2010 College Regionals: Another Missed Opportunity
ckerr4
we've failed, as a sport, to take advantage of what should
be our most marketable event: College Regionals.
I checked Google News, which indexes over 4,500 newspapers,
including many college newspapers, for the key words: UPA
ULTIMATE COLLEGE REGIONAL
The results? I got back 8 references for the past month. 1
reference for the past week.
This is just so wrong.
In my opinion, no other event in all of ultimate has the
potential to attract more media attention, more spectators,
more buzz, than College Regionals.
I feel so strongly about this, I submitted a proposal last
year to restructure college ultimate completely around a
series of first class College Regional tournaments.
The proposal was called "Winner Takes All" because only the
regional winner was absolutely guaranteed a spot at the
National Championship.
Here's the (very long) proposal:
http://www.scoreomatic.com/docs/college-restructuring-winner-takes-all-15.pdf
Undoubtedly there are other solutions that could also be
effective for building up our regional tournaments, but I
believe that the key is having tournaments that follow UPA
guidelines, but are run by 3rd parties with an incentive to
market the event.
By not adopting a college structure that maximizes the
potential to market and promote College Regionals,
especially to school alumni, we are letting the athletes
playing our sport down.
We have to do better.
Charles
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Posted from http://www.rsdnospam.com
Reggie Fanelli
> Another season of college ultimate and I'm afraid once again
> we've failed, as a sport, to take advantage of what should
> be our most marketable event: College Regionals.
---upa doesn't care.
did the big wigs go to any of the regional events?
do they know if the fields were lined?
do they know how the observers did?
all they want are the teams at nationals...
Wagenwheel
Charles, you could not be more correct. They tend to think of Nat'ls
as the showcase event.
I understand they recently replaced the director of marketing for the
UPA. Let's hope change is coming in respect to promoting the game to
the general public and not making worthless youtube videos that poke
fun at one person in particular. UPA, you once again dropped the ball.
ckerr4
> Charles, you could not be more correct. They tend to
> think of Nat'ls
> as the showcase event.
>
> I understand they recently replaced the director of
> marketing for the
> UPA. Let's hope change is coming in respect to
> promoting the game to
> the general public and not making worthless youtube
> videos that poke
> fun at one person in particular. UPA, you once again
> dropped the ball.
I'm not looking to bash the UPA, they don't have the man
power to turn each of 8/16 regional college tournaments into
Nationals.
What I would like is to prod them into creating a college
structure where they maximize what's at stake at Regionals
("Winner Takes All") and then hand the running of the
tournaments over to 3rd parties that can run and promote the
events.
College Regional tournaments in their current form may not
be "unpromotable", but their formats are certainly far from
optimal.
I really believe these regional tournaments really should be
the engine that drives the sport forward in terms of
attracting spectators and future generations of players.
mgd.mitch
deal. masses aren't flying out to natties (people do, but
not thousands), whereas driving potential is much better
with regionals. but in terms of handing off responsibility
to 3rd parties to promote them, i don't see that as
improving resources per se. natties is an awesome
tournament. but a huge reason it is so is the $55/player
fee (40 teams * 20 players/team * 55 = $44k). the budget
for natties is huge (~4.5 times) compared to regionals (say
$300 * 32 teams = $9.6k). Are you going to get teams to
put up the same type of coin ($1100) for regionals on top of
nationals, especially those that barely make regionals.
until you can start selling tickets or getting sponsorships,
"resources" aren't going to increase unless the teams are ok
putting up national type fees for regionals.
just some thoughts.
ulticritic
> charles, i completely agree regionals should be a bigger
> deal. masses aren't flying out to natties (people do, but
> not thousands), whereas driving potential is much better
> with regionals. but in terms of handing off responsibility
> to 3rd parties to promote them, i don't see that as
> improving resources per se. natties is an awesome
> tournament.
with a 45K budget it better be. i think what chuck is saying is that
independent tds would/could get more outa that 45K......ESPECIALLY if
they could provide local officials and pay them a per game wage as
appoosed to paying them nuthin and still having a 20K observer travel
expense. i would think there would also be quite a bit of waste in
flying the non observing administrators out there. is it really
essential to have ANY of em there.
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but a huge reason it is so is the $55/player
> fee (40 teams * 20 players/team * 55 = $44k). the budget
> for natties is huge (~4.5 times) compared to regionals (say
> $300 * 32 teams = $9.6k). Are you going to get teams to
> put up the same type of coin ($1100) for regionals on top of
> nationals, especially those that barely make regionals.
good point........maybe the upa could ease off the costs of nationals
SO regionals can recieve more resourses. but that dosent account for
the lack of administration attentionand pr hype thats givin to those
events.........sectionals too. In fact, i would say that sectionals
is just as if not more important to "fluff up" because thats the end
of the line for 70% of the teams seasons AND based on the fact that
this is still a "participation based" sport in the eyes of the upa, so
participation, even at that level, should take pecidence over the
promotional aspect, even at nationals. the upa could also work in a
much more effecient and effective needs and wants assesment process at
sectionals and gather any and all data they wanted. i know when i
went and canvased an nc sectional tourny the particpants were
appreciative that SOMEONE was actually REACHING OUT to them.
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>
> until you can start selling tickets or getting sponsorships,
> "resources" aren't going to increase unless the teams are ok
> putting up national type fees for regionals.
or untill costs for said tournies are reworked and maybe some (or A
LOT) of fat is cut from the current budgets. DOES ANYONE HAVE ACCESS
TO A PRELIMINARY BUDGET OF WHERE EXACTLY THAT $55 PER PLAYER IS
GOING.......and if some of those expenses are really justified. I
never had any problems running a top rate tourny on a shoestring
budget and i couldnt imagine having 45 K to work with. In fact i dont
know where i would even spend that much money.