Topic: Money for winning

[bbtuna]

Brad, Brad, Brad,

I agree...mostly.  I am not arguing for a point system that is complicated and that doesn't work but I was thinking we needed something slightly more sophisticated than $400-$2000 makes you pro...it doesn't leave a progression for players.

simple is good, I have a background in process improvement and I am very much into simple

I have never spent much time considering that issue...I will have to start giving that some thought

[TSR_Brad]

Hey, I said I didn't have EVERYTHING figured out. Gotta start somewhere though, right?

There's no doubt that there needs to be some methodology to define classification. However from what I've historically seen, after the top  20-25 seed (and I think I'm being generous) the impact of rank on who wins an event is greatly diminished... at least in Open events. And I'd bet that winning $2K in Open event money is harder than it sounds for a vast majority of players.

[Steve]

Do pros in other sports have a point system to rank players? I think its good to get rewarded for your efferts at all leavels heres  what I dont like table fees $40.00 $120.00 to get in events most players cant afford that then gas to get there.come on Hotel air fair You have to place 1or2nd in the pros to even think about recouping any thing .We all love to go to the events but if you have a family you have to think twice. So if you take the money from beginers rookies they will slowly stop going and only play in there local tournaments.

[bbtuna]

Steve,

the vast majority of players at every rank, which I stated earlier...don't make any money anyway...you can't fix everything at the same time without a huge influx of money...you can have a bunch of money for the Amateurs and bunch of money for the Pro's, lower entry fees, less travel expenses, etc

we can't get more money for tournaments without raising entry fees or bringing money in from an outside source (i.e. sponsors)

but we can try and shuffle the funds we have and change the approach to tournaments for better future for the game...not the best future, just a better future than we currently have

[chance37]

where th F*** are the sponsors....a common thing everyone seems to agree on is more outside sponsorship....anyone out there in marketing or fundraising or sales.....another can of worms...

[bbtuna]

people have been trying for years and years...you have to think if Brunswick wanted to, they could get one of their big sponsors to throw a couple of bucks and a little attention toward their other "sport"

Bud would be a great sponsor

people say foos isn't a spectator sport and the way it is presented now I agree (unless you are foosfreaks like us) but could you imagine what a creative team of people with all the available technology could do...all the angles, slow motion, and stuff like they do with the puck in hockey or the the added stuff they have been putting on football (first down line and other stuff)

if you added knowledgable commentary (Jim Stevens) and good color analysts (Brad, Brandon, and Mark) and I think it could become a very spectator freindly game

in person they could fix the spectator issue with big screens

this is art, atheltics, speed, and chess mixed and I believe if given the money and presented right, it could be very interesting for people

a lot of things need to happen for this to come true not the least of which is to design a table that new and super casual players can feel accomplished on everytime they step up

[chance37]

i couldnt tell you how many people that pass by when im practicing at a bar before a tournament....i tend to get there hours in advance....but i couldnt tell you how many people stop and watch and say damn I never knew foosball was that technical...I tell them to stick around for the tournaments.....but people love to watch it...they have poker night at the bar hewre where we play our tournaments and its hard to watch sometimes becasue people are constantly in awe of the matches and play.....People tend do dislike or ignore what they don't know....but once they know and understand it can be a powerful thing...

[Steve]

we need more faith in the people running the show it`s hard to go so big with people who dont have any awarenss of the game(sponcors) Let your local paper know of some tournaments maybe they will show up.

[bbtuna]

the people in charge (in America, i.e. Tornado) have a very long history of not taking care of things

ITSF is heading in the right direction and has done a lot of positive stuff just not enough and not enough here in the US

[Steve]

I havent been around in a while so I have some catchen up to do.

[Rios]

Guys...
How are we to gain numbers in foosball when we dont pay Rookies anything? Yes it sounds good in theory, when you say that we should only give them trophies, ribbons, table time, exp., ect.  And that it will give them incentive to move up... well, you have to have a player base who will accept that theory. Unfortunatly we do not have that luxuray...
You have to throw them a bone, give them incentive to drive the 8hrs to go to a tournament. Hey, I am not saying to pay them equal to what is paid to Pros or SemiPros. But give them some kind of money to help with the expenses...

