Crossfit open style competition for water skiing

[Wish]

I think you have to have a per score posting fee or folks will just keep posting scores constantly possibly multiple times a day. Most do not play 3 or 4 rounds of golf in a day but I can take 2 or 3 or 4 cracks at a score. Times that by the thousands suggested are out there willing and it becomes a massive data gathering event on mostly weekends and mostly Saturday's I would think. Having to pay a fee may keep that in check. Those truly interested would prob pay a small fee. Those not interested prob won't take advantage of free score posting anyway. Not a tech guy but doesn't data gathering and storage cost money? Question is, on top of your annual fee which isn't much, what would you be willing to pay for a score to be posted? $2 or $5 or $10. Still 1/10 the cost at $5 of an all day tourny where you're basically forced to take an entire day.

[Chef23]

@Wish how about one score a day. A lot of people (mostly retired) post 200 plus rounds a year.

 

If we really want it to be successful I think paying a fee per score entry is problematic. I don't care about the money but if I need to dig up a credit card each time I need to enter a score I might not do it because of the hassle.

[BraceMaker]

@Wish maybe if you did something like a fee to start posting that expires say 15 days after your last entry. Now as long as you keep making regular entries every week or so you'll be able to keep it up, if you lapse you have to pay a fee again to start recording.

 

Have any tournament registration also reactivate that counter so anyone who skis a tournament has access, or reimburse the fee to people who enter a tournament during the year.

 

[Wish]

@Chef23 card would already be in the system or better yet PayPal. I use PayPal for a lot of on line purchases. Literally a few clicks and done. To me a small fee adds a level taking it seriously. You pay to play that round of golf (on top of membership fee) why not a very small fee for a score posting.

[Chef23]

@Wish I guess no set of skiing is really free. I pay for gas, insurance and own the boat which had a cost. I am trying to make this as easy as possible and I think a cost per score posted is counter to that. I guess I am not that concerned about taking it serious. I think if someone decides it is a score for their average they are going to take it seriously.

 

I do think 1 score per day is a good idea. When you ski a single day multi round tournament only 1 round for the tournament counts.

[OSUwaterskier]

I fully agree with the who really cares if people are cheating concept - real tournaments will prove it. But would a pay per set lead to more people cheating? “I paid $5 for this so I’m not gonna put in a score 2 passes below my average.” Similar frustration to falling early at a tournament.

 

If there was no pay per set, I think people would me more willing to enter disappointing (but accurate) scores.

[Wish]

@OSUwaterskier interesting point. I guess I'll go back to my other question of who is going to pay for ( I gotta think there is cost involved ) of all this data collection, data organization, data reporting, monthly web costs, web/app design etc.... The $19.95 that is suggested is already paying for USAWS membership and the benefits it provides. So are you asking that the $19.95 get stretched further or are you willing to pay a higher membership fee for the added cost mentioned above? Or a user pay system with a small fee per score? Not a tech guy but can't imagine all that is free.

[BraceMaker]

@OSUwaterskier - money no object you could have a phone app, skier enters number and pin, takes their set. Phone gyroscopes and GPS indicate the pass did occur, spotter in boat enters the score and their pin to confirm it (two registered users needed per score entry) possibility to do more w/ the phone app such as screen shots and or video capture.

 

Could see a world where just about any course could be plotted and the app could actually take shots "at the ball"

 

But ya money money money.

[Chef23]

I said this earlier I think you could get an intern to design the system including a simple web app for not too much money. I don’t know what it would cost to host it. I think the costs would be defrayed by the hopefully new members you get for the $19.99 membership. I believe for golf you handicap fee in Massachusetts anyway includes a USGA membership and it used to be $50.

[OSUwaterskier]

Personally I would be willing to pay well over $20/year for it. Hopefully most users would take into account the opportunity cost of going to each tournament (tournament fee, travel, time, etc.) to justify the subscription.

[Chef23]

@OSUwaterskier I am not looking at it as a replacement for tournament skiing but an augmentation and hopefully a way to get more people that run the course on their home lake (I think there are a lot more of these than people that jump and trick at home) an average and interested in going to a tournament.

[Rpc29]

So the interesting thing about the crossfit open is that the events are different every week. One week is 1000 burpees for time and the next week is a max clean and jerk. Would we want our version of the "open" to be similar? It seems like the current idea is that we are floating is submitting a maximum score similar to a tournament but it can be submitted by anyone with access to a boat and course.

