Tournament Sanction Fees

[jdarwin]

I just mailed off $1000 to sanction my tournaments this summer.  By the time I pay the head tax to the region at the end of the summer, I will have spent close to $1400 in "fees" to hold 5 tournaments.  And, I still have to do all the work, cover all the expenses and assume all the liability.  My interest in hosting tournaments is beginning to wane.

jhd

[Old MS Accout]

Same here. 400 for 6 rounds and I dont even know if I will have a boat to pull them with.   

Why do we pay region and national fees?

[RichardDoane]

The Western Region still prints a "Tournament Guide", so at least there is one tangible thing that we get.

[DW]

Similar comments came from some local tournament holders at a lake I have skied on.  Decades ago, there was a famous "white paper" written by Dan Gurney who expressed concern about how the sanctioning body of USAC was (not) operating the open wheeled series in the USA along with a blueprint on how it could be done.  From that came a new sanctioning body called CART and an era of growth for the series which lasted through 1995 (since then, it all went south for a variety of reasons, ego/greed).  Point is, there is a different way to do it if the right leadership steps up and takes the helm.  Expenses (both $ & time) v. return / reward seem to be the key issue.  Any commitment or contribution always needs some tangible return, that is simple human nature.

[Old MS Accout]

A good start would be to get rid of the region fee. We already pay yearly fees to both that should have us covered for any USA events.

 

[Marco]

We are hosting our first ever tounaments (back to back 1 day events) at our lake this year.  The sanction fees alone are eating up 25% of our expected revenue.  By the time we pay the rest of the expenses, we will be lucky to break even.  On top of that, only 1 promo boat is available to pull the tournament, so the others are friends personal boats.  It is going to be a hard sell to have the non tournament skiing owners of our lake to agree to more events down the road.  Even if they do, lack of promo boats is the bigger issue. 

[Old MS Accout]

Make sure the boats have the 1 Million USA coverage and that USA is on the policy.

By 2011 the promo programs will be gone.  

[Marco]

Will do.  Do you think local tournaments are done when the promo program is gone?

[Old MS Accout]

I am not sure. There will be some lucky clubs that have some great dealers to work with and that may be the future. I dont think our club would approve the use of the club boat. The money made is not great enough without raising the entry fees.    

[disland]

I have raised entry fee's to cover the cost of boat usage. I dont know if this will limit entries

[RichardDoane]

disland - how much did you raise your fees ? (if you don't mind me asking). If it's a 2 or 3 round slalom only event, ours are typically in the $50 - 65 range.

[jdarwin]

Disland and the group at Princeton treat promos guys well.  They cover ALL their expenses and allow free entry into the tournament.  The days of taking promo guys for granted are over.  As for the future, I'm optimistic that AWSA will continue to "modify" the towboat requirement rules in order to maintain tournament count.  I have an 07 SN w/ ZO and PP at my site that I anticipate using for the next 3-5 years.  As the number of factory promo boats continues to dwindle, it will be up the host sites to provide towboats for their tournaments.

[disland]

We raised them $10 to cover boat expenses. This year since we are hosting the Jr US Open and will have done a full survey and upgraded all our TC equipment we are having a 3 event class C/E/L in July. We are also experimenting with a pick and choose format. This allows slalom only skiers to come and its like a 3 round slalom only tournament. Or a jump only guy like yours truly can do 3 rounds of jump. We can do this because we run two lakes simultaneously.

 So now a slalom only class C guy can get 3 rounds for $60

 A 3 event class L person would be $100

 This includes a nice lunch too.

 I still think this is a good deal compared to what they are paying down in Florida.

 Of course we dont try and make money on tournaments. Unfortunately last year we lost money so I need to fix that.