What is NAGAAA?
Author: Cha Her
Maybe you know what NAGAAA is and maybe this is your first time seeing this acronym. Well, NAGAAA stands for the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance. They are a nonprofit organization focused on amateur sports competitions, mainly softball, with an emphasis on members of the gay community. In the organization, there are council, board, and committees that helps makes up who the league is. The Alliance stress on their website that "NAGAAA is NOT a group of anonymous faces. NAGAAA is you. NAGAAA is me." Within NAGAAA are dozens of softball leagues throughout the United States and Canada where hundreds of LGBTQ+ athletes and allies play the sport in a fun, inclusive atmosphere.
For a city to be part of NAGAAA, they must sign up to become a member city. If and when a city is approved, they join 46 other cities with over 1,000 teams. It typically takes about 1 ½ years to join NAGAAA; however, it provides many benefits for the member city. There are five divisions of play in league (A, B, C, D, and Masters) so anyone at any skill level can join the city’s LGBTQ+ softball community. Additionally, the organization also includes annual membership of around $300; however, they do not dictate how their member city Association runs their local city leagues. This is beneficial because local leagues can maintain what is best for their cities and the people's interest.
As far as playing goes, there are a lot of NAGAAA softball tournaments that take place, especially over the summer! Some recent tournaments include the larger July 4th tourneys in Madison, WI, and Nashville, TN. On the NAGAAA website, they constantly update what tournaments are taking place and where so you can keep an eye out for what would be fun for your team.
As someone new to the Alliance, once I clicked on a tournament's name, I liked how detailed the layout was. It allowed you to sign up as an early bird or regular too so there’s benefits in registering sooner than later. Not only that, but you could contact the tournament director and learn more about the event which is a nice resource to have. For example, the Badgerland Softball tournament (in Madison, WI) portion of the website had tournament information and also fun facts about the city. There’s tons of other things to do in the area when you’re not playing! One event even included $1 off all drinks with a wristband during happy hour. Overall, the website showed how detailed and thorough NAGAAA is with their tournaments, which is super helpful for any new and returning players.
“I’ve been playing in our local (Minnesota) league (part of NAGAA) since 2016 after joining with one of my best college friends on a whim. It turned into the best decision we could have made as we not only got to play one of our favorite sports but we joined this amazing community of like-minded individuals who celebrate diversity and love the game. My favorite part of the year is the Gay Softball World Series (GSWS) that rotates cities in the US every year. This year we’re headed to Dallas and next year the Twin Cities got chosen to host!” - Prideletics Founder, Paul
Cha Her