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| Nov. 21, 2022 Booyah30 5 posts | Feedback Good morning. I wanted to give some feedback to SSUSA after this past weekends tourney in AZ. I hope you are tracking team participation for the past years. I looked and the last 2 years have been the lowest participated tournaments in the 40 division. I only bring this up because USSSA and NCS are working very hard to make it in the senior game, especially out west. This past weekend 6 teams played in a AAA event on the same weekend. That is 6 teams that should have been playing SSUSA. Why is this happening? Listening to feedback from players I have spoken to, there are a few things that are brought up consistently. 1) The price is the highest of any tournaments for a worlds event. 2) The prizes do not meet what other groups are offering. Winter Worlds, you get to buy your ring and win a tshirt or hat. In AZ, the local tournament with 6 teams will give out a bat. I offer this to you because the up and coming players do not know SSUSA. They know USSSA and NCS. If you do not start to make changes, I fear the players will start to look elsewhere. You will always get participation for Worlds, but what about all the other local and regional tournaments. Just in AZ, there are around 20 40 AAA teams and 6-7 major teams. Yet this weekend had less than 20 combined for the whole tournament. I started senior ball in SSUSA and still love the game. |
| Nov. 22, 2022 mck71 Men's 60 344 posts | Sadly B30, this will continue because of smaller tourney's low overhead. With 6 teams, 1 guy can organize and run the tourney and still make money (1 day, teams don't have to pay hotel fees, etc). They use better balls because they can (only need a few dozen or have teams "hit their own"). Utrip has been trying to figure out the Senior game for a while now but I believe small pockets of TD's are doing what you described above in CA and TX and now AZ. FL plays tourneys in the FHC I believe twice a month so none of this is "new", just most 40's probably came up playing USSSA because most other associations are not strong nationally (ASA/USA or NSA). So been wondering when these guys would really start going after the 40's because those guys work and are used to weekend tourneys (Sat/Sun) where they don't miss time, this is also something that most SSUSA or ISSA tourneys don't do much of if at all. I know that Tim has made tremendous strides with the 40's program in Mid-Atlantic the past few years and would like to believe he has talked about this with Home Office. ISSA's 40's program is almost non-existent honestly, don't believe I have ever seen more the 4 teams at any recent tourneys even Smoky which is one of their biggest. Great info and excellent points but realistically, not sure how much will change (and I love this game as well, def not a Utrip guy, ASA was still going pretty good when I was younger). My 2 cents. Happy Thanksgiving to all and wishing you all a safe and happy holiday season! |
