One comment on the observer shortage, some tournaments end up not having an observer budget. For example, one of the upcoming regionals has a budget of $400 for observers (and isn't in a major ultimate hub). That doesn't even cover one flight, so there will be no observers at that event. TD wants to keep costs down, so observer budget is one of the first to get cut.
If tournaments don't put a budget, observers can't show up. It is tiring to get paid $0 to lose a weekend to work for others. And most observers are declining working tournaments at a loss.
That's a great point, and also part of why I think an investment in seriously increasing the numbers of observers, and trying to find some form of compensation is something worth putting time and energy into. Even if it's just giving people their next year of membership free for working like two weekends a year.
For sure! A $60 USAU membership is helpful, but compared to a $1000 flight, hotel, rental car, meal reimbursement (not including per game payment) it is a drop in the bucket.
I think players/TDs need to decide if they want to pay $50/player to get a good chunk of games observed or not. And based ultimate players complaining about a team fee of $400, I don't know if we will get there any time soon
Absolutely. I do think (and hope to write about in depth soon) that there is a level of grunt volunteer work that needs to be done to grow the sport in its current stage, and I think right now too much of that is concentrated in the responsibility of maybe 20-30 individuals across different parts of the sport. When maybe the right approach is trying to get 500 people to all do more than they’re doing right now but much less than the amount of time and energy the biggest volunteers are doing at this moment.
Also there are different approaches usau can take for different age groups. For me at age 22 not paying dues every year for the cost of spending a couple weekends immersed in high level ultimate sounds like a great deal. Other people/age groups will probably need more/different incentives.
One comment on the observer shortage, some tournaments end up not having an observer budget. For example, one of the upcoming regionals has a budget of $400 for observers (and isn't in a major ultimate hub). That doesn't even cover one flight, so there will be no observers at that event. TD wants to keep costs down, so observer budget is one of the first to get cut.
If tournaments don't put a budget, observers can't show up. It is tiring to get paid $0 to lose a weekend to work for others. And most observers are declining working tournaments at a loss.
That's a great point, and also part of why I think an investment in seriously increasing the numbers of observers, and trying to find some form of compensation is something worth putting time and energy into. Even if it's just giving people their next year of membership free for working like two weekends a year.
For sure! A $60 USAU membership is helpful, but compared to a $1000 flight, hotel, rental car, meal reimbursement (not including per game payment) it is a drop in the bucket.
I think players/TDs need to decide if they want to pay $50/player to get a good chunk of games observed or not. And based ultimate players complaining about a team fee of $400, I don't know if we will get there any time soon
Absolutely. I do think (and hope to write about in depth soon) that there is a level of grunt volunteer work that needs to be done to grow the sport in its current stage, and I think right now too much of that is concentrated in the responsibility of maybe 20-30 individuals across different parts of the sport. When maybe the right approach is trying to get 500 people to all do more than they’re doing right now but much less than the amount of time and energy the biggest volunteers are doing at this moment.
Also there are different approaches usau can take for different age groups. For me at age 22 not paying dues every year for the cost of spending a couple weekends immersed in high level ultimate sounds like a great deal. Other people/age groups will probably need more/different incentives.