Additional reffing reform

[Wadidiz]

I think the first place to start is with a paid, qualified, certified, independent field head-judge on every field. I think all expenses paid plus €100-150 per day would be right. That would cost a 5-field tournament around €5000 according to my rough estimates and would mean entry fees, other profit centers or sponsorship would have to go up to cover that cost.

So, would substantially better refereeing, along with player-refs that are motivated by the chance to earn points if they simply do a normal job of reffing, be worth an additional €50 per team on average?

 

[Collier]

Personally I think the sponsor's cost and the entry fee are too high as it is!
Maybe the extra cost should be found in the promotors/boards 400% profit??

Paul.

 

[raehl]

What was that Steve?

Entry fees or sponsorship would have to go up in order to provide a quality reffing staff?

Only took ya' 5 months to come around.

- Chris

 

[raehl]

400% profit?

Are you nuts?

We paid $4500 in reffing costs for ONE day for five 5-man fields. And that was for teams who were all within driving distance of the events, AND didn't want to also PLAY the event. I plan on spending at least $10,000 on ONE field for the 4 days of collegiate world cup this year by the time we factor in airfare, hotel, wages, etc. That starts to add up pretty quick when you're running multiple fields - a quick extra $50,000 an event over not paying refs anything - or an extra $500+ per team.


You're only going to get what you're willing to pay for. Even if there's enough room in the profit margin to cover it without raising fees - it makes no sense for a promoter to do osmething to make less money just because you think they should. No business operates like that.

"We've determined tht the players want better reffing. If we spend $50,000 on it, we'll pull in an extra $30,000 in entry fees due to increased attendence, giving us $5,000 extra on our current margins."

"We only lose $45,000 providing better reffing? Let's do it!"

Not going to happen.

- Chris

 

[Wadidiz]

What was that Steve?

Originally posted by raehl
Entry fees or sponsorship would have to go up in order to provide a quality reffing staff?

Only took ya' 5 months to come around.

- Chris

Let's put this is in perspective, Chris. Millennium had provided a much better reffing staff generally than PSP in the last 3 years. The overall quality of Millennium tournaments brought in the jealousy factor among American players who participated. NPPL Super 7 followed the lead of Millennium and put on two top quality tournaments in America that probably are better all round than the first two Millenniums of this year.

Therefore what I'm talking about is improving the quality of reffing by dealing with some of the weaknesses of the player-reffing system.

The entry fees for NPPL are substantially higher than Mill, they offer PRO or imported reffing, they offer better prizes but are generally thought to be losing money.

Millennium offers lower entry fees and 10-game preliminaries on grass lawns and usually in stadium-type places.

As for the actual cost to put on a 100-150 team tournament, I have no idea.

So I ask the question: would you, as a team captain, be willing to shell out €50 more in entries to have at least one top-level, indepedent, pro ref on every field?

 

[Collier]

400% profit?

Originally posted by raehl



You're only going to get what you're willing to pay for. Even if there's enough room in the profit margin to cover it without raising fees - it makes no sense for a promoter to do osmething to make less money just because you think they should.

- Chris

Maybe to keep their customers??

Everyone has costs to think of. Tell ya what think of every penny you have to spend to play the series as a whole. work out average cost including flights, hotel, paint, car hire the lot. Then devide it by 10 (min number of games) I did, it scared the crap outta me!!

Something else to chew on, only teams that haven't played any Mill events before (or is it only played 1 other? I can't remember) can enter as novice therefore all the teams that used to play as novice now play AmB, of course with that honour comes a higher entry fee (300 euros per team isn't it?). If that aint a money spinner I don't know what is, genius though! pure genius!

Paul.

 

[raehl]

Indeed... but you'll only do it if you retain/gain enough customers to offset the costs of doing so.

I think one of the reasons events in the US are better this year is precisely because there's a S& *AND* a PSP - so you're more likely to lose teams to somewhere else if you're not spending money to make sure they stay with you. Does that happen for Millenium? The cost of them not doing something is likely much lower since they're the only all-Europe paintball league.

