MikeJanis said:
Jam, I rarely disagree with you but on this one, I HAVE TO.
Right now it is tough enough to sell events to room owners and sponsors alike. A reason to keep people away from an event would just be bad business for everyone. As long as a player pays a membership fee and/or a higher entry fee they to should be allowed to play.
I definitely understand your opinion, as a well-known and hard-working tour coordinator extraordinaire! :smile:
Your goal is to make everybody happy, the player/competitor and the host pool room. You also are mindful of sponsors, their contributions to the tour, and you do exert a great deal of effort to make sure they get the recognition they deserve by supporting your tour.
That said, I am speaking from a player's point of view, and I am sure there are others who may not have the same opinion as me.
Let me give you one example, Mike. I am going to say it is a hyopthetical example, but it mirrors almost exactly one tour I am familiar with.
There is an annual tour card that costs $25. Each entry fee to the event is $75, and 38 percent of all monies collected from entry feels is not paid out in the tournament payouts. Rather, this 38 percent is used to sustain the tour, pay for the expenses, AND $5 from every single $75 entry fee collected throughout the entire tour of 12 to 15 events is put in an escrow account, which is to be the monies added for the Season Finale.
So every time a player pays a $75 entry fee, not only is 38 percent of that entry fee used to sustain the tour, but $5 of their entry fee goes to the Season Finale tournament. Some pros got to play for "free," those who were sponsored by the tour's main sponsor. That didn't sit well with some tour members either.
Why should Efren Reyes -- I'm not picking on Efren, just using him as an example -- be allowed to play in one tournament only, the Season Finale, when the dues-paying card-holders of this tour, their monies in a way sustained the tour? 38 percent, Mike, is a big chunk of change to cut out of tournament entry fees collected, to include $5 from every single entry fee throughout an entire year of the tour, 12 to 15 events, 100-plus competitors at each event. That's a lot of $5.
Now, on the one hand, the host pool room owner would love to have Efren Reyes attend his Season Finale. On the other hand, those players who were loyal to the tour, attending every single event, paying their $75 entry fees and tour cards, know they ain't got a chance in hell to win against Efren. Efren walks away with the $3,000 first-place prize monies, consisting of all those $5 collected throughout the year.
This is, again, a hypothetical example, but one which I hope illustrates the dues-paying tour member's point of view.
We used to go to weekly tournaments in our area, $25 entry fee, a few years ago on a regular basis. There were some players at these weekly 9-ball tourneys who did not like Mike Davis and/or Keith McCready playing in those weekly events. They didn't think it was fair. Truth be told, though, the local bangers in my neck of the woods are so strong that Keith and Mike didn't win as much as one might think at these weekly $25-entry-fee 9-ball tournaments. We do have some strong local players in my neck of the woods, which consist of BCA instructors, action men, retired pros, and young guns.
JAM
