The analysis for NEPL goes beyond how many out-of-staters are making an out of state SCS cut. The other issue is the in-state players getting the benefit of the high value of NEPL based on a large percentage of that league not happening in that state.
A better analysis for the top 16 is how many of those 16 finalists would have been different if the NEPL results didn’t count in Vermont at all?
It’s more about the Vermont players that only play in the Co-op events are at a pretty big disadvantage if they don’t participate in NEPL.
If NEPL results didn’t count in Vermont, the only change to the championship would be the 1 or 2 out of state players we get each year. While the points for NEPL are huge for the VT SCS, they don’t have much of a material impact on the subgroup called “people in Vermont who care about this stuff”.
If any player wanted to play in the VT championship but not NEPL, they could very easily qualify for a spot in the top 16 by playing semi-well in all our other events. This includes 12 monthly events that the Pinball Co-op runs for free. We have a handful of casual players who play in these monthly events, but even more who play in our pingolf leagues that happen during the 3 NEPL offseasons. Sometimes they get more into it and decide to play other events (including NEPL); sometimes they don’t.
Will the VT players care if the top 16 VT SCS points range from 40 to 4 instead of 160 to 16? I think they won’t.
Except for the $1 per player per season being shipped out of state, I don’t think there’s much to complain about. Is there any way to avoid this other than non-participation in the entire system?
I don’t want to derail the good discussion happening here again, but is there an up-to-date FAQ regarding exactly how the endorsement fee will work? I know there were a lot of questions about it and ~400 posts is a lot to track back on.
Probably my biggest question right now is if players still have an individual opt-out per-tournament, or if the opt-in/out is at the tournament level only. Per-player opens up a large can o’ worms and I want to fully understand how that’s going to work if so.
I believe, and please correct me if I’m wrong- that as of currently that option is up to the TDs primarily, not so much the players. For instance, the TD could have an endorsed/not endorsed list for a signup, and then only enter the results for those that opt-in. That seems like way more work than most TDs want to do. I know I’ll just be putting everyone as endorsed, though I haven’t decided if we’ll subtract that from the prize money or just eat the fee as a business. It’s looking closer to that latter than the former, but depending on the venue that might not be a viable option.
The opt-in or opt-out policy is 100% up to the TD on a per tournament basics. As is how they fund the $1 fee, either by pulling it from the prize pool, having the venue cover the cost, paying it themselves, charging players the extra $1 an top of the entry fee, etc. We leave that up to each individual TD to offer as much flexibility as possible.
These statements seem to be in conflict. If it’s per-tournament, then how can some people be opted-in and some not?
I don’t feel this should be a player option at all. The TD declares, ahead of time, that a given tournament either will or will not be endorsed, regardless of where the fee comes from. The player then decides whether they want to compete or not based on that declaration. Letting opt-ins and opt-outs mix in the same tournament hurts my head in so many ways.
There will be once we have the process locked down. Shepherd has started created the functionality for handling payment through the website. One thing we modified is that the split is going to be 75% State, 20% Nationals and 5% will be held by us to cover processing fees.
Handling the fees at the micro level with each TD’s balance individually was proving to be a pain.
If we end up with a surplus of funds we’ll add it to the Nationals pot. If the fees end up being more than 5% I’ll pay it out of my own pocket.
Sorry I wasnt clear. State will get 75% of the GROSS, not net. We’re paying out 95% of the GROSS and hoping that 5% covers the Stripe/Paypal/exchange rate fees that we will have to handle.
Handling the funds at NET value post fees was a cluster.
Reduced WPPR value when a decent amount of people decide they don’t want to pay the fee. You know our area, and you know that there are tons of people who don’t give a crap about States or rankings, so these people are unlikely to want to pay the extra dollar when they get nothing from it. Too much of that and WPPR values get drastically lowered for the tournament in question. There are people who play purely for WPPRs, as there are those that play for the money (see also: Magfest) and those that just play for fun. NB: I am assuming here that if say, a 50 person tournament only has 10 people who want to pay the fee, then as far as IFPA is concerned it’s a 10-person tournament. I’d hate to be someone who planned to travel for a biggie and got 3 points for first.
I have personal issues with the potential for people to be opted-in without their consent. Yes, this requires unscrupulous TD’s who pay the fee on behalf of others, or who don’t disclose that some portion of some funds are being used for this purpose, or any number of other Bad TD Things ™. It’s going to happen though, and since it can be used to boost tournament size as far as IFPA is concerned, this is dangerously close to “paying for WPPRs” in my mind. I’ve raised this concern before and I know I’m in the minority, so no need to hammer the rusty nail again on this one.
In the end though, this is all just my opinion. I’d be very happy to be proven wrong.
Did you ask them? You may be surprised. I was. Everyone that’s a regular at my events is cool with the $1
This is why I suggest that communication is made that this tournament will be taking $1 per player one way or another and that way you can find out well in advance on the turnout and traveling folks will know what they are getting into.
Again. Communication is key. Every event I run starting in 2018 will be submitted to the ifpa. I will be charging $1 to each player. Our tournaments are free entry and we play for bar credit. If they don’t want to be in the results, they don’t play. Simple as that.
I suggest doing this instead of offering the choice to the players.
But that’s exactly the point… if I know that, as a TD I don’t feel comfortable spending the money of the majority (or even a large minority) of my participants on something that’s zero value to them. (BTW, this is why I’ve never charged leagues to use the FSPA/PAPA League Manager system… sure, I’d love to make a little side cash, but it pains me to think of thousands of league players giving up some of their hard-earned money just to track results.)
As for being a reduced WPPR value… I don’t think any event can ever guarantee a participation level and an associated WPPR score, so participants shouldn’t really be coming thinking “1st place is worth 123 WPPRs!” … maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, who knows. Some of the opt-out folks may choose to boycott forced-dollar events anyway, so the true difference in WPPR value might not be that much.
I just came up with the perfect solution for this. For multi-state leagues you charge $1 per event for every state you qualify in. So if you’re qualifying in 4 states, you pay $4 per event instead of $1. That way every state gets their full contribution towards the state championship pool, and the system is preserved as intended.
