Let Us Get Real

[Inquartata]

[quote]Originally posted by PeterGustafsson
[b]

>There's always the World Championships, or even the Veteran's >Championships.

Not really the same draw as the games, compared with quitting fencing and getting into an ordinary career.

If these are the sort of fencers who are only in it for the glory and not the love of the game, perhaps. But again, is that the sort which we really want to make the norm in fencing? Maybe the sport would be better off without anyone for whom the only choices are a Gold Medal or quitting...

As to the Games as a draw, and each successive level of competition exerting a greater pull than the last, maybe my earlier tongue-in-cheek suggestion should be considered in this regard as well: we establish a Galactic Fencing Championship, and just THINK of all the people who'd be lured into fencing!

Many will not start coaching. Even if they do, what pint is there in a competition career cut short?

Again, the ones who are not in it for love may not, and good riddance to those, I think. And that they have their competitive careers cut short is a matter of personal choice, I think. There would still remain goals; if these no longer suffice to gratify their lofty expectations, to the point that they quit altogether, well...is it the responsibility of all other fencers and fencing organizations to provide a particular ( expensive ) avenue for these few? Or is it instead their responsibility to find goals within themselves?

Fencing has difficulties getting sponsoring even with olympic status, how would it be without?

I suppose that question can only be answered by the individual sponsors. If their support is wholly banausic, based only on getting a specific benefit such as TV viewership for their logos or whatever, they may withhold it, indeed. If not...perhaps not.

What we really need, I think, in this regard, is networks of fencers and current fencers now in positions of power in the business world, the way the big sports have booster organizations and "angels" who advance the interests of their former sports and teams. That gets the sort of sponsorship that is more than a mere tit-for-tat arrangement for mutual benefit...

Well in Sweden for example, there is a national organization for all sports federations, olympic or otherwise. I would imagine that such an organization exists in many countries. Look up their websites, and compare membership for olympic and non-olympic sports. Furthermore, I seem to remember that on the IOC webpage there was a list of sports which have applied for olympic status.

Recall that the original challenge was to find sports with neither Olympic, NCAA not big professional status which were nevertheless growing----not necessarily those with organizations which have appeared on the IOC radar screens. These are likely to be small ( but growing ) and multivarious, and many may not occur immediately to those compiling lists of sports. Does the Swedish national organization you mentioned include every conceivable sport, or only the established ones?

There is a rule that a sport must have stable and reasonably large activity in at least 40 countries spread over at least 4 continents (for the ladies events, the rule is 30/3).

However did such oddities as synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics ever make the Olympics? Was there some big untapped groundswell of sychronized swimming going on around the world> Or were these sports essentially invented specifically for the Olympics? Did they really have large contingents in over 40 countries before the Olympics? Or did the chicken come before the egg?

As said above, the multi-national criterion is one that I think should have been there from the beginning. my motivation for including it is not as posited below. The same goes for the rules-explanation criterion.

OK, but motive isn't really an essential element of an instance of a fallacy. In fact I daresay that most fallacious arguments are made all unawares. That's why they are so widespread---if people knew they were using them, they wouldn't ( unless it were their intentions to convince by any means, legitimate or no, as in politics or the law! ). The only thing one needs to know about a given argument is whether a fallacy has appeared---not WHY it has appeared, no?

Personally, I don´t think that FIE is bending over backwards (in changing rules of the game, rules of the competition format is another thing) to the IOC all that much.

Are we not forever seeing new rules designed to increase the appeal of fencing to television? Colored uniforms, ads on uniforms, plexiglas masks, recommendations for various Buzz Lightyear lights and such on the fencers...how long will it be until the IOC decides that these still aren't doing the trick, so please change the rules to make the action "less confusing" to the uninitiated spectator? There has already been some discussion of this sort of thing. ( Elimination of the white light in foil, reducing target in sabre, etc. )

Another thing is that some rules changes of the game may be good, even without IOC prodding.

To be sure; to say that any rule change idea coming from the IOC must necessarily be rejected solely on the basis of its origin would be to commit another sort of fallacy. However, I think that a lot of the things they would like to see happen would indeed drastically alter the nature of fencing, and not in a good way. One benefit from loss of Olympic status might be the elimination of these pressures from outside the sport, in service of goals having less to do with the sport than with money and the media.

