We recently clinched one of four roll off spots in out scratch league and I'm curious as to what kind of prize fund we have to look forward to.

Prize fund is roughly $11 of the weekly lineage and there are 15 teams with 5 people per team.  This would equate to about 26,400 as the year end prize fund.  There is also a .50 cent penalty for bowling 20 pins under your average, so this buffs the fund slightly.

It's fairly competitive, so I'm guessing the difference in payouts will be higher accordingly.  Anybody ever been in a similarly sized league/prize fund and remember what the payouts were like?

We are guaranteed at least 4th at this point.

There is also a .50 cent penalty for bowling 20 pins under your average, so this buffs the fund slightly.

Why would a league do this? This would severely penalize anyone who is in a slump and could also be exploited by changing conditions so that scores are forced low enough to make many bowlers pay more.

At my bowling center, you would have gotten a different answer a few years ago.  It seems lately the leagues are becoming more and more flat in payouts instead of top heavy.  I understand that philosophy for fun mixed leagues, but our league is suppose to be the most competitive league in the house, a Peterson point men's league.  We pay $22 a night and the winner of the league last year didn't make as much as they paid. 

Maybe I am used to the old days, but it seems no one is willing to give the winners of the league a lot of money.  They want to make sure they make as much as possible in the event they don't do as well as expected.

I love when our envelope has change in it.  I think it's hilarious.  If you are 20 under all three games, it's two bucks total. 

I bowl in the only scratch league in allegedly my state.  Its super competitive and unfortunately everyone picks the flat payout.  It boggles my mind.  You figure the more competitive the lauge the more people would want to reward the good bowlers/themselves for doing good.  I just don't understand it

Quote from: slowmofo908 on November 04, 2013, 12:37:37 PM

I bowl in the only scratch league in allegedly my state.  Its super competitive and unfortunately everyone picks the flat payout.  It boggles my mind.  You figure the more competitive the lauge the more people would want to reward the good bowlers/themselves for doing good.  I just don't understand it

The reason maybe to SAVE the league. If the prize fund is FRONT LOADED it MAYBE a third of the teams would drop out!

My suggestion was to split the league. The idea was to keep all the bowlers in the house, a main concern for everyone involved. The prize fund monies would be split too, of course, but I wasn't convinced that a loaded top-end was doing us any good any more than the flattened payouts. As it turned out, we lost a few good teams. Replacements were found, but not with equivalent talent. This raised yet another controversy, which is the validity of handicaps and how they should be applied. My answer to this was to create divisions within the league — Red, White and Blue, each having a tight range of qualifying averages — which equalizes the competition and doesn't affect the total amount of the prize fund, only how it's distributed. It's a darn good idea and the details aren't hard to iron out. The problem is getting bowlers and Houses to think outside the box in order to survive. I got sick of hearing, " . . . but we've never done it that way . . ." as some bowlers went somewhere else or just quit.

Scenario #1
Teams, Final Positions based upon Games Won = 70%
Handicap Awards = 14.5%
Scratch Awards = 14.5%
MIB, Men = .05%
MIB, Women = .05%

Scenario #2
Teams, Final Positions based upon Games Won = 75%
Handicap Awards = 12%
Scratch Awards = 12%
MIB, Men = .05%
MIB, Women = .05%

Handicap Awards: Team High Series; Team High Game; Men's High Game; Men's High Series; Women's High Game; Women's High Series.

Scratch Awards: (same as above)

This to me is a huge problem.  How can a prize committee honestly propose these two packages?  What is the actual difference between these packages?  I feel a prize committee should provide VARYING prize funds.  The above options are the same thing.

Perhaps the 70% and 75% has a big difference in distribution, but I doubt it based on what I have seen.

Quote from: RMColorado on November 05, 2013, 09:25:26 AM

Scenario #1
Teams, Final Positions based upon Games Won = 70%
Handicap Awards = 14.5%
Scratch Awards = 14.5%
MIB, Men = .05%
MIB, Women = .05%

Scenario #2
Teams, Final Positions based upon Games Won = 75%
Handicap Awards = 12%
Scratch Awards = 12%
MIB, Men = .05%
MIB, Women = .05%

Handicap Awards: Team High Series; Team High Game; Men's High Game; Men's High Series; Women's High Game; Women's High Series.

Scratch Awards: (same as above)

This to me is a huge problem.  How can a prize committee honestly propose these two packages?  What is the actual difference between these packages?  I feel a prize committee should provide VARYING prize funds.  The above options are the same thing.

Perhaps the 70% and 75% has a big difference in distribution, but I doubt it based on what I have seen.

To answer your first question, the general consensus of the league (by popular vote) was to weight the award money to the teams. The League or Board could have asked the Prize Committee to figure out a 60% to teams and 40% to individuals vs 65% to teams and 35% to individuals — but they didn't. (The P-C was doing what was asked of them by the Board, not the other way around).

To answer your second question: Put another way, the differences you see above is more money to individuals in Scenario #1 (personal achievements, @ 30%) vs less money to individual achievements in Scenario #2 (personal achievements @ 25%). The 5% difference doesn't seem like much until actual dollar amounts are plugged in. This was the first step in the decision making process.

The second step was deciding on the percentages awarded to the places of the teams, i.e., 1st Place and on down. Unfortunately, I can't find that breakdown, but generally: Team #1 gets $250 more than T-#2, T-#2 gets $200 more than T-#3, and T#3 gets $150 more than T-#4. From T#4 on down, there's a downward sliding progression of equal amounts, for example $50 less for each place.

The reason percentages are used, not actual dollar amounts, is because of drop-outs, which decreases actual gross dollar amounts at the end of the league's 34-weeks of play. Projecting payout amounts is one thing, but guaranteeing actual payouts is not possible. Thus the disclaimer ". . . as based upon XX# of participants".

The awards you see above are actual for that 2011/12 league. However, the league I'm in now has a lot more categories for individual recognitions. For example, both the scratch and handicap awards go 3 deep each. I haven't seen the actual percentages, or I'd share them, too.

All this is from my neck of the woods, and it seems disagreeable to you, so I have to ask, How have your leagues differed? I'm sincerely interested in knowing how others do all this.

——————

JF has posted that "the percentages mean nothing", and maybe others agree. I suggest creating in a hypothetical spread sheet of your own. Start out with the actual number of players in your current league; multiply that number by the weekly cost per player; multiply that sum by the number of weeks. You now have the Projected Total Income in a dollar amount. Subtract the House lineage fees and any hard costs, such as secretarial services, etc. You now have what should be the Projected Prize Fund Total. Now split everything up using the Team and Individual Categories and percentages of your choice. The dollar amounts shown will then, in fact, mean something to you.