What is The Alliance/TFL?

The Alliance Fastpitch is a national organizing body for travel softball. Through its regionally represented member leagues, certified tournament hosts, including sanctioning bodies, offer a national competition structure for a clear pathway to your season, leading to a national event. In our region, the member league is known as the Texas Fastpitch League or TFL. Any event host in our region can include their events in the TFL schedule. If you've ever played in an NTFCA event, then you've likely played in a TFL event. The Texas Fastpitch League itself, does not host tournaments. They are simply an organization of all of the events in their region. Similarly, The Alliance does not host events either, except for their National Championship events. In order to play in one of these events, teams must be registered with The Alliance through one of its member leagues, and meet certain endorsment criteria through a qualifying event.

Why play The Alliance/TFL?

• Insurance - Every TFL registered team is insured from the time they register until the end of the Summer portion of the season. This insurance covers your players at any event, practice, or other team organized activity so there is no need for insurance purchases through each santioning body.
• Profiles - Every player registered with The Alliance has an individual profile that features:
  -Game stat logs
  -Overall stats, awards, & accomplishments and
  -Basic player information
  These profiles have annual breakdowns of everything a player does each season and are extremely useful for college coaches recruiting athletes in a digital age that has seen paper profiles being replaced with ones they can view from mobile devidces.
• Leaderboards & Awards - Only Alliance registered teams scoring with Athletes GoLive are considered for recognition like All-Tournament Teams. Additionally member leagues and The Alliance have awards like Player of the Month or Naitonal Player of the Year that only go to athletes who are on teams registered with The Alliance
• National Event Opportunities - In order to qualify and play for a National Championship at an event like the Alliance Fastpitch Championship Series, teams must be registered with The Alliance.
• Discounts and other Benefits - All alliance members have access to exclusive access and partner discounts. These vary year to year.

Divisions (Super, Champions, & 8u/10u)

12u - 18u teams are divided into two separate divisions, each with their own national event. The Super division encompasses the highest competitive tier for national teams aiming for AFCS berths and the Super Cup Series. The Champions division offers competitive state and regionally-based teams an opportunity to secure higher-level seeding in AFON and regional championships. The regional leagues do not separate the two divisions unless otherwise specified such as a qualifying event for AFCS.

Super Division = AFCS & Super Cup Series. (Super Division teams can also play in Champions Division events such as AFON.) Champions Division = AFON (Alliance Fastpitch Open Nationals) & other regional events. Champions Division teams can still play in a Super Division event like the AFCS but would need to upgrade their membership to Champions prior to registration for said event.

With the exception of qualifying events, both Super and Champions Division teams along with teams who are not registered with The Alliance generally play in the same league (and outside) events throughout their season.

The points rating system and award eligibility differs slightly between each division. For a detailed breakdown on divisions, see thealliancefastpitch.com/league-divisions

8u & 10u teams do not include separate divisions and only 10u AFCS is available for National Championship titles, (No 8u or AFON.)

Registration

1. Navigate to https://afp.isportz.co/registration.
2. Choose 8u, 10u or Super/Champions by clicking on the type of registration you would like to start. (Click here to read the differences between Champions and Super divisions.)


3. If you chose Champions or Super in step 2, select 14U, 16U, 18U, by clicking the correlating blue square or select 12U by clicking the corresponding green square, note the registration fee, and click the dark blue "Next" button in the bottom-right portion of the screen.


4. If you registered as a coach during a previous season, you can skip this step by entering your member ID at the bottom portion of the form and clicking the dark blue "Search" button. (If you forgot your member ID, you can retrieve it by logging in at https://afp.isportz.co/login

If this is your first time registering as a coach, fill in the requested personal information. (First name, last name, date of birth, & gender are required.) Click next.


5. Make a selection to the demo question and click next. (The next step assumes you have selected "no." If you select yes, return to step 8 once the demo is complete.)


6. Fill in or update the contact information. (The red asterisks in the image below denote required information.)


7. If your organization and team are already in The Alliance system, you'll be able to select them from the drop-downs. If you cannot find your organization/team, enter your team name in the bottom portion of the screen and click next.
8. In order to continue your registration, you must add a minimum of 5 players to your roster. You can invite them manually via email, enter each player manually, or bulk import them using this spreadsheet template.
To invite players via email click the "Invite Team Players" button toward the bottom of the page. The "Invite Players" dialog will pop-up. Click the "Add more" button for each roster player you wish to invite, enter in the player (or the parent of the palayer) email address in each of the boxes you just created, and click the blue "Send Email" button. Note that using this method will not charge you at checkout for player registration as the cost will be made by the person you sent the email to upon the registration included in that email.

The next screen shows all of the players' email addresses you are about to send invitations to. Click next.
If you choose to manually add your roster or bulk import using the provided template, each player's registration fee will be included at checkout. To upload in bulk, you'll need software that allows editing of .CSV files such as Microsoft Excel. Fill ALL of the information out, save the file on your computer, then click "Choose File" from the "Bulk Import" tab to navigate to the file you just saved. Double-click the found file, and click next.

You can switch to the "Manual Entry" tab to add a player individually with just their name, email, and birthday. Click Submit after all info is entered and repeat this process for each player you wish to add to your roster.


9. Choose a pre-defined donation amount or select "Other" and enter in a different amount. For no donation, select "Other" and enter in 0.00 in the amount field. Click next.

10. Click the white "Add Signature" button, draw or type your name, click the blue "Save Signature" button, click the empty checkbox to the left of the select signature button you clicked earlier, and click next.


11. Fill in the payment information, click the box that reads "I agree to the Terms and Conditions" and click "Pay Now."