Hey, we might even be able to lure back some of the "classical fencing" folk if the constant needling for more "modernization" of the game went away!

As has been said before, the USFA gets the great majority of its fund from USOC and its members. USOC probably (and rightly so, IMO) demand that its funding goes to further chances of US. medals at the games.

Ah! But do they define what it means to further those chances? Does the USOC insist that its funds be used narrowly in support of elite cadres, travel to international competitions for them and their coaches, armorers, officials and so on, camps for them, "performance awards", etc. ? Or does the USFA have latitude to use the funds more broadly---growing FUTURE elites and those likely to produce them, say---and has chosen on its own the present allocations?

This leaves dues (and other funds from members) as the almost total funding source for grassroots fencing (that sure sounds like a funny description, come to think of it. ) If you think that a substantial part of the dues go to administration or pure wastage, then I follow you. If you do not, I can not say that I see your argument. Please enlighten me in that case.

I think that there is almost certainly a great deal of inefficiency in the way these funds are spent, and I suspect too that the directions in which they are spent are almost certainly skewed toward, again, elite fencers. I doubt that the USFA separates the funds from the USOC from those they get from members, using the former to support the elites and the bureaucracy and the member funding on the membership. That is not the way bureaucracies function. Instead they tend to make insular decisions about which goals are most "worthy", and support those, often to the detriment of other goals which the membership might think most important. There comes to be a disjunct, in other words, between what the organization was created to do and what it thinks it ought to do, as "goal displacement" and other bureaucratic dysfunctions set in.

I suspect---anyone with more inside knowledge of the day to day workings of the USFA and its goal-setting processes may correct me if I am way off base here---that much of the funding from dues, entry fees, advertising, quantity-purchasing agreements, etc., also winds up going toward elite development. In addition to the USOC funding. Which leaves relatively little for the other priorities.

If state funding was cut straight off, these two things would cause Swedes to react slowly, since they are so well ingrained in most of us. During the meantime, any heavily state-funding dependent organization mich well capsize, or become permanently damaged to its structure.

But if state subsidization of just about every valued activity is so ingrained in the national psyche, and so institutionalized in the functioning of the government, is it likely that one such activity would be so unceremoniously cut adrift funding wise merely because it was no longer in the Olympics? Is it not more likely that it would be continued as long as the activity were valued domestically? Would that not promote the continuation of the docility, as you put it, of that segment of the population which valued fencing? Would not eliminating it make them restive instead?

One prime minister put it thus: "poverty is accepted well, when shared by everyone." Pretty well sums up the opinions by most labor voters - low spread in wealth more important than high average wealth.

Though I digress---is this not a sure way to decrease incentives for greater innovation and productivity, the things which alone can make a society better off even as resources are depleted?

we have not been in a war since 1812 (IIRC),

Not even WWII? Wasn't there extensive participation by Swedes in the Finnish conflict against the Soviets, and didn't some Swedish officers serve in the German Army?

[Inquartata]

Originally posted by epeemike81
probably NOT, due to a lack of funding. The entire point is that the USOC and NCAA are the organizations which provide the money (directly and indirectly) for the elite coaches. Without that funding, a great many of them won't see coaching as worth it.

I am more sanguine about this little corner of the labor market than you are.

In an international economy, factors of production---including labor, and including the subset of fencing coaches---will flow to wherever they are most valued. We have seen this in the influx of coaching expertise from the former Iron Curtain countries to the West, where they can make a living doing what they do best and, not coincidentally I think, what they love.

Yet there are still too few really first-rate coaches in the US, just as one example, to cope with the demand. Much of that demand must content itself with learning from, to be blunt, marginally qualified coaches, or even by no one more qualified to teach than the most experienced member of a particular club. Major cities, with markets for fencing which could well be exploited but for the lack of a top-flight coach to draw and create interest, go wanting.

Without the Olympics, sure, some coaches might throw up their hands. But I'd be willing to bet that a lot more would simply go where they are needed and wanted, instead of where the national Olympic committees send them. Good coaches would drive out bad, in other words, as the marginal ones lost their slim competitive advantage---being available locally---to really good ones, and good ones to world-class ones. And the more good coaches in an area, the more their students' rising skill levels would feed off each other in the region, and between regions.

Lessons might get more expensive; salle dues and floor fees might rise as the salles began to be run as businesses instead of part-time avocations. But the general level of expertise might well rise as coaches freed up from government service sought out new private markets.

