Some people claim that the scores in the USBC Open Tournament are way too high, and they point to the high number of honor scores in attempting to make that point.

However, once again this year, the OVERALL averages of the tournament field are far from "too high" (as the following breakdown of this year's USBC Open clearly indicate) ...

* REGULAR TEAM ... 173.6 (120,335 games)
* REGULAR DOUBLES/SINGLES ... 173.8 (233,203 games)
* CLASSIFIED TEAM ... 152.1 (34,054 games)
* CLASSIFIED DOUBLES/SINGLES ... 149.3 (73,765 games)
* TEAM (both divisions combined) ... 168.9
* DOUBLES/SINGLES (both divisions combined) ... 168.0
* OVERALL (all divisions, all events) ... 168.3 (461,357 games)

So as I've maintained on many occasions, whereas there are quite a few high scores, only a very few -- outside of the best players and shotmakers -- are able to score at a high level. The statistics speak for themselves.

Jess,
     See, it gets clearer by the day. You are adding fees because of your choices. YOU want a refundable ticket. That adds fees. If you want to go cheaper, by non-refundable....oh but you won't so don't complain it cost so much to fly when it is your own choices that are raising the fare. And driving takes 2 weeks?!? How slow do you drive? I drove from Calgary to Reno last year, it took 2 days. I drove from Houston to Alberqurque in 1 day. And you can save on bag fees by shipping your equipment. FedEx is cheap, or use BBE. There are many ways to cut costs which you either purposely (which is my thought) or unintenionally forgot to include. I can say it costs me $ 2000 to get to Reno from Northern California, if I really wanted to, but it isn't realistic and neither are your figures.
 
    Again, anything to avoid doing the work or admitting you are wrong. Now it is that YOU don't think the USBC want to go back to Alabama again. Yet you will gleefully complain about going to Reno, again. All you have to do is take the time to ask. Whether it's your hometown, or a neighboring larger town. I want someone to do this so they can see what the USBC is up against. So you can see that the majority of town have no interest in hosting the tournament because it disrupts their yearly business and potentially drives away that business. And that has nothing to do with size. But since you brought it up, I guess you are then willing to add an additional $5 to your membership over the $5 you willingly agreed to earlier. Because now you are costing the tournament even more revenue by removing rent from the booths that would go away with a smaller footprint. Heck I bet you would even be willing to up it to a cool extra $20/year (the $5 from earlier, the $5 from above and an additional $10) so we can cut the lanes down to 24 instead of 48 and just hold the tournament through September instead of July right?

Replies...

1. Non-refundable tickets were $376. That cuts airfare from ~$3600 to $2258, but that's still major outlay for my family. If  it's not a problem for your family, fine, but I'm getting somewhat tired of defending how my family chooses (or is required) to budget. That's really only my business, no one else's.

2. Driving takes two weeks? No, driving round-trip takes 6-8 days from where I live depending on how far I want to push it. I'm 26 hours away by vehicle, presuming no travel delays. That means I either have to rent an RV I can sleep in, or I have to pay 6-8 hotel/motel stays along the way. My wife can't spend lots of continuous time sitting -- but then again, there's something else of which the details are really no one else's business but mine. And then there's 6-8 travel days of meals for three. And we haven't counted the actual costs in Reno yet.

3. I'm perplexed by your accusation that I'm "purposefully forgetting" places I can cut costs. If anything, I'm leaving costs OUT. I haven't figured in overweight bag fees, or shipping costs using BBE or FedEx. I can if you want, but that's just going to make my point stand even more clearly.

4. As for the future of the tournament itself, it's not going to thrive or fail based on my meager donations to the cause. My prediction is that the more frequent the tournament goes to Reno -- or any other single, repeating location -- the more total entries are going to decline. Our little association took 50-something people to Baton Rouge. As it stands now, 10 are planning to go to Reno.

