Topic: Money for winning

[bbtuna]

Brad,

I don't think that is a bad idea...however, any major changes should be considered in a slow rollout with steps something like this...

1st change payout structure so that only "Semi-Pro" gets anything and that would be much less than now - also in this step, limit entry, select one or the other as I have suggested in earlier tournament format
2nd Move to clear distinction between Pro and Non-Pro and announce that Semi-Pro will be going away over the next X amount of time and that when that happens there will no longer be mix between Pro and Non-Pro except for "Open" DYP or other noted Specialty Events
3rd Make the final and complete split

[chance37]

i think the best resoulution would be more sponsors...think itd be easier to do than the structure change then all you have to do is convince outside people to give cash or donations or whatever the hell elsew they want instead of convincing everyone that one way is better than the other because there are several points on each side of the arguement i agree with...

[Rios]

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.

Well, if this group of players dont travel, then you could expect a significant decline in tournament foosball. How many people do you think actually have to travel to get to tournaments??? By far, the majority. How many players have a tournament (of any significant size) that comes within 5 hours of their location? By far... the minority!  The fact of the matter is, foosball players HAVE to travel... it just comes with the territory. So the question was Should they travel a long distance to play???  yes, they have to if they want to play! And I am sure that many of the pro's and pro-masters are glad that they do because where do you think they get the majority of their pay-outs from?  Rookies!!!

[Will17]

If I were running a tournament I would focus on getting more rookies/newbies into the tournament. I think that having 3 tiers in the tournament is best - 1. Rookie - 2 expert(or semi pro or amateur) - 3. Pro. You will not get new people to go to a tournament with a high buy in unless they get something for it, thats not just for foosball but for any other hobby or sport. you cant find a sport or hobby that has the rookies supporting the pro's. I think after someone has placed in the money in a rookie tournament they should move up to the expert category for good. I don't know about which point system to use or whether it should be based on money but the only way to get enough money into the pro players hands is with sponsors and there is no way around that. Tournaments should advertise in unconventional ways, hit up facebook with tournament pages. you can even search on facebook to find people that have foosball listed as one of there activities/interests and message that group of people inviting them to a tournament. also market in bar's that don't have pool tables. the funny thing about foos is that most people think they are good at it because they play at work sometimes or had a table as a kid or play at school sometimes, so you would just need to get those people to register for a cheap entry fee and then you would be able to get big sponsors(coke, red bull, ford etc) because of how many people they would reach. you cant look for foosball specific advertisers, you can find a ton of companies that spend soo much money on advertising that reaching a lot of people easily would be great for them. why don't we have tournaments with companies names in them? The Red Bull Series, The Ford Classic, other tournaments/venues are not named after things within the sport. Don't take money from the rookies to support the pro's. take the value that you get by having rookies and use it to get money out of companies.

[Rios]

BB-

Again I am not saying to pay Rookies or Semi's alot of money. What I am saying is to give them some incentive to travel and play. I totally realize that only a small percentage of players have a realistic opportunity to come out with some cash. The only real people that "make" money in a big tournament are Pro-Masters, and promoters... which is how it should be!

What I am saying is that if you give the Rookies and Semi's a "chance" to help with their expenses it will definalty attract more foosers than playing for a trophy or ribbon or jacket.... yes those are nice, but they dont put gas in their car. Granted alot of foosers accept the fact that they are going to lose money, and that a foosball tournament is to be used as a "vacation". Now here is a question for you... how many "vacations" is the average joe fooser going to be able to make a year? One maybe two???

If you give people just a chance to win some money, they will be more likely to attend more tournaments.  Money shouldnt be a motivational factor in a foosball player... but without money... you cant play foosball...
it is a vicious cycle

You cant compare Amature players in baseball, basketball, football, etc. with Amature foosball players, it is a totally different ball of wax... if you are to compare them with other Amatures... compare them with Amature pool players, or darts players, or bowlers, etc...
and yes they do win money, ALOT more than Amature foosball players win might I add...

[bbtuna]

Will,

You said, "you cant find a sport or hobby that has the rookies supporting the pro's"  ... well, yes and no...no other hobby/sport/game supports all their tournaments based on entry fees alone so there really is no comparrsion

you are seeing this from your current understanding and bias of the way things are...you can't see the entry fees as supporting one or the other...they are a cost for being in the tournament...this is one of the BIG issues in my mind with the way things are right now

the issue is that people see a correlation between their entry fee and the "potential" payout...I mean, based on this logic, the Pro's should be supported only by their own entry fees, think about how that would work out

it is fundementally wrong, forget foosball for a minute, it is fundementally wrong to have NON-Pro's paid - if they are paid, they are no longer NON-pro they are PRO

Rios,
Darts, bowling, etc are not fair comparrisons for a couple of reasons...first off, they all have sponsor money, lots and lots of it compared to foosball (well any would be a lot compared to foosball)

secondly, each of the games/sports you mentioned have Amateur player bases 100's of times larger than foosball entire population...so they have a larger group of people than we do who are elligible for money and if they call them Amateur than we are arguing over semantics