You would argue that they will get new, private funding. From who?

From the same private sources whence it comes now, absent the Olympics-specific governmental largesse. There's simply be a transition from the public sector to the private.

you? how much do you pay for a coach?

A good case in point. For a long while I was without a coach at all...not for lack of desire but for simple lack of supply. There WAS no coach to be had in my city. Now there is one, of a sort, but I would categorize him as one of those marginal ones I mentioned above. I am learning from him, but I expect this learning to be short-lived, lasting only until he has exhausted what he himself has learned in a year or so of taking lessons with a top coach elsewhere. Nevertheless I am paying $20 per lesson. If he gives a mere 8 or 9 lessons a day, he is grossing more than I am...and without a set schedule...and with tax opportunities as a self-employed person than I have got.

Do you think I would not jump at the chance to pay a really first rate coach that much instead? That other fencers already being coached would not do so in order to "upgrade"?

the fact that your local media does occasional curiosity pieces about those sports illustrates the fact that they are NOT successful.

I do not believe that it proves any such thing. For example, they do not cover rodeo, either, despite the location in the West--does thsat mean it is "not successful"? Soccer doesn't get much more coverage than any of the sports I mentioned, other than at certain extraordinary times such as the past World Championship. Is soccer therefore not successful, either?

You're setting up still another criteria here, this time for what is or is not up to your standard of "success" ( that it gets regular coverage by the sports department of local TV stations, it appears ), one which now allows you to maintain that the examples we have come up with in response to your challenge really don't qualify after all. Sure, this is a fine way to win arguments---merely keep shifting the goalposts---but not a very legitimate one...


But I digress...

To conclude: would total number of coaches drop? Perhaps. Would overall quality of coaches rise? I believe so, if the laws of labor economics continue to function, and if as I suspect the demand for fencing is less elastic, based on Olympic staus, than you do...

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by Inquartata
Ah! But do they define what it means to further those chances? Does the USOC insist that its funds be used narrowly in support of elite cadres, travel to international competitions for them and their coaches, armorers, officials and so on, camps for them, "performance awards", etc. ?

No, the USOC doesn't insist on it, and whats more, the USFA doesn't do it. Less is spent on elite programs than is given by the USOC.

-m

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by Inquartata
I am more sanguine about this little corner of the labor market than you are.

In an international economy, factors of production---including labor, and including the subset of fencing coaches---will flow to wherever they are most valued. We have seen this in the influx of coaching expertise from the former Iron Curtain countries to the West, where they can make a living doing what they do best and, not coincidentally I think, what they love.

Yet there are still too few really first-rate coaches in the US, just as one example, to cope with the demand. Much of that demand must content itself with learning from, to be blunt, marginally qualified coaches, or even by no one more qualified to teach than the most experienced member of a particular club. Major cities, with markets for fencing which could well be exploited but for the lack of a top-flight coach to draw and create interest, go wanting.

Without the Olympics, sure, some coaches might throw up their hands. But I'd be willing to bet that a lot more would simply go where they are needed and wanted, instead of where the national Olympic committees send them. Good coaches would drive out bad, in other words, as the marginal ones lost their slim competitive advantage---being available locally---to really good ones, and good ones to world-class ones. And the more good coaches in an area, the more their students' rising skill levels would feed off each other in the region, and between regions.

Lessons might get more expensive; salle dues and floor fees might rise as the salles began to be run as businesses instead of part-time avocations. But the general level of expertise might well rise as coaches freed up from government service sought out new private markets.

And this coach of yours, does he give 8-9 lessons per night?? As you know, I live in the largest division in the country, and I can't think of one coach who gives 8-9 lessons per day. If you actually think that a loss of Olympic status and funding would lead to a rise in the level of coaching, I am just going to agree to disagree with you and feel content that any casual readers of this thread will see this for the BS that it is.

I do not believe that it proves any such thing. For example, they do not cover rodeo, either, despite the location in the West--does thsat mean it is "not successful"? Soccer doesn't get much more coverage than any of the sports I mentioned, other than at certain extraordinary times such as the past World Championship. Is soccer therefore not successful, either?

