Tournament Economics

[Horton]

The only tournament I've ever organized is my cash prize which is a zero profit endeavor. One of my fellow Lake owners asked me today about running tournament as a profit source for the homeowners association. I assume most tournaments are just exactly that.

 

So my question for you guys is how do the numbers break out? How much can an HOA are Club make on a tournament? I'm assuming there's a ton of opinions and anecdotes.... GO!

[mmosley899]

@Horton i have run tournaments for over forty years, including regional and national championships. You will not really make money on running the tournament, you make money on selling sponsorship. The money made on the tournament would barely be worth the labor effort for a homeowners group. Strong sponsorship can make it worthwhile but someone has to sell the event to sponsors.

[RichardDoane]

@horton - we tried to make $$$ for our Broho club doing Big Dawg events in 2014 and 2015. What @mmosley899 commented is exactly true about the break even of a tournament balance sheet. Our only profit came from the practice sets, but if you figure out your labor hours you're probably making minimum wage. Our problem was too many requirements from the sponsor, and not enough financial contribution on their part.

[MISkier]

At our weeknight tournaments, we will charge $50 for 2 rounds of class C and make about $600 with 25-30 skiers (chief officials comped). We can make a bit more if we can get 3 rounds in.

[Andre]

There's money to be made with waterskiing

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[disland]

We have never made money on tournaments, we hosted the Jr US Open and we lost $3K.

We do it for the enjoyment of the home owners. When the members complained about the extra work to do record events, we stopped doing them and only do class C now.

[6balls]

It is not a money maker, if you make it so, then no one likely shows up b/c it costs too much. Many skiers have disposable income, but could likewise ski at home and take a beach vacation instead. I don't know the right answer.

[RichardDoane]

the best part of having a tournament is the improvements you'll do to your site getting it ready to host. Afterwards, you then get to enjoy the new dock, irrigation, improved edges, etc.

[Jody_Seal]

Here is the right answer. If the tournament is amature then a minor degree profit going back to the LOC is acceptable.

A pro tournament like the masters, moomba ect then everyone gets paid.

So if you are looking to make a living producing amature ski events then you will go broke. If you are looking to make money producing pro events then as the old adage it takes money to make money comes into play.

[Andre]

Any tournament making money,the entry fees are going to be way up there.With Pros you can get some sponsorship money but with regular folks,forget it.

In 93,i went to Hartford for the Budweiser Pro Tour and tickets on sunday's final were like 10$ and there was about 3-4000 peoples there.Maybe then it was possible but just instalation of the set up must have been pretty costly to Budweiser.

Add the prize money to the skiers...

[kurt]

as someone who hosts 4 or 5 a year my thought is @horton needs a panda for asking the question

[Andre]

Triple one too!

[Chef23]

I would say practice sets and late fees are the ways that tournaments make some money.

[RAWSki]

I would agree a lot of Skiers register late and pay late fees. These fees should all become profit for the LOC. You can make some money running class C's and week-night leagues but it takes a lot of club volunteers and, like has been said. most of that money will be invested back into club facilities, tournament equipment or other improvements. So do clubs make a big profit No -------- do they financially benefit? I believe yes they can.

[MrJones]

Money-no

Hobby-yes

 

[Horton]

Guys I am talking about a local class C without any site improvement needed.

[Chef23]

@Horton my comment on late fees and practice is from people in our region that run Class Cs at sites that don’t need improvements in our areas. I think a large profit is probably not reasonable at a cost that people are willing to pay.

[LeonL]

We hosted 2-3 tournaments annually for 23 years. The only ones that more than broke even were 3 event. I hated the extra work involved in 3 event, so we didn't have many of those. Expenses like sanction fees (regional and Usaws) gasoline, lunch for appointed officials, new ropes and other miscellaneous expenses that I can't even remember, pretty much ate up all the income. Having said that, if you can get 30 entries at $60 for 3 three round slalom, you can show a profit. We rarely had that many after about 2008.

[Horton]

Ok. Never mind

[jerrym]

We make a few hundred bucks per tournament with an entry fee of $50 and a simple lunch provided. We average 15-20 skiers. We hold tournaments for the club members benefit so we are not trying to make money. We could charge a higher entry fee but we are happy to come out a few bucks ahead while enjoying a day of competition with our regular guests.

[brettmainer]

If you can get 40 of the 50 skiers for a 2 round slalom to each pay $50, then that $2000 should show a profit after deducting gas and sanction fees. The tournament ropes can be used for several tournaments and then “sold” to a LOC member for half price or so at end of year. Ropes need not be a major cost.

 

The local C tournaments that don’t break even are the ones that don’t fill up or have too many non paying skiers.

 

As a side note, my favorite tournaments used to be weeknight one rounders with 40 skiers or less. The weekend isn’t killed and I don’t need more than one round, as the ranking list only counts one round per tournament anyways. The economics of those small tournaments are disproportionately impacted by the sanction fees.