Re: Lyle O. Ross #750956 - 10/10/07 11:04 AM

Hey Bruce,

I'm sure you've done this before but I'm too lazy to go look. Can you give a brief overview of your event structure and philosophy. Not that I expect anyone to pay attention but I'd like to cut and paste a copy of it for myself.



Jon and I have a very simple philosophy, we run the kinds of tournaments we would like to play, and we play them, health permitting, and if anyone else wants to play them, that makes them even better. I think this philosophy is entirely Randian, enlightened selfishness, but Jon is not nearly so philosophical. For Jon its more of a Buddhist essence-of-being thing, but he's not that religious either.

We figure it costs $75 to throw on a PDGA Am B tier, and if no one shows up, we're only out $75. No one showing up is a real possibility so we got our wives and kids playing too. A few years ago I set the record for the least attended PDGA tournament [5] and then broke it the following year [4] and then someone else claims they broke that because they had 4 counting a no-show or something silly like that for a tie breaker. That happens. Don't get discouraged.

Jon and I spend a lot of time b--ching and moaning about all the stupid things TDs do at the tournaments we play. We may be mediocre players but we're 1025 rated b--chers. We even b--ch about the stupid things we do!

One time I made a list of them and we agreed not to do those things. Then I made a list of all the things we like that don't cost anything, and we agreed to do as many of those as we had little helper people to help with.

I think to be a really good TD you first have to get out and about and play a lot of tournaments in a lot of different communities. You have to become a tournament connoesseur[sp?], a tournament snob. Yeti will attest to that about me. :eek: I'm definately a snob.

Chances are if you are a reasonable person, (and i'm a reasonable person by profession, so I can be good at that if I concentrate) and you think about every aspect of the process, you can run great tournaments.

These are things we like, sort of in chronological order, with a few don't likes creeping in here and there:

Tournaments that post their pre-reg.
Tournaments that have on-line pre-reg.
Tournaments that have on-line tournament information.
Tournaments that have a plan and stick to it.
Tournaments that have a leader board.
And scorecards with distances.
And scorecards with all the regular holes and temp holes in the same order as they are supposed to be played.
And a player sheet that spells out the o.b. and course rules.
Tournaments that start close to on time.
Tournaments that let you see the leaderboard throughout the process.
Tournaments that use color coded leaderboard cards that show you who is in your division.
"These are a few of our favorite things." :D
We like funny money. We're ams.
We like the merchacopia, the big spread of discs and stuff.
We like entry fee choices, like trophy-only, or half-in. These are a pain in the butt for the TD but we like them as players.
Who does not like fat payouts? We have three digit IQs. :cool:
We don't like pre-registration discounts as much as we thought we did.
We don't like tournaments where the poor girl taking the money has to remember a different entry fee for every division because she gets yelled at when the money is short.
We like it when the TD is so proud of his payouts he posts them.
We used to not like player packs but we've warmed to them.
We like Discraft because they like local tournaments.
We like divisional CTPs and Flight Life and Most Improved and always offer some mix of those.
We like making people happy.
We like being able to say, "If you're not happy with this, and it was on brasscash.com and discontinuum.org/forums, then why are you here? Oh, you're stupid. Nothing I can do about that" :eek: But we'd never say that to your face.
We like awards ceremonies that go off pretty soon after the last card comes in.
We like inexpensive but cool homemade trophies.
We like the people who taught us how to make dyed trophy discs.
We like TDs who thank us for playing their tournament, and we try to remember to thank them for having their tournament, even if they did things we didn't like.
We like food, but that really needs a dedicated volunteer and that person has never stepped up. That's too bad because we could build some graft into that process to make them want to come back and help again.
We like TDs who slip us a little something when we work real hard at their tournament.
We like TDs who get scores up on pdga.com quickly.
We like sleeping in our own beds at night.

There are more. Basically, if we see something we like, and we can do it, we add it to the process. If we think up something we like, and we can wedge it into the TD report, we give it a try.

Jon likes it when you're on the course and you can hear the two-minute warning so he bought a nice electric megaphone. I like it when the TD hollers "Two minutes" and everyone repeats it around the course, so I try to remind people to do that, and probably did not offer to pay for part of the megaphone.

It really all comes down to running the kind of tournament we honestly would like to play, and then going out and playing them.

Some people might be like, well I don't have the money for that. If you start small, and work with a manufacturer who wants to work with small local tournaments, you can make it happen. It does not take sponsorship, or anything you don't have and can't get. There are cheap ways to do everything when you are first starting. I'm not necessarily talking to Lyle but to anyone who is fed up with the way the local Duke of Disc Golf is running things. You can step up. You can lead. If you step up and lead, likeminded people will follow.

