No, people are ignorant of what is going on. How many people read the fine print?
Yes, but how does the promoter know it was in response to that issue? They are not mind readers and may believe it due to inclement weather, 911 or some other non related event. The players are so unorganized and promoters like it that way!
Good responses by Mark G. and Tate, spoken from experience, Unless one has actually been a promoter and worked with the Sales department of hotels they don't know what goes into these negotiations.
I've probably produced several dozen pool tournaments in hotels and casinos over the last 25 years and every deal looked different. Typically a hotel will give you the ballroom for free if you meet certain room block requirements. Casinos are not as strict about giving up ballroom space. If you can bring bodies to their facility (whether they stay there or not) they are happy, because they know they will make money from everyone who attends. The hotels need to make money from the room sales, they don't have a casino to generate income.
As for myself one of the first things I negotiate with a hotel is the room rates. I know that if I don't get an attractive rate for my players they will stay somewhere else, and I won't make my room guarantee. As an example, when I did my last event at the Burbank Hilton Hotel, the regular room rate at that time was $129. I negotiated a $99 a night rate for my attendees. I got ZERO kickback of any kind! What I did get was a $5,000 a day ballroom for free if we booked enough rooms. If the bookings fell short, I would have to make up the balance at the going rate of $99 a night for however many nights it took. The hotel put a hold on my credit card for $10,000! And that my friends is the name of that tune.
Casino hotels are entirely different as I said before. At the Sands in Reno, I got the ballroom free as part of the deal, no guarantee required. With them I negotiated a room rate of $29/nite for a single and $39 for a double room. This was in line with the best prices they offer online during a slow season. I needed to book a total of 800 room nights to get a kickback. If it fell short I got nothing, but if it went over I got $5 per room night. That was a big bonus for me if I could bring enough people that would stay at the Sands. 800 room nights meant a $4,000 bonus! In the first few years I never quite made it, sometimes falling short by less than fifty room nights. Maybe in the fifth or sixth year I finally got over 800 room nights, so my event became a lot more lucrative for me as the promoter.
The above is an example of a good deal for the players and the promoter alike, and is somewhat typical of what usually happens at casino/hotels. I will go one step further in answering the OP's original question. At it's peak my net income for producing the U.S. Bar Table Championships was never much more than $10-15,000, with maybe the last two years close to the higher number. That, after six months of planning, probably the last three months working on it daily, and then a final tournament week of 12-14 hour days. I'm sure I could have made more money managing a MacDonalds.
It isn't easy to turn a profit running a pool tournament and my hat is off to the promoters who can do it. It took me years to figure out how to accomplish this and along the way I lost as much as 20K in one event! Nice job huh?
Much like airline seats. Often when you check fares with the person seating next to you on a flight , you find he is paying a fraction of what you paid
As for myself one of the first things I negotiate with a hotel is the room rates. I know that if I don't get an attractive rate for my players they will stay somewhere else, and I won't make my room guarantee. As an example, when I did my last event at the Burbank Hilton Hotel, the regular room rate at that time was $129. I negotiated a $99 a night rate for my attendees. I got ZERO kickback of any kind! What I did get was a $5,000 a day ballroom for free if we booked enough rooms. If the bookings fell short, I would have to make up the balance at the going rate of $99 a night for however many nights it took. The hotel put a hold on my credit card for $10,000! And that my friends is the name of that tune.
Casino hotels are entirely different as I said before. At the Sands in Reno, I got the ballroom free as part of the deal, no guarantee required. With them I negotiated a room rate of $29/nite for a single and $39 for a double room. This was in line with the best prices they offer online during a slow season. I needed to book a total of 800 room nights to get a kickback. If it fell short I got nothing, but if it went over I got $5 per room night. That was a big bonus for me if I could bring enough people that would stay at the Sands. 800 room nights meant a $4,000 bonus! In the first few years I never quite made it, sometimes falling short by less than fifty room nights. Maybe in the fifth or sixth year I finally got over 800 room nights, so my event became a lot more lucrative for me as the promoter.
The above is an example of a good deal for the players and the promoter alike, and is somewhat typical of what usually happens at casino/hotels. I will go one step further in answering the OP's original question. At it's peak my net income for producing the U.S. Bar Table Championships was never much more than $10-15,000, with maybe the last two years close to the higher number. That, after six months of planning, probably the last three months working on it daily, and then a final tournament week of 12-14 hour days. I'm sure I could have made more money managing a MacDonalds.
It isn't easy to turn a profit running a pool tournament and my hat is off to the promoters who can do it. It took me years to figure out how to accomplish this and along the way I lost as much as 20K in one event! Nice job huh?
I know the three regional tours that I've played on, the TD's took in about 1500 for about 28-30 hours of work at the tournament and however many hours promoting the event in the weeks bulking up to it. Even if they only spend an average of 5 hours a week for 2 weeks leading up to it, that's 40 hours of work for 1500. (That's with a good turnout for the tournament.). A little over 40 an hour... Not the 300 an hour you are purporting. And that is before expenses.