 

Would it be beneficial to switch things up and have different unique events every week to try to make things more fun for the average skier? I'm picturing @JeffSurdej or @Horton playing the part of Dave Castro (the evil genius thinking up events every week)

 

Week 1: Top tournament score

Week 2: Top 26 mph score

Week 3: Spin to win endurance challenge (use your second pass from week 1 as speed/line length)

Week 4: Two Handed turn top score

Week 5: Top Tournament Score

 

This is a pretty rough outline, but a lot of the excitement in the open comes from now knowing what the event will be from week to week.

[OSUwaterskier]

I 100% agree that it is not a replacement - augmentation is probably a good term. Just thinking of ways to sell this - one being bringing a sense of competition to skiing without the time or monetary commitment of going to a tournament.

 

I don’t think you’ll sell it to the early morning slalom crews by saying “pay x dollars for us to determine your average for you.” You’ll sell it by saying “pay x dollars to compete against your buddies AND skiers across the country without changing your normal routine.”

 

Then, ideally, once they get hooked, they will want to meet up with their new friends and prove themselves at a tournament.

 

Obviously I understand this all takes money (and probably much more than I can even imagine it would), but I also don’t think it’s worth the time and effort if it’s just going to be an excel sheet posted to a website like the current rankings lists. Coming from someone in finance - there is only so long you can keep someone’s attention on a spreadsheet. If it’s just logging in, staring at some numbers, then logging out, I wouldn’t pay to join that. I would pay (much more than $20/yr) for an interactive, social platform where I could virtually compete with my buddies any given Saturday morning across 5 different states, watch people skiing around the country (similar to my ability level, the top dogs, or see watch some nice rookie OTFs), all with some BOS type commentary layered in (asking for tips, recommendations, etc). The social aspects need to be there, you need people to want to log in, browse, and waste time on it. We need all the great social aspects of skiing that @jcamp mentioned earlier... just the 21st century version.

[Wish]

@OSUwaterskier development for that ...$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Would be awesome though.

[Dirt]

Great ideas. I like the model where one member declares a tournament set and the other (driver/spotter) verifies the score. I have not golfed much but have seen some cheatin you know whats out there.

On a side note, Skidawg can beat SuperGreg at golf too.

[JeffSurdej]

I think for starters I would not try and collect fees, that brings a whole new level of programming to the system, the goal would be for $19.95 a year you get unlimited (maybe 1 per day) practice scores. I would hope the majority of skiers that would do this are not current tournament skiers and thus would become new AWSA members. That's good enough.

 

This may not be very hard to do as long as we do not complicate it with video and gps etc, at least for the start.

 

Where I struggle still, is how this would play into our current ranking system, I saw a numerous post that said "who cares if the scores are not legit" they still have to show up and prove themselves at reg/nat", if that's the case then where do these practice scores go? b/c someone could turn in some deep 38's, be ranked top 10, ski regionals and suck, but he is still ranked top 10. I don't think that's a good idea. So would this be a searate rankings or filter or incorporated into our current system, and if so how?

[Chef23]

@JeffSurdej who cares if someone skis Regionals top 10 and sucks. No qualifications for Nationals unless you ski COA at Nationals if all you have are rankings scores. I think if this is a separate ranking it removes some of the attraction.

[WBLskier]

Admittedly we have a small sample size and the ski league isn't exactly what is being discussed here, but it is really pretty close in concept. Here is what I can say after 1 year of the waterski league about these questions with at least a little data:

 

1. Current tournament skiers are not going to stop skiing tournaments.

2. Weekend course skiers are a lot more likely to go try out a real touranment after competing in a "tournament like" setting. Tournaments are super intimidating for someone doing it the first time, even for a good course skier, and having sort of tried out the concept first helps to ease into it. We had lots of league skiers go try out the novice division in a real tournament for the first time and a lot more who probably will try it this year. I believe that everyone who tried out a real tournament last year will now go ski another one this year.

3. Unofficial sets that get recorded somewhere (even if they don't really count) will make you feel differently about them when you are getting ready to ski. Not exactly like a tournament set, but a lot more like a tournametn set than any other practice set. I'm not a super strong skier, but I know it definitely helped me calm down when it came time to ski my actual tournament passes.

4. The honor system will work. Cheaters either get phased out by the handicap system (a handicap that adjusts during the season makes it increasingly difficult to keep cheating on a score) or in the case of scores that would qualify for real tournaments, fabricated scores are obviously not going to do anything to help them when it comes to a real tournament.

[disland]

@WBLskier Great data, agree honor system works,

 

@JeffSurdej per my previous post just exclude level 10 scores,

 

All the technology and rules we have burdened ourselves with just to try and eliminate a few bad apples has not taken us in the right direction. All this end course video submissions stuff comes to mind.