I am confounded by how important this all is to you, as if bowlers owed you an explanation for not going to this or that location. I was trying to give you some insight into the choices people-not-named-Jorge have to make but you're obviously not interested in anyone's viewpoint but your own.

Jess

Have any of you actually seen the profit and loss  breakdown on each tournament? You can assume anything that you want to about where more money is made, but that does not mean you are correct or have proven anything.

Jess,
    As I have said many times, and you have chosen to ignore, is that this isn't anything personal with you. It has to do with yours and others attitudes about the USBC Open.
     So you are taking 6 people to open, cause last time I checked 376 x 3 = $1128 not $2258. You claim I am being unrealistic and yet you all of sudden doubled the number of people going?!? Anything to try and prove your point I guess. And I have never said it isn't a cost, what I said is if you are taking the family, it is a family vacation. And 99% of people, myself included, but money aside for these types of trips. For whatever reason, you feel you should be exempt from this. My question is why? And yes, you are taking the most expensive way of doing everything. If you ship equipment you will not have bag fees, overweight bag fees, etc. And it would be cheaper than paying those. You seem to be doing everything in your power to show that it costs an arm and a leg and your first born child to get to Reno....instead of talking realistic prices and alternatives. No one thinks, at least that I have seen in here, that this trip should come from your spare change, as you seem to take it as.
 
    And lastly, no one owes me anything. YOU came on here, just like other before to complain out of your own free will. I did not hold a gun to your head to make you post. I am just trying to point out how incorrect your thinking is and why you need to look at the bigger picture. I am not trying to talk anyone into going or not going. That is everyone's own choice. Why is it so important to YOU??? You are the one coming back post after post to prove your way of thinking is correct. I am just shooting holes in every one of your arguements. And like usual on these boards, when you can't back up what you say in fact, you attack the person. At this point, I hope you don't go to Reno, cause your right, the tournament itself will not notice if you go or don't. But then at least this thread can die and we won't have to listen to your whining any more.

I think USBC should have moved the headquarters to Reno instead of Dallas. 

Why didn't they consider my personal expense if I wanted to visit?

Quote from: milorafferty on March 07, 2014, 10:37:57 AM

I think USBC should have moved the headquarters to Reno instead of Dallas. 

Why didn't they consider my personal expense if I wanted to visit?

I'm guessing it's Obama's fault, or Bush's, depending on your political leanings.

I blame both of them. And the Pope too.

Quote from: Jorge300 on March 07, 2014, 10:34:43 AM

Joe Cool,
    I see you slithered your way back, or did you just ooze up through the floorboards?
 
    Now it's the USBC's fault, they are trying to get cities not to bid??? I am guessing you also think it is their fault we have Obamacare? They also caused WWII, gout, and those nasty little rings around the bathtub in everyone's home but yours of course. They only appear when you use it so that leaves you safe, stinky but safe. Funny the only "kicking and screaming" I see, is from you and Jess. I have given you fact after fact. The response I get from you.....you holding your fingers in your ears screaming "I can't hear you" like a spoiled child. I have never claimed to have the right answer, just stating the obvious and realistic truth. Everyone has acknowledged that in a perfect world, you are correct. The USBC Open should just be about bowling. But guess what, this isn't a perfect world. YOU refuse to acknowledge that, instead you want to continue to hold thoses ears closed and scream louder, or attack me personally like above. Well the only fact that has proven beyond a shadow of doubt...is that you are complete idiot. And you continue to prove that with every post you make. So Congrats....you accomplished your goal! You have proven something.

I love Reno and Vegas.  I call a spade a spade.  You don't have to like it, but the situation speaks for itself.  You keep living in USBC is great lala land if you want.  It's getting to be a more and more lonely place by the day.

While you continue to attack me, you do nothing to refute what I said.  That's because you can't, so you shoot the messenger.  Classic tool of those that have nothing backing them.

Vegas works for me too. I can drive there in 5 or 6 hours, so I am cool with that.   

