As far as I recall, one of the main reasons for splitting the open tour into A and B was to reduce the number of teams at each tournament and consequently to increase the number of venues capable of accommodating a tour event. This should in theory mean that more people are able to bid for a tournament, thereby spreading the wealth a bit and hopefully giving better value for money for players.
The fact that some of the tours last year were not split indicates that there was either a lack of suitable bids or the UKU DoC decided to keep Tours A&B together for some reason (not having a dig - big respect for all your work etc.). I suspect it was the former. Obviously T0 is not split (except for the top 4) and is therefore likely to have a hefty turnout, unless people decide to "vote with their feet" thereby jeopardising their chances of a decent seeding at T1. Perhaps this is one tournament that should be run BY (rather than for) UKU with profits going back to the Ultimate community. Let's face it, anyone running this kind of tournament ought to be paying UKU for the privelege! There's little chance that you'd get 50 odd teams paying £180 to attend an outdoor tournament in March unless, as in this case, it's a UKU sanctioned event at which attendance is seen as practically compulsory for most open teams in the UK. Also, a bit of transparency wouldn't go amiss, e.g. what bids were received, how did they rank, why were they rejected, etc? As for the remainder of the tours, it remains to be seen whether there will be an increased number of acceptable bids. I hope so, but until this happens I suspect that many people will shrug their shoulders, huff and puff a bit and end up paying a bit more. Eventually people might get off their arses (me included if I had the time!) and organise a tournament themselves, assuming they can find a suitable venue of course! Anyway, just a few thoughts to mull over. Ben FC#78 __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