If you need solutions for the normal issues, you can e-mail me or Jon or PDGA message us or something. We want more TDs running the kinds of tournaments we want to play. Then we wouldn't have to! :D

O.k., I cannot presume to speak for Jon, but I doubt he'll contradict much of this when he posts.

I like how you guys think, with a three-digit IQ and all. Thank you for the checklist. Is there more I should PM you for?

to Bruce:

What a wonderful post!

Can we make this mandatory reading as part of the sanctioning agreement?

Oops, I forgot, I don't like the word "mandatory".

I notice not a lot about pros in there. Nothing at all, in fact. Someone may accuse you of catering to your customers.

Thanks for taking the time to compose a great post.

Thank you Peter for the kind words. I hope some of the humor in there was evident to someone other than Jon.

Our payout formula for the IOSeries has been

A $15 pick-your-own player pack delivered in funny money.
Deduct $10 from the entry fee and the remainder goes to the payout, per amateur in the division.
$1.50 per player to CTPs, Flight Life or Most Improved, depending on which is going to work best for that division that day.
And the rest is usually plenty to cover sanctioning, $3 PDGA fees, trophies, park use fees, etc.

To make this formula work you have to be carrying your own merch. A merch lord will take too much for himself. Or you have to have a merch lord like me who will share in the risk of loss for an equal share of the profit if it is profitable. Jon says we've run 47 tournaments. I've run a few without him. Maybe six ran for a loss.

To make this work you have to avoid unnecessary costs and find a cheap trophy concept. We do custom dyed discs. They are really easy to do and only cost $5 to $7.50 each if you are getting the Discraft tournament specials, but they are easily worth $20 each.

We try to have all the amateurs on any given day paying the same entry fee and getting the same tournament value, and all the pros paying the same entry fee and getting the same tournament value.

We spend the entry fees from each division on the players in that division. Except, we rarely ever deduct from the pro payout for pro trophy discs. There is enough profit on cash sales of merchandise to cover that without it coming out of the amateurs entry fees. This means we rarely run the pros higher than a C-tier. If a sponsor donates cash for the pros we give it to the pros. If a sponsor donates merch in order to sponsor the pros, that is more complicated, but what happens is they donate the merch to the IOS, I buy the merch for cash, and the IOS has cash for the pros. That happened once and it worked out fine.

Before we publish entry fees, we make reasonable guesses about what would be low, average and high attendance for a tournament at that location, and then I run hypotheticals to see whether we make a profit or loss on those numbers. I usually know where our break even number is, going in.

Some of the innovative things we've done include:

an optional discounted player-pack-trophy-and-CTPs-only entry fee. We started doing that in 2002 and have always done it. It is a great idea but you need to mark the registration cards so you can account for these people when doing payouts.

The option to decline your player pack and get a reduced entry fee. This [censored] off Guru because it was an end run around mandatory player packs, and not so many people were taking the option, and it was an accounting hassle, so we quit doing that. I've since figured out how to do it in a streamlined way that is almost no accounting hassle at all and does not violate mandatory player packs, but I don't push the concept and almost no one takes us up on it. See next.

The option to sell back your funny money. This is kind of outrageous, but when I buy discs from Discraft, the guy who takes my order is an amateur and the lady who brings my order to the loading dock is an amateur, and i think a lot of the guys who take my order at Innova are amateurs. So i have no problem buying merch from amateurs. Amateurs get the same low wholesale price for their sell back that I'd pay Innova or Discraft, about 50 cents on the dollar. Not too many people take me up on this, but it has made my funny money negotiable with other vendors because it has guaranteed value. I'll even buy merch from other tournaments from amateurs. I have to buy discs continuously. It does not matter to me whether the person who sells them to me is an amateur or a pro. Most amateurs have figured out they can get 70 cents on the dollar in the parking lot so they come to me as the buyer of last resort.

A bigger player pack if you take Discraft only. Discraft makes outrageously good deals if you take advantage of their tournament specials. I keep track of the added value of those deals and make sure that it all goes back to Discraft throwers in lower prices and bigger player packs. A 20 Brass Throw Discraft Player Pack is twice as big as a 15 Brass general player pack if the one is spent on ESP and the other is spent on Star. It adds value to the tournament and creates a positive feedback loop when you find ways to take the sponsor's added value and give it back to the sponsor's customers.