Professional needs to mean something...traditionally in this country it has meant a PAID athlete and an Amateur is an UNPAID athlete

whereever you want to draw the line, there should be a clear Amateur UNPAID group and a Professional PAID group...today the vast majority of players are Amateur but they take up 1/3 or more of all the money available in tournaments (that and useless events but that is another topic)

[Rios]

Well, with that argument BB you cant compare foosball to ANY sport then. Because foosball just doesnt have the numbers of other games. The reason why I compared foosball to bowling, darts, and pool is because they all fall into the same type of "bar sport" category.  I mean, I go and play in local golf tournaments and win money... am I considered a professional because I won money? no... far from it.  I would say that a "professional" is someone who can make a living from the money they win...

I guess the main thing I am trying to get across here, is that if you take away payouts to the lower ranks and pay only the Pro's... I just dont see how that will help foosball grow. I tell you what it will do, is probably make the sport more competitive because the only Amatures that will play will be those that feel they have a legitimate chance at moving onto becoming Professionals.  The average Joe Schmo foosball player will just stop going alltogether or just go to one tournament a year.

Bottom line is, the only way that foosball will grow to the numbers of bowling or pool is if we get some sort of sponsorship, so that there can be an increase in prize money, which unfortunatly doesnt look like it is gonna happen anytime soon. However, having Corona at last years Worlds was a great step in the right direction. Has there been any talk of them or anyone else sponsoring the Hall of Fame coming up?

[TSR_Brad]

Darts, bowling, etc are not fair comparrisons for a couple of reasons...first off, they all have sponsor money, lots and lots of it compared to foosball (well any would be a lot compared to foosball)

Here's the biggest difference between the cited games/sports/activities and foosball... long-standing, well organized LEAGUE PROGRAMS that cater to nearly all categories of participants EXCEPT the "pro". And in pretty much each of those activities, events that pro-ranked players' participate in are separate from the rank-and-file players.

You see pool and dart tournaments with massive participation for very large prize funds. Guess where a lot of that money comes from... from local leagues that gets funneled up the chain to help fund the larger events. With the popularity of poker and the concept of "satellite tournaments", why not apply that to foosball? Small buy-in, potentially large pay-off for those who excel.

[Daniel]

I think most players and promoters only care that the turn out is large and if paying amateur and semi pros some of there money back does this I say lets do it.  We all want foosball to grow and this might be the way to do it.  We need to hear from large promoter like Mary to tells us how payouts effect turnout.

[EDGEER]

Pro bowlers have to play in a league every 12 months.  They also have to participate in the Pro-am events.  What we need is Jim Stevens to produce a series, purchase time on the cable and satelite networks,and eventually hire a marketing firm to sell advertising based on the shows ratings.  Otherwise, there is nothing of value to market.  

[TSR_Brad]

What we need is Jim Stevens to produce a series, purchase time on the cable and satelite networks,and eventually hire a marketing firm to sell advertising based on the shows ratings.

Hold on... I'll call him. I'm sure he could use a good chuckle.

[EDGEER]

Hold on... I'll call him. I'm sure he could use a good chuckle.

You know I am serious.  At this point in time Jim is the only man on earth as far as I know that can make it happen.  Is it risky? Yes.  But it is less risky for him than any one else because he knows what he is doing, he has the experience and probably the desire.  Oh and while is co-commentator is suspect, his board man is top notch! 

[TSR_Brad]

I'm serious too, Ed. He'd laugh is butt off.

[Steve]

If you want big sponcers the sport has to be visable to the masses they wont put money in a sport no one can watch.I went to the Michigan tournament in southgate I thought it was a low turn out from the late 70s I thought there was a lot more people showing up then?

[Will17]

If you want big sponcers the sport has to be visable to the masses they wont put money in a sport no one can watch.

You could also get big sponsors by having a lot of people attend the tournament, even if it is not on TV or drawing any attendance for people watching you could still get big name sponsors to pay... I.e. If we had a really big tournament scheduled, like the Hall of fame classic or the us open. if we have a lot of people registered it would be appealing to a company like ford or pepsi or any of the companies with large advertising budgets. we could do a lot of things to help this - Hold the tournament in a public place such as a large shopping mall... if the FORD US OPEN was being held with big banners everywhere and a few cars parked around in a mall with a lot of people registered it would be great publicity. all we would need is like $20,000 to add on top of the way things are currently done and it would increase payouts by soo much. $20,000 isn't much to those companies... they could put the Ford logo on a jacket that is given to the winner. they could have a flier that gets mailed to all the participants along with a confirmation of registration. things like the forward shootout could be the F-150 forward shootout... everyone that comes to the tournament could get a free t-shirt with "the FORD us open" on it. if we offer big companies a good oportunity to reach a lot of potential consumers to sponsor the tournament they will do it. Remember even if this plan is rejected by ford there are millions of beer companies, car companies, fast food chains, sports drink companies etc that we could hit up with one marketing plan.