A Plea to TDs Everywhere....
Dear tournament directors-
(before i get started, i know cooke has already ranted on this. but, i think it is really important and I want to remind people again.)
Currently, I am an assistant coach, a regional coordinator and a member of the NUMP. It has become increasingly more and more frustrating to find results for tournaments this year thus making it difficult to vote on the NUMP, scout for my team, and eventually, seed for regionals/sectionals. I am begging Tournament Directors to at least have pool play brackets and championshp brackets up on the score reporter. There are only three, THREE!!!!, tournaments this spring that have both up with 90% of the scores (or just a W-L) filled in. Congrats to those who ran FWC (Florida) Presidents Day (UCSD), and Stanford Invite (missing chump bracket, but pretty damn good, Cultimate). I personally thank you.
Some tournaments have nothing (no pools or brackets) up on the score reporter: SB invite, mardi gras (eh, i kind of cut you guys some slack...24 teams is big), Chucktown Throwdown, Wooster (just happened, i understand)
Some tournaments have no scores at all reported but pools and brackets are there: Hellfish
Some tournaments have pools, but no brackets: QCTU (lots of missing pool play scores), Hendrix, UCLA Invite, Atlantis (just happened, i understand)
Deciphering Sunday results without a bracket is tough.
(In my mind, vegas is moderately off the hook because the 32 team pool play option/bracket on rodney is probably a mess. I am sure there was some ridiculous rant about it on RSD. )
The RRI is also a mess (not that anyone ever takes it that seriously), but it would be interesting to actually read if the records on there were even 50% accurate.
I almost want to offer my services. Maybe, for like 25-50$ (depending on the size of your tournament), I will spend some time to help put up your pools and brackets on the score reporter. I will try to figure out rodney for you. Then, you can hand the teams a nifty information sheet on how to report their scores on the score reporter (not to mention that as a TD you should probably collect scores as well). I understand the score reporter is not 100% user friendly, but can the nation have a little something after the tournament??? Please!?!?!?!?!?!?! So, budget that extra $50 into your tournament costs, shoot me an email, and I will see what I can do.
I know how much hard work it is to run a tournament as I have run more than a few myself. I thank all of you for running one in the first place. I also realize that there are going to be a few tournaments out there that are impossible to put up on rodney because of formatting issues or tough to prepare the reporter beforehand because of last minute drops. But, let's step it up a level and let the whole nation see what became of all of your hard work.
(before i get started, i know cooke has already ranted on this. but, i think it is really important and I want to remind people again.)
Currently, I am an assistant coach, a regional coordinator and a member of the NUMP. It has become increasingly more and more frustrating to find results for tournaments this year thus making it difficult to vote on the NUMP, scout for my team, and eventually, seed for regionals/sectionals. I am begging Tournament Directors to at least have pool play brackets and championshp brackets up on the score reporter. There are only three, THREE!!!!, tournaments this spring that have both up with 90% of the scores (or just a W-L) filled in. Congrats to those who ran FWC (Florida) Presidents Day (UCSD), and Stanford Invite (missing chump bracket, but pretty damn good, Cultimate). I personally thank you.
Some tournaments have nothing (no pools or brackets) up on the score reporter: SB invite, mardi gras (eh, i kind of cut you guys some slack...24 teams is big), Chucktown Throwdown, Wooster (just happened, i understand)
Some tournaments have no scores at all reported but pools and brackets are there: Hellfish
Some tournaments have pools, but no brackets: QCTU (lots of missing pool play scores), Hendrix, UCLA Invite, Atlantis (just happened, i understand)
Deciphering Sunday results without a bracket is tough.
(In my mind, vegas is moderately off the hook because the 32 team pool play option/bracket on rodney is probably a mess. I am sure there was some ridiculous rant about it on RSD. )
The RRI is also a mess (not that anyone ever takes it that seriously), but it would be interesting to actually read if the records on there were even 50% accurate.
I almost want to offer my services. Maybe, for like 25-50$ (depending on the size of your tournament), I will spend some time to help put up your pools and brackets on the score reporter. I will try to figure out rodney for you. Then, you can hand the teams a nifty information sheet on how to report their scores on the score reporter (not to mention that as a TD you should probably collect scores as well). I understand the score reporter is not 100% user friendly, but can the nation have a little something after the tournament??? Please!?!?!?!?!?!?! So, budget that extra $50 into your tournament costs, shoot me an email, and I will see what I can do.
I know how much hard work it is to run a tournament as I have run more than a few myself. I thank all of you for running one in the first place. I also realize that there are going to be a few tournaments out there that are impossible to put up on rodney because of formatting issues or tough to prepare the reporter beforehand because of last minute drops. But, let's step it up a level and let the whole nation see what became of all of your hard work.
posted by Mccants at 4:39 PM
4 Comments:
yeah for updates since i wrote this yesterday!!
Yeah, this is a little bit of a re-tread of gcooke's rant, but well deserving of it. As I said there, I don't get why someone would go to all the effort of hosting an event (which, as I know, is a lot of work) and then not bother with reporting the scores. It dramatically increases how visible your event is and how professional it appears.
Even Vegas doesn't get a free pass with me. Yes, it was a huge event, and the SRT doesn't have a perfect bracket to represent it. For a normal TD that would be a good excuse, but I have a higher standard when it comes to the Skips. One option would have been to represent all the crossovers as single brackets, then represent the top and bottom halves of the resultant 32 team draws as 16 team brackets, with the finals as an extra game tacked on the side. OK, maybe it's relatively easy for me to think of stuff like that (I probably have more SRT experience than anyone except Rodney), but they didn't even put up the pools. C'mon now, y'all are professionals. I would think they would want to put it up just so that potential '08 attendees would look at it and say, "damn, those are some serious brackets". To me, it's simply illogical to have a slick website, bring down the ultivillage team for highlights, but not put effort into presenting the results in a clean way.
Whatever Lindsey is offering for SRT work, I'll do it for a dollar less. I will not be undersold! ;)
Tarr:
You beat me to it-- I was going to offer the same rate for my services. Instead, I won't publish my bargain basement prices, but bartering is certainly welcome. Don't have cash? I might be convinced to work for a sandwich. It has to be the right sandwich though.
Please contact my representatives with any offers!
There's really nothing else to say on this topic other than *everyone* who knows this is an important step (from every single angle) and can't fathom why it isn't already done is dead on.
I'll do my part to help, for a nominal fee. That is I'll work, but I'm not a volunteer.
You guys have all hit the main point; you'd be willing to do it, but you won't do it for free.
Until teams are demanding that their results be posted...then tournament directors are not getting paid to do this. Heck, I'd go so far as to say the majority of the market does not want to pay for the extra time and effort.
As long as this is a volunteer effort from TD's, it will not happen.
Soooo, instead of the rants, what can we do to make it worth a TD's while to post results?
1)Demand this pre-tournament as a condition of getting a bid?
Problem; teams that are in a position to make demands are usually the top few teams...do they care?
2) Offer incentives to TDs?
Problem; yeah, right...who pays?
3) Don't put in bids to tournaments that don't historically report well?
Problem; demand for tournament spots is huge, and based on scheduling...your team holding out likely won't change a tournament's bottom line at all.
4) Use UPA labor? We could get this written into the National Director job description that they have a budget to get this done...then again, the ND job is part-time as it is (a HUGE mistake).
What else?
Anyway...my point is, rants are great and all...but they are an attempt to morally regulate an essentially business decision. Which doesn't work.
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