I think what makes our tournaments so good compared to most unsponsored events is that I have an obsessive compulsive personality and I focus all that nuttiness on making the process and the event better. The guys at Marshall Street sound like they are the same way but in different ways. Their list of likes and don't likes would include, "We like beer!" :D

We have no one on our team willing to go begging for sponsorship, which is too bad, but we just don't have anyone with that kind of personality. But we maximize the value of the entry fees we receive and consistently put on a good show. That's why i think anyone can do that, because we do it without outside sponsorship. The deals we get from Discraft are generally available.

Thanks Bruce!

Thanks indeed some darn fine advice!

I've played in a lot of Bruce and Jon's tournaments in the past three years and they know how to put on a good show. Its definately more Am friendly. Just about everybody goes home happy. They put on enough tournaments each year that if you have a stash of their funny money you can hold on to it and come and buy something next time. About this time of year some players are getting ready to redeem a year's cache of that funny money for bigger items such as targets etc.

One of the cooler things they have done is take control of the known non-pdga players. We all play in tournaments where a non member will win a lower division with a score that would have been competitive in Advanced. Bruce and Jon look at past scores for that player and work up a hypothetical rating. They will tell the player that he has to play in a certain division. Their tournaments are reasonably bagger free.

They also host tournaments with a good dose of ORA- Open Minded Arrogance. They figure they are right but are willing to debate you on the topic. They open themselves up to questions, abuse, suggestions, or in rare cases- praise on the Discontinuum message board. They have floated ideas on the board that have been batted around and acted upon or dropped.

I never drink a cup of coffee brewed by a non-drinker. I won't go to a delicatessen that is not run by a member of the tribe. I am not going to order asian food prepared by palefaces. I don't like to play in tournaments that aren't run by players. I like the atmosphere at the IOS tournaments. Thanks guys.

So the other "Brakel Brother," Brett Comincioli, had this idea, "What if we were to buy a bunch of CFR, sell it to our players, and use the proceeds to fund an A-tier?" The Illinois Open will be in Rockford, Illinois, September 6 and 7. I gave it some razmataz name when we were saving the date with the PDGA so we would be motivated to come up with a better name later.

Since the PDGA took away the payout minimum for A-tiers and now only has the $1500 added cash minimum, Brett had this truly spectacular idea of running the A-tier with the lowest pro entry fee anywhere -- $50.

We hope to tap some other sponsorship sources and provide lunch both days. Otherwise, the pros get added cash and the ams get added lunch!

This is cool: We think we'll be able to have all three courses in the same park. None of this having to find a different ride because you and your ride are in different pools. If we cannot set up the third course we'll still keep it all in one park.

I really enjoyed reading this thread�. I laughed and agreed with a lot of what was mentioned. I hope I have the opportunity to come to one of you events.

I have run tournaments since 1997 �but I haven�t counted how many. I have played �a� tournament, but I find I like being behind the scenes. I�m constantly asking people what they would like, how can we improve, and sometimes fight the �Pro� mentality (because my partners in crime are Pro�s).

It�s a much different process running a �Pro only� or �Am only� event vs. Pro-Am� and I like both for many reasons. What is a �Pro� mentality you ask? Well keep it Simple, Fast, and Sweet (payout that is). This makes the event easy, your whole motivation is to keep the event running smoothly. It�s been my experience that the �Am� like the extras�some of the �Am�s� are actually new to the sport. They are learning and soaking in all aspects of Disc Golf. It�s nice to have a friendly attitude, detailed players meetings, players parties, raffles where they can win merchandise (because they don�t have boxes of discs laying around), and everyone�s really out to enjoy themselves. The Pro & Am is the best of both worlds it gives the �Am�s� something to look forward to�and a goal to improve�. it is a total different event to run�. it�s a balancing act.

My favorites of your comments are regarding food, sponsorship, Megaphones.

Food is huge to me (not my husband)�and I love making a special lunch for the players�. but after 10 years I have found it doesn�t work to be the �food� person and run the event� (Sometimes I forget�and then have to make one of those lists your were talking about �GET SOMEONE TO DO THE FOOD)

Sponsorship isn�t my best area either�asking someone for money�most times I just end up talking him or her out of sponsoring and paying them� (Don�t ask) But you are right; you can make it work �

Megaphones� this cracked me up�we had one given to us� then it had battery issues�but after 10 years we have come to the conclusion we do not need one� we have �JIM OATES� he can be heard from Miles & Miles�

The only �Other� thing I could add to your list would be�
�A Wife of a Player who has dedicated her life to the sport of disc golf�

Oh�and that, �I love Beer� thing too�

Jen

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