I believe you missed my point. I did not say that lack of sports coverage proves those sports unsuccessful. What I said is that the existence of the curiosity pieces proves them unsuccessful. You are correct that soccer doesn't get much sports coverage. Neither, however, does it get curiosity pieces. Why? because it is successful enough that nobody thinks it curious or interesting to see people playing it. This is not true of the sports you mention.

To conclude: would total number of coaches drop? Perhaps. Would overall quality of coaches rise? I believe so, if the laws of labor economics continue to function, and if as I suspect the demand for fencing is less elastic, based on Olympic staus, than you do...

you are assuming that all of the high level coaches would choose to move to small markets and take a large pay cut rather than hang up their coaching jackets. This seems rather unlikely to me. Labor Economics is a starting point, not an ending point.

-m

[Purple Fencer]

Originally posted by epeemike81
And this coach of yours, does he give 8-9 lessons per night?? As you know, I live in the largest division in the country, and I can't think of one coach who gives 8-9 lessons per day.

I have seen both Alfonzo Carter and Derek Cotton give multipel lessons at SwordPlay in Burbank...probably averaging 5-7, depending ont he day and how many of their students make practice. it DOES happen, although I agree it's probably fairly rare. Given that Falcon is the only pure sabre salle in L.A., I'd guess Boris Sokol gives plenty of lessons per day,

[Inquartata]

Originally posted by epeemike81
And this coach of yours, does he give 8-9 lessons per night??

At the moment, he's giving about five, but he's just moved into the city and is still building a clientele. His predecessor, who alas for me taught foil only, was giving 8-10, though only three days a week. A coach who wished to do so could be giving lessons seven days a week, among the several clubs. ( Nor does this take into account the beginner classes, typically youth classes, which I believe the foil coach of whom I spoke and several others run on a sporadic basis. )

I can't think of one coach who gives 8-9 lessons per day.

Then perhaps those coaches are "dogging it". One suspects that they have sinecures at colleges or high schools in addition to coaching privately, or that they are only doing it part-time, and not for their primary livings.

[n] If you actually think that a loss of Olympic status and funding would lead to a rise in the level of coaching, I am just going to agree to disagree with you and feel content that any casual readers of this thread will see this for the BS that it is.[/b]

Gosh, what a civil way to put it.

I did not say that lack of sports coverage proves those sports unsuccessful. What I said is that the existence of the curiosity pieces proves them unsuccessful.

This whole "curiosity piece" notion strikes me as an artificial invention designed to establish a point that cannot be argued. He who gets to define the terms wins every argument, in other words.

you are assuming that all of the high level coaches would choose to move to small markets and take a large pay cut rather than hang up their coaching jackets.

Didn't say that. In fact, I suspect that their pay would actually rise.

However, all depends on a lot of assumptions, none of which can be proven or disproven at the present time. The result therefore must remain indeterminate.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Inquartata writes and quotes epeemike: (many snips)

>quote:
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Originally posted by epeemike81
>probably NOT, due to a lack of funding. The entire point is that >the USOC and NCAA are the organizations which provide the >money (directly and indirectly) for the elite coaches. Without >that funding, a great many of them won't see coaching as worth >it.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



>I am more sanguine about this little corner of the labor market >than you are.

>In an international economy, factors of production---including >labor, and including the subset of fencing coaches---will flow to >wherever they are most valued. We have seen this in the influx >of coaching expertise from the former Iron Curtain countries to >the West, where they can make a living doing what they do >best and, not coincidentally I think, what they love.

I strongly doubt that it would turn out like that, on two points.

Firstly, I believe that a fair number of coaches from the former Iron Curtain countries would not move in order to continue coaching, they would take up another job and stay put. Not everyone want to move overseas to stay in the same job.

Secondly, even if all coaches from those countries would move west and continue coaching, it would not (at least in the short term) represent a boost for fencing. W. European and US. fencing, yes, but also an accompained bust for E.European fencing.

>Without the Olympics, sure, some coaches might throw up their >hands.

Yes!

>quote:
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> You would argue that they will get new, private funding. From >who?
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>From the same private sources whence it comes now, absent >the Olympics-specific governmental largesse. There's simply be >a transition from the public sector to the private.

Well, I am simply not as optimistic as you are here.

>You're setting up still another criteria here, this time for what is >or is not up to your standard of "success" ( that it gets regular >coverage by the sports department of local TV stations, it >appears ), one which now allows you to maintain that the >examples we have come up with in response to your challenge >really don't qualify after all. Sure, this is a fine way to win >arguments---merely keep shifting the goalposts---but not a very >legitimate one...

