bowling green

i think bowling green this year was horrible it was ran extreamly poorly and the pay outs where so awful 1st place of int only recieve 75 funny money and this crappy coffee mug that u can hardly read what it says. i mean when u beat out 200 people you think you would get alittle bit better trophy anyone feel the same way about this tournament

[Fedora]

My buddy took 2nd in am2, and I took 17th in am3. he only got 27 dollars more funny money than I did! Talk about bad payouts!

[JC]

Bad payout? How about normal payout. See my previous post. When you're paying 90-100 people, you need tens of thousands of dollars to have a huge divide between 2nd and 17th.

Just as an example, with $4000 in the total purse and 200 players...paying 45% of the field (90 players) yields this...
2nd place = $68
17th place = $60

So I'd say a difference of $27 is pretty big in all honesty.

[Fedora]

I guess that I was just shocked that such a better placement in a higher division yielded that little difference. The event was great, and I will continue to go to it.

[Cilecia Trotter]

Thanks...I used this to confirm we women got screwed.
8 int. women BG paid out 1 and 2.

45% ... not quite w/ my calc.

[Trevor Thorp]

Of course it was great for you! You took home a new Chainstar!

[Bruce Brakel]

Bowling Green has been an am scam tournament for several years now. If you were expecting something else, you should have done your homework. Like Am Worlds, they get free or deeply discounted stuff for the players' pack and then deduct from your payout as if they paid retail for it. They make a lot of money on that tournament and spend it on the pros. If you don't like that concept, you don't like organized disc golf. You can play some other game or work to change this game. Or do nothing. It's not how I run tournaments, but I think they can run their tournament anyway they want, and you have to decide whether to play it or not.

And flat payouts are just a function of the new PDGA payout tables. They could have 10,000 players and first in intermediate with that player pack is still going to get about 75 funny. Actually, with that player pack and the free food at the player party and course use fees for eight courses and the $5 PDGA player fees, they could have given all the cashing players a bill for the difference!

People go to Bowling Green because everybody is going to Bowling Green. A few of us go to get our Worlds points or our Obelisk points, but everyone else goes simply because everyone is going. If I sprain an ankle or something, I've got my invite to Kansas City sewed up. And Kelsey probably won her first Advanced Women's obelisk by her finish in Intermediate Men. We got out money's worth.

They could have done a more timely job with scores. We waited four hours and still had not seen a leaderboard and no one could tell us when we might, so we split. We filled out the forms with innova to get paid through them. I hope that works.

Scores are almost up. Looks like G-pool got lost, or parts of it. I don't see my name anywhere. Looks like I tied for 7th by winning G-pool. Looks like Kelsey got orbital in her bid for a women's obelisk. Looks like Kira did some one-stop shopping for her first obelisk. I have not decided if I'm going to run for one. I need to see how the am masters in Advanced did.

Bowling Green, like disc golf, is a metaphor for life. It's not what it is but what you make of it that matters. I got my money's worth just by spending the weekend with my kids having fun. You should try playing disc golf for fun. Focus on the tournaments that offer what you get the most fun out of.

[Rob Quinlan]

On top of all of this, ESP plastic cost $18, and Elite Z was $16. Don't know if the Innova discs were as cheap.

[Bruce Brakel]

Y'all should post this crap next year well BEFORE the tournament, but none of you will have the balls. Back when the KC Wide Open started doing this every year, every year I'd bump the previous year's bitch thread to the top at PDGA.com.

Expect the same at KC Worlds in 2009. The KC Crew feels about ams the same way the Wisconsin crew did. Good chance to make a pile of money and buy a new car.

I'm not expecting this at K'zoo Worlds because Larry is very generous with the ams at his B and C tiers. But if he goes to the darkside, don't be surprised. We're ams. This is what we're here for. If you don't like it, run tournaments where you treat ams better.

It is what I do.

[Bruce Brakel]

The manufacturers upped their prices again this year. I think the 500 on ESP is $9.50 or so counting tax and shipping. The bigger vendors cannot skate on their taxes like fly-by-night clubs do.

When you are working with multiple vendors you have to maintain a standard exchange rate between your funny money and cash, because they are taking your funny from the players and exchanging it for your cash with you at the end of the day. 2:1 is typical because it is very easy to work with. You can price your plastic any way you want with other exchange rates, but 1.843 to 1 is cumbersome at the end of the day when your vendors want to cash out.

My stock ESP is 18 funny, but I'll make you a good deal for cash. I cannot make a good deal on Star for cash because Innova has rules, but I can make you a good deal on some funny money!

[Lefty Dave]

18 funny is rediculous. That was one of the reasons I stopped going to IOS tourny's as an am. I loved the courses and the way you run them. The divisions were always full. I am not dissing your tourny's cause I love them. Maybe I am just spoiled with my Brian cummings prices.
14 esp 14 star at tourny's or not. Maybe its just me. Now that I turn pro I am willing to donate at your tourn's. But come on $18. That is what I call price gouging.

[Bruce Brakel]

It's just fixed by the prices the manufacturers set and the exchange rate of funny to real. Since Discontinuum and a few others are taking my funny money from players and selling it back to me, there has to be a fixed exchange. Brian's exchange floats from disc to disc because he isn't exchanging funny for real with anyone. He does the economics by the seat of his pants. Because our tournaments are a collaboration, we have to use standard rules of accounting.

The value in an IOS and a Brian Cummings tournament is about the same. He charges about 20% less in funny for his Innova plastic and pays out about 20% less in funny. He charges about 20% more for his Discraft but still pays you about 20% less in funny. Even though i don't throw Innova, I always take innova as prizes at his tournaments because it is the way to maximize the payout for me. But he has you fooled by all that, so that's all that matters.

We've always been fine with the concept that some players won't be able to figure it out and they'll not play our tournaments. Fully 50% of our players have not been able to figure out that they can increase their payout 50% by learning how to throw a Buzzz or a Challenger or a Surge or an Avenger. Compared to a Brian Cummings tournament, Innova throwers get the same deal from us but get inflated payouts and inflated prices. Discraft throwers on the other hand do about 60% better than they'd do at a Brian Cummings tournament.

So long as we can get full to foursomes with players who get it, we're fine with losing the players who don't.

[Scott Kickbusch]

One of the tricky things as an Am player is that the Am value of an event is not an easy stat to find. As a result, people often end up deciding to go or not go to an event based off word of mouth...basically someone else's perception of the payout. Not myself, as I am more worried about how the courses are and if the event ran on time than anything to do with payout. But we know for a lot of players, the payout is King.

One thing I will say for IOS is that the info for how the payout is determined is out there if you look for it. If you take the time to read what Bruce has posted on the PDGA site and the DISContinuum site, you should have no question as to how the IOS is run and how the payout is figured.

I don't know Bruce, but he posts a lot of things is a lot of places. I don't agree with him a lot of the time, but at least he has a clear idea of what IOS is and is not afraid to put that information out for everybody to look at. I'd like to see more places take the time to make the information on how they view Am play and how the Am value of their events are figured public.