Hello,
Ah, a topic near and dear to my heart, hehe!
Some points:
I would disagree that there is a lot more skimming in youth tournaments. I think that's waaay too general a statement. There's good and bad tournaments in terms of expenses vs. entry fee and prizd fund in both adult and juniors:
Adult tournaments generally have a huge portion of their entry fee going towards prize fund, while in many junior tournaments, especially Tours, very little of an entry fee goes towards prize fund, in order to keep the entry fee inexpensive. Heck, if we charged $95 an entry for a 6-game tournament (what our very good local scratch club charges), we'd pay out 1:2 with 10x entry for first! This isn't, of course, viable in a Tour that runs 75 events a year such as ours...
Not only is 8 of 90, if true, a small payout, it's illegal. You gota pay 1:10 minimum, I think.
The entry for your sample tournament must have entry fee broken down to linage, prize fund, and expenses. It must pay out at least what it says in prize fund. If they did, even if it's a very high expense fund (which I agree with you on), they did nothing wrong. Someone should run a better tournament.
Not to toot our own horn, but I believe out here we give out a ridiculously good amount vs. what a bowler puts in. This is partly because we're a suuccessful group, and with 75 events a year, the good makes up for the bad. We're also blessed with great sponsors, decent to great linage in most places, etc. That said, it ain't cheap to run a high-quality event, especially in an area spanning 1,500 miles east to west. Anybody who's seen our events know we add a lot of "bells and whistles" (videos, huge website, banners, bonus payouts, etc), and each one of those costs time and money to make happen. You can view our payouts and 'crunch our numbers' on our website,
www.jbtsw.com- make sure to note the year-end event payouts as well. I know a lot of other groups do a great job too.
As an adult tournament bowler as well, I can tell you that adult payouts are not so darned hot either, and their 'skims' are usually outrageous vs. the quality of the tournament. They may seem better because more total money is 'in the pot', but I believe you're way off in saying they're better than juniors. Check their entry fee breakdowns as well. This is true from our own City tournament, straight up to PBA (see their message boards for a perpetual discussion of their 'skim'). I've seen crazy high expense fees, and tons of 'missing money'. However, the ugly bottom line is, if you don't like what a tournament 'skims', don't bowl it. Simple supply and demand. That said, I bowl City, knowing full well I'm being raked over the coals. A friend lived in a city that had a city tournament entry fee of $20 per squad, plus $5 all events, and took out $5 PER SQUAD PER BOWLER in expenses. Ouch!!! They clearly did little work in preparation for the event, and sat behind the desk eating doughnuts all day long. A fair expense fee would have been ZERO. But, he bowled it. Why? because he could still do well financially despite the expense fee. Bowlers are funny people...
I have a fairly unique situataion in being able to give you both sides of the story. Above is the serious bowler persective, now here's the tournament director side:
While the sample you gave, showing $350 taken out for a 21 person event, is excessive, people tend to not realize that the accounting, especially for tournament series or Tours as you describe, is not nearly as simple as your entry fee minus linage minus prize fund equals profit formula. I'd bet they have lots more expenses after that gross profit number you show. Plus, are they saving anything for a year-end tournament? Flyers? Trophies? FLYERS? Advertising? Flyers? Scorecards? Food? Flyers? Bad checks? I could go on forever-- in my 12 years doing this, I overhear an awful lot of people complain about various tournament's prize funds or expenses. A very few get so irate that they try to run their own, find out just how labor intensive and expensive it is, and are never heard from again...
Bottom line: Anybody who runs a junior tournament trying to get rich quick is delusional. But... anyone running ANY event for free or at a loss, with a lot more time put into running an event than most bowlers realize, is also delusional (or a better man than me). Anyone running an ADULT tournament can 'skim' whatever they want- welcome to adult bowling. Think the guys who run the megabuck stuff do it because they love bowling? Nope, but the payouts are indeed awesome.
The better groups around the country, a few who I mentioned above, are probably popular in no small part due to their payouts vs. entry fees.
Dare I even mention what I came up with when I crunched Jr. Gold's numbers? Nah....
This is not meant as any attack on the posters- just showing some things that might not have been thought of. Anyway, put the negative stuff on the 'things that suck' post. I'm TRYING to have just one positive thread-- Keep telling us about some good stuff!
Thanks,
Jeff
Edited on 9/22/2005 5:34 PM