>But I digress...

Despite the fact that inquartata is responding to epeemike in the paragraph above, I will answer.

The original challenge was to name a sport that was successful despite not being olympic, NCAA, or professional in USA.

In that statement, olympic, NCAA, and professional are limiting criteria. There are no criteria given above for what "successful" should mean. While most sports that fulfill at least one of the limiting criteria could be considered successful, it would be circular reasoning to say that those are only criteria.

I therefore think that it is perfectly reasonable to try to define what a successful sport is. My definition suggestions are as follows:

Media success:
1. National championships covered more than in the "results in a nutshell" page
2. Unexpected loss by national team noted in media
3. Sport covered at least somewhat regularly in media, even except "human interest pieces", coverage due to acts by sportsmen not on the sportsfield, or other non-sport coverage
4. Whenever sport is covered, rules are not (or only very rarely) explained - media assumes that rules are known by general public

Participatory success:
1. When a person doing a sport on lower level tells this to others, they don´t draw blank stares
2. Most people, if they checked out, could say that they knew someone who knew someone who has done the sport
3. Parents, who do not do the sport themselves, on a regular basis get the idea to get their kids into the sport

Economic success
1. Some sportsmen (or women) on a level lower than national team get at least a large part of their expenses covered so that they can train
2. At least some sponsorship agreements are initiated by sponsors
3. There are sponsoring companies other than those controlled by persons in the sport, or companies producing/selling gear for that sport

My suggestion is that of these 13 subcriteria, a sport should fulfull at least 2 in each category in order to be called successful. This is of course subjective by me, and your counteropinions are valued.

Inquartata writes in another post: (many snips)

>quote:
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Originally posted by PeterGustafsson

>[quote][b]
>>There's always the World Championships, or even the >>Veteran's Championships.

>Not really the same draw as the games, compared with quitting >fencing and getting into an ordinary career.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>If these are the sort of fencers who are only in it for the glory >and not the love of the game, perhaps. But again, is that the >sort which we really want to make the norm in fencing?

Anybody going for one last shot that the olympics is by definition not the norm. Also, being drawn to an ordinary life, family and all, after the fencing career is not the same thing as being in it only for the glory.


>Again, the ones who are not in it for love may not, and good >riddance to those, I think.

Here we simply differ. I happen to think that they still can be of use to fencing.

>quote:
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Fencing has difficulties getting sponsoring even with olympic >status, how would it be without?
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>I suppose that question can only be answered by the individual >sponsors. If their support is wholly banausic, based only on >getting a specific benefit such as TV viewership for their logos or >whatever, they may withhold it, indeed.

Well, the only sponsorships that yield substantial money are of exactly that kind. Sponsors can give stuff/money when they do not expect at least the same in returns on their investment, but only small amounts.

I remember a Sw. Championship where there was unlimited amounts of free bananas, and each medalist got a crate in addition to the medal. I hope for more - than feeling like some sort of monkey - in the way of sponsorship. ;-)

>What we really need, I think, in this regard, is networks of >fencers and current fencers now in positions of power in the >business world, the way the big sports have booster >organizations and "angels" who advance the interests of their >former sports and teams. That gets the sort of sponsorship that >is more than a mere tit-for-tat arrangement for mutual benefit...

One former Chair of the Sw. fencing federation was then Commander of the Army. There are quite a few fencing official here who work in the armed forces, and they usually can fix free coffee at the meet in the army sports hall, free food for competitors in officer´s mess (looks odd when a bunch of white-clad teenage girls eat there!), etc. Another was CEO of a big paper-pulp company, and put in advertisements in the Sw. fencing paper for paper pulp - a few 100$ a pop.

You get the general idea - while this is good, the total amount is second order compared to NOC funding and membership dues.

>quote:
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Well in Sweden for example, there is a national organization for >all sports federations, olympic or otherwise. I would imagine >that such an organization exists in many countries. Look up >their websites, and compare membership for olympic and non->olympic sports. Furthermore, I seem to remember that on the >IOC webpage there was a list of sports which have applied for >olympic status.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Recall that the original challenge was to find sports with neither >Olympic, NCAA not big professional status which were >nevertheless growing----not necessarily those with >organizations which have appeared on the IOC radar screens.