[JeffSurdej]

@Chef23 @disland I think one issue is that we have created a rankings list that has become more important than placing at reg/nat, so if we only exclude L10 I think its going to be an issue for a skier to end the year ranked #5 via pure practice scores. I'm not saying to exclude these from rankings b/c I think this being part of our current rankings is key but if this is going to pass the board you are going to have a big stink about a practice scores counting just as much as a score at nationals. There was one year that the top 10 M3S skiers did not even go to nationals yet ended the year ranked #1-#10, you cant do that in any other sport. So I'm just wondering if we need a shift in the way rankings average are computed at the same time we start allowing practice scores, to real make this work? or we have a filter on rankings to include or exclude practice scores? so one can see where they rank either way?

[Chef23]

@JeffSurdej I like having a filter on rankings to exclude practice scores if you really care about that. Last time I checked nobody makes any money or gets a prize for being in the top 10 on the ranking list. I don't get the big issue with the ranking list outside of a way to qualify for Nationals. I will admit one of my buddies and I give each other a hard time about who is higher on the ranking list but we give each other crap about who wins each day we ski together also. I couldn't care less about someone I don't know.

 

To be the best skier in your age group you need to compete at real tournaments Regionals, Nationals, Big Dawgs etc. I am not that good but if I was I wouldn't care if someone who had never skied outside their home lake was ranked above me. I know it is different when you are at a tournament and I am not that good.

[JeffSurdej]

@Chef23 I think rankings its a bigger deal than you think, and our voting membership will have a coronary if we allow a guy who turns a practice score of 2 @ 39 to out rank a guy who ran 1 @ 39 in 3 class c events. Maybe I am wrong. I think getting practice scores in there is very valid idea but we have to be careful how it is done. So in golf, i understand that all these scores make up your handicap, but do they do a rankings based on any of these practice scores?

[dchristman]

@JeffSurdej How about allow practice scores only up to level 7. Anything beyond that must be achieved in a tournament.

[JeffSurdej]

@dchristman thats not a bad idea, as long as we miss out on hundreds of L8 guys that could become members who are at that level and would partake in this new system. I want to be open enough to bring in a lot of people but at the same time make it fair.

[Kelvin]

How about allowing the practice scores to establish handicaps, etc and appear on the ranking list, but to qualify for some of the ranking list awards, only tournament scores count.

[JeffSurdej]

@Kelvin so perhaps just a filter, we keep the one the way it is now which is tourney scores only, this determines qualifications and rankings champions and then we allow practice scores and simply add a filter to show rankings for all, just like you can filter now to show foreign skiers or not?

[Wish]

@JeffSurdej are we still talking about using these practice scores to qualify for Reg or is this just a rankings list of practice scores that get filtered out or in?

[JeffSurdej]

@Wish i think that's still a good debate. It only takes L6 to get to regionals in most regions. I think most regions would welcome extra entries even if via practice scores, I don't have issues with that, just a little worried about how far up the list we start accepting practice scores, that's all. If it brings in 1000 new members than we could say who cares right? but we also have to balance fairness and competition in our rankings as it is one of our top most valued selling points to becoming an active and tournament participating member.

[disland]

Level 7 is too low, A filter is fine but the scores should let you qualify for regionals and nationals. Thats the idea is to get more participation not limit it.

[Wish]

@JeffSurdej the other balance, and I think it has been mentioned, is skier interest. Namely ones that turn buoys but do not compete. My daughter lost interest do to rankings lists. It's boring to look at and for youngsters means little. So how does this increase interest over current rankings? I would assume the same for a vast majority of adults this is supposed to target. If the only reword is to look at a list and maybe qualify for Reg (who's gonna make that their first tourny they go to???) I think you will have an interest problem with time and money spent upfront going down this path. What's the hook? What makes it diff to want to do this in terms of an end result/reword? I'm just flushing out some stuff.

[elr]

This is where I ended up in the Tournament on Demand discussion from this time last year:

 

As I thought most of the resistance centers around equivalency which is driven by how we currently qualify for Regionals and Nationals.

 

So here is what I'm thinking --

 

- Two separate lists, a Handicap List, and a Ranking [Traditional Tournament] List. Scores from the Ranking List feed the Handicap List. Tournament on Demand [e.g. 17H0213 for February 13, 2017] scores only feed the Handicap list.

- Qualifying for Regionals and Nationals via the Ranking List remain unchanged.