Honestly, how many noob players do you think would travel a long distance to play in a tournament and cant win any kind of money? Not very many... and the ones that do, how many of those tournaments do you honestly think they will attend? Again... not very many. Only the die-hard foozers would be willing to dump alot of money into the trips and entry fees only to gain a piece of plastic. And unfortunatly it is those die-hard foozers that our sport is lacking...
The only way that you could do the scenario where you dont pay Rookies, is if you make them pay substantually less than the money winning ranks. Which in turn would KILL the pay-outs, and in turn KILL foosball.

The sandbagging issue should resolve itself with the new point system. If a Rookie wins enough to get into the money and then losses on purpose... well, he would have won enough matches to give him substantial points that would eventually move him up in rank.
I do agree with the idea of updating the points 2x's a year instead of just once. That would again help with the sandbagging issue.

Keep foosball alive.
Pay Rookies alittle, Semi's some, Pro's alot

[TSR_Brad]

Honestly, how many noob players do you think would travel a long distance to play in a tournament...

This then begs the question... SHOULD they be traveling a long distance to play? Hmmm.

[bbtuna]

Rios,

How many Rookies and Semi Pro's at a Tournament make any money...2 or 3?  maybe 4 or 5 if the payout is deep but still only the first 2 or 3 at the most, will win enough to pay for their costs...

we are talking about a very small percentage of people that have a realistic chance at winning anything...people dream but lets face it, 90%+ of players go to a tournament knowing they are not likely to recoup any cost

Lets set aside for a minute the current player base and assume they would be okay with this change...the new players coming in would totally get it...it is normal in any other sport...they would pay to compete, learn, and/or have fun because they would see that as the cost of their hobby/game/sport

This would upset at least some people in the current base but it would not prohibit new players from coming on board and it might shift enough money to make turning Professional (again in the US this means being a "paid" athlete) a little more attractive

However, I will say, even with this shift, alone, it will not make all the difference that is needed but it will be a good step in the long term development of the game...Professionals should be paid, Non-Professionals should not be paid

if the game ever grows to the point where there is tons of money available then at that point you can have layers of Professionals (like minor league sports today or “semi-Professional” leagues) but still, even then, Non-Professionals should be unpaid or Amateurs as defined in college sports today and as the Olympics was defined in the past and still is for most sports

The game will never grow like it should if money for tournaments is determined solely on entry fees but while we have this situation, we can still begin to take steps of laying a foundation for what this game/sport should look like in the future

[papafoos]

Back in the late seventies or early eighties, foosball in Oklahoma was beginning to suffer.  At the time, there were no "rankings".  Every tournament was an open.  Most of the money was being won by the same small group of players.(sound familiar?)

We were among the first to use a ranking system.  The idea was to give the players a chance of winning who wouldn't have a prayer against the top players.

The tournament director used his discretion to rank players.  Not really fair, but we were struggling to get the numbers back up and rankings were new to us.  They moved up when it looked like they were dominating their class.  There were not that many pros as I remember.  Kevin Keeter, Steve Swearingen, Mark Crowell, Lane Honeycutt, Tony Turner were a few.  I got stuck in expert, which was fine with me.  Some people whom I considered equal to me were allowed to play rookie.  But there wasn't that much complaining because it was still pretty new to us.

Jay Brotherton was running the majority of tournaments at the time.  We started with three ranks and I don't remember if we called them rookies or novices.  He started paying the rookies more than the experts and pros.  Needless to say, the rookie division exploded.  We had the biggest tournaments (in number of entries) than we have ever had since.  A lot of the players who started about this time still play some today.  Tommy Adkisson was among these rookies.  But there were a lot of other pretty good rookies too.

Later, when Link Pendley became the main promoter, he still payed the rookies pretty good but not quite the way Jay did.

The point I'm trying to make here is:

We built our grassroots program by paying the rookies.  Any one who has gone to a tournament in Oklahoma in the last couple of years can see we just don't have the base we used to.  It's getting too expensive and now all we have are the diehards.

[TSR_Brad]

I'll get back to my earlier post...

If foosball is played AS A SPORT, then rewarding mediocrity (and that's what you're doing by paying Rk/Am) diminishes the integrity of that SPORT.

If you consider it a recreation (which I think a large majority of players do, hence playing for enjoyment) then you need to take the money out of the equation or as I suggested before, go play in a league. It isn't youth sports where they don't keep score and everyone gets a medal so no one feels bad... or are issued a rebate check when you walk through the door at a tournament.




Another heretical idea I'd like to see come to pass... Complete competitive separation between the Pro and non-pro player.

Chew on that one for a while.