Of course, this is all based on the leagues operating like a normal commercial enterprise would - and I don't think they do. I think if we really knew what kind of money these guys were taking in and what kind of expenses they had (and I have a fairly good idea) we'd wonder what they were doing in the business in the first place.

Maybe it's different in Europe, but stateside paintball event promotion is not the way to make money. The people who want money run scenario games.

- Chris

 

[Wadidiz]

A couple og things

Originally posted by Nick Brockdorff
I believe a LOT of judges have no ill intentions, but are just really crappy judges, with lack of knowledge, training or inclination.

And it really isn't that hard to do something about !

First of all - we give out points to judging teams - but give the same to everyone.

I believe that judging teams should be ranked at the event, so that their points are similar to that of the winning team down to 6th place (if there a 6 judging teams).... i.e.... let the judging teams COMPETE to get first place, second place, etc... points.

The ranking should be done by the attending teams.

Yes.... that would mean SOME teams would vote to give their peers few points... but as most judging teams SHOULD be Pro anyway - and the Pro bracket only covers around 15 % of the teams, that won't be too big a problem !

Secondly - I believe judging should solely be done by Pros when possible.... they are the most experienced players - and as such have the best circumstances for becoming good judges.

This means you HAVE to give them some sort of compensation to do it... because at the moment nobody wants to, because they can't use points for anything (no Series prizes - which is ridiculous).

Third - EVERYONE knows who the best judges are.... Ugly Ducklings and Joy Division.

Hire those two teams to train the judges at a 5 hour course the day before every event - so that EVERY judge has been given proper training on rules, positioning, decorum, etc.

Nick

I don't know, Nick. I think it might be problematic to try to set up competition at each event between the judging teams. I had in mind some kind of recognition, in a symbolic way, of a job well done.

I do think that generally the Swedish judges and the Ugly Ducklings are the best judges I've seen. I must also add that I am very impressed with the Norwegian and Finnish judges I've seen (Am I falsely influenced by my friendships and my residence in Norden?).

I like the idea of a training course conducted by teams like yours. I'm not sure you need 5-hours for the course. Maybe a couple of hours is enough. Nevertheless, a really good idea. And we could start giving cerficates to teams or players.

And I agree that series ranking should be recognized much more, although it does mean a lot for top-level ranking at the top of the industry/sport. It means a lot to sponsors.

Steve

 

[raehl]

Hrm...

Well while I think a competition between teams at each event is a bad idea ...

Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to provide an incentive for teams to fill out reffing comment cards after the event, stating how many games they played on each field and what they thought of the reffing on that field, and maintaining a public database of each team's ratings?

You don't have teams competing against each other, but you do have a public record of what teams seem to be on with their reffing and what teams seem to slack.

You could also appoint a few "staff" to observe games and rate the refs and factor that in as well.

Of course, one wouldn't be surprised if teams whose reffing is rated well wouldn't start asking to be paid accordingly - so put into practice at your own risk.

- Chris

 

[Wadidiz]

Hrm...

Originally posted by raehl
Well while I think a competition between teams at each event is a bad idea ...

Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to provide an incentive for teams to fill out reffing comment cards after the event, stating how many games they played on each field and what they thought of the reffing on that field, and maintaining a public database of each team's ratings?

You don't have teams competing against each other, but you do have a public record of what teams seem to be on with their reffing and what teams seem to slack.

You could also appoint a few "staff" to observe games and rate the refs and factor that in as well.

Of course, one wouldn't be surprised if teams whose reffing is rated well wouldn't start asking to be paid accordingly - so put into practice at your own risk.

- Chris

I think rating cards filled in by players or team captains would be good. But I think independent head-field-judges should also keep a "scoresheet" for the judges under their supervision. Additionally there should be a couple of supervisors who randomly watch games on the different fields and eventually get around to evalutating the performance of every judging crew at the tournament, if not every judge.

Then the points,which should be EARNED not just given out, will be either given or not depending upon whether or not each judge fulfilled her/his requirements.

Steve