Jess,
    As I have said many times, and you have chosen to ignore, is that this isn't anything personal with you. It has to do with yours and others attitudes about the USBC Open.
     So you are taking 6 people to open, cause last time I checked 376 x 3 = $1128 not $2258. You claim I am being unrealistic and yet you all of sudden doubled the number of people going?!? Anything to try and prove your point I guess. And I have never said it isn't a cost, what I said is if you are taking the family, it is a family vacation. And 99% of people, myself included, but money aside for these types of trips. For whatever reason, you feel you should be exempt from this. My question is why? And yes, you are taking the most expensive way of doing everything. If you ship equipment you will not have bag fees, overweight bag fees, etc. And it would be cheaper than paying those. You seem to be doing everything in your power to show that it costs an arm and a leg and your first born child to get to Reno....instead of talking realistic prices and alternatives. No one thinks, at least that I have seen in here, that this trip should come from your spare change, as you seem to take it as.
 
    And lastly, no one owes me anything. YOU came on here, just like other before to complain out of your own free will. I did not hold a gun to your head to make you post. I am just trying to point out how incorrect your thinking is and why you need to look at the bigger picture. I am not trying to talk anyone into going or not going. That is everyone's own choice. Why is it so important to YOU??? You are the one coming back post after post to prove your way of thinking is correct. I am just shooting holes in every one of your arguements. And like usual on these boards, when you can't back up what you say in fact, you attack the person. At this point, I hope you don't go to Reno, cause your right, the tournament itself will not notice if you go or don't. But then at least this thread can die and we won't have to listen to your whining any more.

Jorge,

That's $378 per ticket ONE WAY. Are the three of us supposed to stay in Reno permanently? Next time you go "shooting holes in my argument," make sure you count to two first. Last I checked, all trips had two ways.

Total cost of a flying Reno trip, 4 days (travel day out and back, two tournament days) is going to run me anywhere from $2500 - $5000 depending on whether I take the cheap route or the expensive route. Am I supposed to do that every year? I'm sure my son would like to go to Disneyworld. Well, I can fit 2-3 trips per year into the same budget hole if I wanted to do that. I could take my wife for a three-day stay at a beach eight times for the same amount of money.

I started off being civil, trying to help you understand something you clearly didn't understand. Since your reading comprehension continues to be an issue, I'll itemize this summary to make it easier.

1. You haven't "shot holes" in any argument I've made. You just turn up the volume and hope you can out-shout people.

2. How much I spend or how I choose to travel is not your business. You don't know me, my family or how important it is to me to make sure we don't spend our annual travel budget on something that benefits only me. My wife and son don't want to spend every vacation watching me bowl.

3. The USBC will have a problem if it doesn't get away from Reno more often. Right now, the tournament mostly services (1.) people who are comfortably retired and can travel at their own pace, (2.) pro, semi-pro and high-level amateurs who would bowl in this thing even if it were in Fairbanks, Alaska, in the middle of January, (3.) West Coast and plains states bowlers within a day's drive of the venue, and (4.) self-schedulers, i.e. business owners or other professionals, for whom neither the cost nor the time component is an issue. Essentially the entire blue-collar membership east of the Mississippi gets told to pound sand.

4. Reno should get the tournament no more than once every three years, period. If the USBC has to take a loss to hold it elsewhere, so be it. Otherwise, quit pretending this is a national championship and call it what it's turning into, which is a western superregional. Besides, if the USBC is leaning so heavily on a single event to fund the organization, the organization itself has some serious viability issues.

5. You keep harping on this thing where no one has a right to complain unless they've gone to their local chamber of commerce and tried to get them to bid on the tournament. File that under "not my job." And you also seem to think this tournament is a convention of lepers, something no one wants in their town. I guess Baton Rouge was just desperate, right? The fact is the USBC could downsize the footprint and restructure the format if it wants to, it just doesn't want to because of the point I made way back in my first post: Reno gives the USBC a sweetheart deal to host it there. Pity that means the tournament gets further away from its roots.

Jess