sjm said:
As we see, "recent" and "more" are subjective terms.
Would you agree that relative to expenses, frequency of events and time between tournaments that the IPT eclipses the PBT in payouts and average payouts to the participating players?
Using your math, if the events had prize funds of $150,000 and the extra $50,000 per event came from the players at $500 per entry then that would be a field size of 1000 players per event. My recollection is that the PBT events were not even a quarter of that size, but for the sake of entertainment let's say that they were. The PBT did not pay out the entire field. Let's assume that 50% of the field was paid. That would be 500 players receiving an average of $300 for their $500 entry fee (direct investment into the tourament fund). All of the players would have had about the same amount of expenses related to attendence and travel. Let's be conservative and say that the average total expense was $500 per player. This adds another $50,000 in player expense per event. So at 48 events the players put in 2.4million of a total prize fund of 7.2million and spent another 2.4million to participate. The net amount earned by the players then would be on the order of 2.4 million divided by 1000 players over a three year period. That's $2400 per player or $800 per year, using your math. Not too much to brag about as far as payouts go.
If you agree that the fields were much smaller then the earnings go up signifigantly but not at a rate that is considered above the poverty level. Thus it is clear that most players on the PBT couldn't live on their net earnings from the PBT.
The IPT on the other hand has paid out $3,275,000 over 2 large events and one promotional one. They paid out tens of thousands in bonus money in through the qualifiers and through free entries. The players have paid in far less than that through tournament entry fees and qualifier fees.
Without going through each qualifier to determine the exact amount of players who have participated in the IPT since it's inception let's make an assumption that it's about 350 worldwide. This would be the original 150 and another 200 who have participated in one or more various qualifiers. If we were to assume that each of the 200 qualifier players had played in two for the fee of $2000 per qualifier that would add another $800,000 in player investment to the prize fund. Another $60,000 comes in the form of entry fees for the 150 Tour Card holders for the past two tournaments. Thus the total investment into the prize funds from the players is $860,000over four events. 150/200 players had travel and lodging expenses for the last three events. Let's say 200 to get it right. Let's say the average expense per player was around $2000 for each event. That's 1.2 million in related expenses. Let's tack on another $300 per player for the 200 qualifier players to fund their related expenses. That's another $60,000 and we'll double it just to be sure, for $120,000. Total player investment - $2,180,000. $6230 per player in average expenses.
200 of the 350 players were paid for three events. $3,275,000. An average return of $9357 if you divide it by all the players who have paid money to follow the IPT dream. An average of $16,375 for those 200 that have been paid. This is not including the unpaid prize fund of the Reno event.
Thus I think that on net it is conclusively true that the IPT has in fact paid out more than any other tour with less expense to the players in relation to award - when apples to apples are compared.
