Author Topic: This should be an interesting debate... (Read 3782 times)

The Hose · « **on:** January 07, 2004, 11:04:00 PM »

This is from another site. The GTO is the Greater Tulsa Open. Team/D/S handicap:

Allright everyone, I've got a situation. We recently bowled in the GTO, After bowling nine games the day before, one of our guys decided to go home. After notifying the tournament director that we needed a couple of subs, we never heard back from them. Two guys showed up to bowl that were not with us and we asked them if they were bowling for our spots. They said NO, they were subbing for another team. OK FINE.

Come to find out, they were bowling in our spots and were never told. They win the doubles tournamnent which pays approx. $4000. Can you believe that they are actually trying to give us back our entry and keep the REST of the money. If they wanted to pay for their spots, they would have tracked down who's spot they were bowling in and tried to pay for them. I could believe this if these were a couple of low average or new bowlers, but their not.

We are currently waiting on a ruling from ABC although the rule book says that the team captain will distribute the winnings. These free loaders want all the reward without any risk. We've offered to split 50/50 with them, but they refused.

ANY COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS
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CLIQUE MEMBER

ksucat · « **Reply #16 on:** January 09, 2004, 01:00:16 PM »

The frustrations of putting together teams for tournaments. We used to travel in groups of 4-8 teams everywhere, but now only try to fill 2 teams because of similar situation to this. I have been stuck with a couple of entry fees because bowlers have said they would go, but did not pay. I've had to put in the money just to get the entry in and try to collect later. If this person doesn't pay, then you must find someone else. The closer you get to the tournament time, the more desperate you get and you settle for somebody just to show up even though they don't pay. This situation is further complicated by the fact that the team captain did not have the opportunity to make arrangements with the subs before the scores were posted. I'm still a little unclear if both bowlers were subs? If that was the case, then why would the team captain even want subs that were not going to pay up? The only thing the subs can do at that point is take away prize money from someone else who actually did pay for their entry. This situation is bad because of the lack of communication from the team captain and the subs.

In the future, I would like to see some kind of standard set at all tournaments that the tournament director forces the team captain and the sub to make arrangements before participating in the tournament. This is simply done when the information is obtained from the sub. The TD has a form that gives the sub the option to 1) pay back the entry fee on the spot and receive full prize money, 2) forfeit all of the prize money to the team captain and bowl for fun, 3) bowl for free and split the winnings equally. The problem with the 3rd option is that the TD likely cannot split the checks up. Another problem in this situation is that these subs will get a 1099 misc. and claim earnings on their taxes for the full amount.

I'm curious to the ABC ruling.

mrfjmt · « **Reply #17 on:** January 09, 2004, 01:12:39 PM »

quote:
If the TD had done his job correctly, he would have collected entry fees from the replacements and refunded the fees to the team captain or introduced them to the team captain and have them work out the finances.

The latter could happen, but not the former. See ABC rule #316 (no tournament entry fees refunded). The TD can't legally refund entry fees to the absent bowlers and force subs to pay for those spots. In any tournament I've ever signed up for, once you pay the entry fee, you're responsible for bowling the event or finding a sub if you can't. Additionally, any issues regarding the entry fees are settled between the absent bowler(s) and the sub(s), no one else.

quote:
In either case, the replacements should have paid back the entry fees and maybe bought the TD, team captain, and team bowlers a beverage and called it a day. There should be no real ABC rule for this, it should have been handled locally by the TD, team captain, and replacement bowlers. No reason for anyone to expect to profit from the performance of someone outside of their group without prior arrangements.

I agree, with the caveat again being that the TD can only do so much. It would be a nice gesture on the sub's part to offer to cover the entry fee, but is under no obligation to do so. Nor is the sub under any obligation to share any rightful winnings he may realize as the result of his own bowling. The sub is doing the absent bowler (and the teammates) a favor. If no one subbed, the absent bowler would absolutely lose his entry fee. A "nice" sub might be inclined to refund the entry fee to the absent bowler. In the case of a team event, if no one subbed, the team would absolutely have no chance to cash.

jimsey · « **Reply #18 on:** January 09, 2004, 02:58:50 PM »

mrfjmt

You're right about the refund rule. Perhaps it would be better to call it a reimbursement for fees paid since the TD was acting as an "authorized representative" of the captain (rule 305d) in finding replacement bowlers. In any case, it appears that there was a severe lack of communication between the tournament director and the team captain and obviously a misunderstanding among the other bowlers involved who expected to benefit from the performance of the replacements.

If the captain had been involved correctly, he would have had to change his entry form to include the information of the replacement bowlers. If the Tournament Director accepted a separate entry form from the doubles team and the squad was not full, they would have had to have paid the entry fees to bowl in the tournament and the TD would not have been obligated to reimburse the team. I don't think it was a good policy if the TD accepted the replacement bowlers and added them to the team's existing entry unless the team captain was informed before doubles/singles event and made the correct financial adjustments.

Edited on 1/9/2004 4:08 PM

Author Topic: This should be an interesting debate... (Read 3782 times)

The Hose

This should be an interesting debate...

ksucat

Re: This should be an interesting debate...

mrfjmt

Re: This should be an interesting debate...

jimsey

Re: This should be an interesting debate...