- Qualifying for Regionals [only] via the Handicap List requires X number of scores - it doesn't matter what the scores are to dis-incentivize cheating.

- Using the Golf vernacular raw scores on the Handicap List can be sloped [or not] for the conditions the score was achieved under e.g. Class R Tournament highest to ToD with Trained Driver, Assistant Judge, un-surveyed course, non-current boat lowest.

 

I'm thinking this helps facilitate "beer leagues" and provides an alternative path to Regionals without doing violence to the traditional structure.

 

Also, to help grow membership send ski school students or your buddies home with a score

[JeffSurdej]

@Wish excellent point, there are plenty motivated by rankings alone, but also a large group not motivated by it. This is where some of the new leagues are popping up. So whats a good hook? does it need to be some series such as poker has the WSOP, we could have the WSOB (buoys). I do think some type of point system rankings is also very very valid. Personally I am not motivated by our current rankings b/c its basically a PB list. I hate going to a tourney, having a rank of say 105 buoys, I ski 104 and it does nothing for my rankings. If a batter goes 3 for 4 one night it changes his average for the season. I personally think we need a rankings system that takes into account much more, participation, more round, more scores, placing high at big events, points for beating ranked skiers, etc.

[disland]

@JeffSurdej does someone have the authority to just add a separate list to the current system and accept scores without a full on process of board votes and all that. Seems to me a separate list requires no rule change.

[JeffSurdej]

@disland correct, I could do that, would need some programming help but thats about it, we could at least start it as a separate list and go form there if it gains momentum

[klindy]

First, @disland horrible title for the thread. I’ve long advocated allowing “practice scores” somehow and I never opened the thread.

 

Some kind of golf style system which generates a handicap would be novel and could work. Alternatively we need to find a way to lower the ‘value’ of practice scores (not cut the score in half or whatever). That way a skier would have to ski the score 2 or 3 or 5 times before it would have an equivalent value to a class C, etc.

 

In terms of participation it’s true that some people would never go to a tournament regardless. However if there were two or three times as many people on the ranking list posting scores either at a tournament or some kind of practice scheme, at least some of those people would want to ski regionals or nationals. Ultimately that’s a good thing. By design the cut off scores for each level would go up effectively making it more difficult (higher scores) to qualify.

 

It was said there may be “thousands or tens of thousands” of skiers out there who ski in the course and don’t ski tournaments (paraphrased). I suspect that’s exaggerated. Even if it’s not, I have long believed that USA-WSWS should have a database of EVERY slalom course (and jump). As an organization we should know where they are, what local of state laws or regulations might threaten them and, thru collecting this basic info, begin to learn much more about who’s out there and more actively involved. Done properly it can be one of the most valuable reasons to become a member. The comment may seem a bit off topic but it goes directly to answering the questions of “what would happen if we did X” instead of just guessing.

 

Interesting thread.

[disland]

@klindy Ouch, when i started it i wasnt planning for 2.5K views and where it went, but hey @horton is happy

[disland]

I was checking the crossfit leaderboard today and one thing I noticed is if you click on the scores it lists who the judge was. Interesting idea. Folks are worried about exaggerated scores but if you make someone put there name down as having judged you that would help I think.

[JeffSurdej]

@disland i love that, driver too

[ForrestGump]

I would come back to skiing and get some scores if something like this was in place. Would I sit through an entire 8 hour day at the lake in a real tournament? Not to start with. But who knows, this might ease that transition back. So that alone is one membership you'd lost that you'd get back.

 

#ilikebeer

 

[disland]

@BoneHead we need you back!

[Kelvin]

@Bonehead, We have room most evenings at LOK and its only 5 mins from your BMX track. Call anytime.

 

[braindamage]

$20/ season is cheap. I love all the ideas!

[blakeyates]

I just looked up my scores in order to be reminded of the “spreadsheet format” on the website. What if a column or two were added for practice scores and a +/- column that compares your practice score to your tournament scores and then a column to project where you “could” rank if you ski’d a tournament up to your practice. This would highlight incentive to get your butt to the tournaments. I hope this makes sense if I explained correctly.

[blakeyates]

If a skier hasn’t ski’d tournaments, then that column would be blank and everyone could see that this person doesn’t ski tournaments but he posts practice. It wouldn’t carry as much weight if he never skis tournaments but might get him headed to the tournaments. Visual incentive.

[lpskier]

Just wait. Something big is coming.

[thager]

John Holmes?

[lpskier]

@thager He best domeone to death using a “ blunt object.” But no, not John “The Wad” Holmes.