Not growing - successful. The former can be described as a positive time derivative of the latter, loosely.

>These are likely to be small ( but growing ) and multivarious, >and many may not occur immediately to those compiling lists of >sports. Does the Swedish national organization you mentioned >include every conceivable sport, or only the established ones?

With the possible exception of bodybuilding (don´t know if they got their application accepted at last, they have been trying for years and years) I can not remember seeing any mention whatsoever in the sports pages. In Sweden, only sports in this national sports organization get state/county funding, so getting in is both a big hurdle and very important. The reason for this is that the state has decided to check out the "seriousness" by checking membership, effectively farming out a background check.

>quote:
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>There is a rule that a sport must have stable and reasonably >large activity in at least 40 countries spread over at least 4 >continents (for the ladies events, the rule is 30/3).
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>However did such oddities as synchronized swimming and >rhythmic gymnastics ever make the Olympics?

I think both passed the 30/3 rule. Some sports got in before the rule was implemented and have stayed in.

>Was there some big untapped groundswell of sychronized >swimming going on around the world?

Don´t know if you can call it "big".

>Or were these sports essentially invented specifically for the >Olympics?

No. My mother was doing it in the early 50ies, long before Sync. Swimming got in the summer games. The only sport specifically invented for the games is pentathlon (incidentally, in real danger of getting kicked out).

>quote:
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Personally, I don´t think that FIE is bending over backwards (in >changing rules of the game, rules of the competition format is >another thing) to the IOC all that much.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Are we not forever seeing new rules designed to increase the >appeal of fencing to television? Colored uniforms, ads on >uniforms, plexiglas masks, recommendations for various Buzz >Lightyear lights and such on the fencers...how long will it be >until the IOC decides that these still aren't doing the trick, so >please change the rules to make the action "less confusing" to >the uninitiated spectator?

Long sentence! Anyway, what you describe are rules suggestions, most of them not being carried out. Of those that you cite, none will (IMO) change the general nature of fencing, and most will only affect the chosen few that go to the games.

>quote:
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Another thing is that some rules changes of the game may be >good, even without IOC prodding.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>To be sure; to say that any rule change idea coming from the >IOC must necessarily be rejected solely on the basis of its origin >would be to commit another sort of fallacy. However, I think that >a lot of the things they would like to see happen would indeed >drastically alter the nature of fencing, and not in a good way. >One benefit from loss of Olympic status might be the elimination >of these pressures from outside the sport, in service of goals >having less to do with the sport than with money and the >media.

>Hey, we might even be able to lure back some of the "classical >fencing" folk if the constant needling for more "modernization" >of the game went away!

Well, with a nick of Inquartata, writing "Buzz Lightyear lights", and your wish for deemphasizing olympics in fencing, I can certainly say that I presume that you see getting the Classicals back into the fold as something a priori good.

That said, I do not think that that would happen, for a multitude of reasons.

1: What little I have read on their homepages does not seem to suggest any wish to "get back" if only the olympics were not in the way.
2. They use (IIACI) weapons of quite different specs than FIE stuff, so we have a compatibility problem there.
3. They have (IIACI) rules not compatitible with us FIE folk, olympics nonwithstanding.
4. If you think flicks are a can of worms now, just wait...

>quote:
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>As has been said before, the USFA gets the great majority of its >fund from USOC and its members. USOC probably (and rightly >so, IMO) demand that its funding goes to further chances of US. >medals at the games.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Ah! But do they define what it means to further those chances?

Dunno (EDEW, fill me in here) but the Sw.OC does, if that is any indication.

>Does the USOC insist that its funds be used narrowly in support >of elite cadres, travel to international competitions for them and >their coaches, armorers, officials and so on, camps for >them, "performance awards", etc.?

As above. The Sw.OC *demands* that a certain part will be used on junior sportsmen, and other stuff not directly linked to the national team - seed money, of sorts.

>I think that there is almost certainly a great deal of inefficiency >in the way these funds are spent, and I suspect too that the >directions in which they are spent are almost certainly skewed >toward, again, elite fencers.

The inefficiency topic (and similar monetary drains) should warrant a thread of its own. Please start one, since you know more about USFA than I do!

>There comes to be a disjunct, in other words, between what the >organization was created to do and what it thinks it ought to >do, as "goal displacement" and other bureaucratic dysfunctions >set in.

