Like most of you all, downloading another app that I’ve never heard of can always seem sketch. Mateo is my city manager and has made it very easy to understand how do use the app. The app is very simple: pick what city you’re in, pick what sport you’re playing, and pick what day you want to play. That’s it, just show up and play! I appreciate that there is no need to have any kind of long chat messages, and yet, if I need to ask any questions, the app includes a message board for each game. You can also see which players are playing in your game, and select each one individually to see their stats and how many games they play throughout the week. They also include a rating system afterwards to see how your game went and how your host was. Speaking of game hosts, there’s one assigned to every game. They’re the ones in charge of making the teams, explaining the rules, and just making you feel welcome. Lastly, you can pay for your games online, so no need to bring cash. Better than funneling through a bunch of Facebook groups, trying to figure out who’s playing.

Recently moved to the city and was looking for a way to find semi organized games, moderate skill level, with flexibility around my schedule. The app makes it really easy to find a game. I’ve been now to three games and all have been solid - well organized, players were friendly and took it just serious enough to make it a compelling pickup game to participate in. I found the price to be appropriate especially considering the organization behind getting the games set up. All in all, It’s a great concept that I hope to see more active users on. It really seems to have been picking up momentum; I’m finding that games are popping up at new fields and getting closer to places I frequent which makes it nice to explore different neighborhoods and games. Lastly, I kind of like the social proof elements (it helped to assuage my skepticism upfront) and tying the app into normal social media channels as well, it’s cool to see photos from the matches on IG/FB - takes me back to my college playing days lol, it’s been a WHILE since I had a photo taken playing soccer.

This app makes playing sports so easy and enjoyable. You can just select a game and get your shoes on! I can only imagine trying to get together 22 friends to play soccer… Good luck with that! With GoodRec I can play twice a week with no headaches to find players and a proper field - all I have to do is to click a button. The host will bring balls and pinnies, so I really just need to show up and play. The hosts also play a big role in organizing the games and guaranteeing everything will run smoothly, with not slides or bad tackles. There are convenient fields close to my home and I’ve been lucky with the groups I join: people are welcoming, the game environment is competitive but friendly - either if you play well or not, so everyone can have fun. I even made friends out of these games - nice to meet people with similar interests. Overall, I cannot recommend enough this app.

Where do I even start? The quality of open plays is abysmal - imagine going to an “advanced” session just to find out that not even half of the players can hit a ball over the net. There is no policing, so multiple times I’ve just left the game because it was a WASTE OF TIME. The people running NY volleyball are literally in a different country, so there’s a massive disconnect and complete sense of apathy. The worst example of this is when they organized a 50+ person tournament and DIDN’T RESERVE THE COURTS. Literally had 50+ people from all across tri-state come to this place just to turn them all away at the door, and this was after I SPECIFICALLY MESSAGED TO ASK IF THE TOURNAMENT WAS STILL HAPPENING. Regardless of what happened behind the scenes, this shows that nobody bothered to call and confirm courts the day before a massive tourney. The worst part is the amount they offered as consolation: $50 in app credit PER TEAM. Yep, just about $7 per person for wasting countless hours of time, when a typical session is $23. Absolutely disgusting. Other cities might have it better, but if you’re in NYC then do yourself a favor and play volleyball somewhere else. These people don’t deserve a single cent.