I'd like to reply to Nick's question about the purpose and timing of Tour 0. I think it was me and Possum at the Exeter tour last year that first starting talking about how something like Tour 0 would be useful to sort out some problems such as seeding and only 3 tour events. The problem was that initial seedings were based purely on the results at nationals the year before. If you didn't go, then you were immediately relegated to the B tour, unless you could convince the appeals group that there were exceptional circumstances. Fire 2 didn't convince them, and ended up in the B tour for one tournament. By having a pre tour tournament, any newly formed teams, or any teams that were unable to attend nationals (because it was someone's weddings, too many injuries, etc.) could play their way into the A tour, or at least earn themselves a more suitable seeding. When games at a tournament are long and worthwhile, it is important to have fairly accurate seedings. Basing some on nationals almost a year earlier and the non-attendees almost arbitrarily does not lead to a satisfactory schedule.
Having Tour 0 so early compared to the open season is not ideal, but it was pencilled in when the open tour and mixed tours were going to run concurrently again. That decision was overturned by the public outcry. By placing Tour 0 just before the open season would have pushed the mixed season even earlier which hardly seems fair on the mixed season. As I said, it's not ideal, but it has to be better than basing seedings just on nationals. As for the cost, I was shocked by Adam charging £180. Shocked that he didn't charge even more! I know Adam and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to tournament pricing, TD's personal profit, etc. (Thanks for the comment Stevie G), but you really can't have a go at Adam while not complaining about all the open tour tournaments last year costing more than £150. I don't want market forces playing a part in Ultimate. I get enough of that capitalist rubbish in the rest of my life and have always felt Ultimate is above that which is why it is time I got off my arse and start putting in some tour bids again. If you feel the same, then do something about it, or at least support the bids next year which will be put in under the name of Junior women and U17s (Nick, jump in now if you want GB Junior Open to bid too and we'll try to monopolise the market). Maybe we should just charge £80 per team with an optional donation of £100 and see who is willing to pay the higher amount knowing that every penny of profit will help send Juniors off to Vancouver or Poland. Kev. __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
