and running.
We were working at all times of the day and night answering calls, marketing in the schools and community events, hiring staff to run our parks, etc. As we started to grow from one park to two to three parks, staffing was a big challenge and a learning experience for us. We learned that trustworthiness and loyalty are key attributes to a great employee. After getting burned a couple of times, we learned from our mistakes and kept moving forward. One of our most recent challenges has been hiring a full-time employee.
All our staff were part-time until now. We decided that in order for us to continue to grow the business, we needed to let someone else do all the operational tasks to allow us to oversee everything and give us more time to focus on getting more venues, build stronger relationships in our community with schools, businesses, etc, and work “on” the business instead of “in” the business.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with i9 Sports – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We offer youth sports leagues such as flag football, soccer, basketball, t-ball, lacrosse, and cheerleading for boys and girls ages 3 to 15 throughout Miami-Dade County. We have programs in different areas throughout Miami-Dade County including South Miami, Coral Gables, Westchester, West and Central Kendall, and Palmetto Bay.
Our programs run only once a week with practices 30-45 minutes before the game on Saturdays or Sundays. We focus on teaching kids the fundamentals and good sportsmanship values in a FUN and safe family atmosphere. Our families value the convenience, organization, and customer service we offer.
We take great pride in everything we do and always strive to offer the best youth sports experience for our customers. Having owned our franchises now for ten years and having two kids ourselves, we cherish the importance of creating a positive, safe, and family friendly atmosphere for our customers. We help kids succeed in life through sports!
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
We love Miami. We were raised here and love the diversity, culture, and all the great places to visit and dine at. There is no other city like Miami. The one thing we dislike about our city and any large city like ours is the traffic.
Fortunately for us, since we work from home, we plan our outings and errands around low traffic times.
Contact Info:
- Address: 13275 Sw 136 St, Unit 9 Miami, FL 33186
- Website: www.i9Sports.com
- Phone: 305-338-3128 or 305-254-3215
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: i9sports116 ; i9sports206
- Facebook: i9SportsIS116 ; i9SportsIS206
- Twitter: i9sports_Alex
Getting in touch: VoyageMIA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