This can be checked. What was the stated goal when AFA was founded? It should be written in some mission statement. If the stated mission is largely, or to a great extent, creating international competitive success, then there is no goal displacement, IMO.

>I suspect---anyone with more inside knowledge of the day to >day workings of the USFA and its goal-setting processes may >correct me if I am way off base here---that much of the funding >from dues, entry fees, advertising, quantity-purchasing >agreements, etc., also winds up going toward elite >development. In addition to the USOC funding. Which leaves >relatively little for the other priorities.

Organizations such as USFA must have a stated financial report, and ther must be a budget voted upon. Being a USFA member, it should not be impossible to get either (at least if US. and Sw. law are anything similar here).

Inquartata - you and I have discussed this topic to great length, and it appears to me that we differ greatly in the degree of desirability of some things, differ on whether some things are at all desirable, and in our guesses at the outcomes of a hypothetical and large change for fencing. Unless I have misrepresented you, I have posted something worthy of comment, or you figuring out a new argument it may be so that the right honorable thing to do is that we agree that we disagree, and be gentlemen about that.

One reason for why I have posted to such a great extent is that I have found several of your posts - in many threads - interesting (even if I don´t agree) and have therefore thought them, and you, worthy of some thinking and quite a lot of typing.

>quote:
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>If state funding was cut straight off, these two things would >cause Swedes to react slowly, since they are so well ingrained >in most of us. During the meantime, any heavily state-funding >dependent organization mich well capsize, or become >permanently damaged to its structure.
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>But if state subsidization of just about every valued activity is so >ingrained in the national psyche, and so institutionalized in the >functioning of the government, is it likely that one such activity >would be so unceremoniously cut adrift funding wise merely >because it was no longer in the Olympics?

State subsidization is ingrained. Fencing is not. Bean counters, budget politicians etc. are here just as in the US.

>Is it not more likely that it would be continued as long as the >activity were valued domestically?

Getting olympic medals is valued domestically. Fencing is not by non-fencers. Fencing is more of a blip on the radar here than in US, but only marginally.

>Would that not promote the continuation of the docility, as you >put it, of that segment of the population which valued fencing? >Would not eliminating it make them restive instead?

It takes other things to get Swedes restive! In a country with an average 55% taxation, embezzlement and misuse of funds by politicians get people real huffy. One minister used her govt issue expense card to pay for a candy bar and some diapers, and that made her to be forced to resign in disgrace (along with a bunch of unpaid parking tickets). She was reinstated after a few years, but has shown a surprising aptitude for getting herself into that kind of trouble. Also, in a country with a lot and influential teetotallers, drinking among politicians often cause problems. In the fifties, one minister was found sleeping drunk on a sidewalk, and the cops put him in the drunk cell. Rather than facing the disgrace and public firing, he committed suicide. Politicians *having fun* makes Swedes more angry than politicians *taking away fun* from ordinary folks.

The Sw. Fencing Federation (SvFF) has about 3000 members. Out of a population of 9 million, the govt. would not be all that afraid of losing those votes, especially since many fencers have jobs which traditionally are held by people voting *against* the governing labor party.

>quote:
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>One prime minister put it thus: "poverty is accepted well, when >shared by everyone." Pretty well sums up the opinions by most >labor voters - low spread in wealth more important than high >average wealth.
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>Though I digress---is this not a sure way to decrease incentives >for greater innovation and productivity, the things which alone >can make a society better off even as resources are depleted?

Which is exactly what the non-socialistic parties have been saying in their voting rethoric for years and years. The success of that rethoric is decidedly less than stellar. (I live in a country where the tories and liberals have to band up with 2 other parties, one left-of-liberal, to have any chance of beating the socialists. (In my home county, there are many voting precincts where the communists are bigger than all who would be right of Jesse Jackson, would they have been in US. There are places where Gorbatchev would have been considered a rightist, also.)

The Sw. corporate structure also makes for a good us-vs-them thinking. No company among the big on the Stockholm stock exchange is younger than 50 years, many are close to 100, and one is over 700 years old. Many people work for big companies, (or the state/county) and comparatively few work for small companies or themselves. So your assumption is well-founded. It is worth to note that our placement in the GDP/person ranking list has slid consistently from 3rd in 1973 to 17th (IIRC) now.

>quote:
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>we have not been in a war since 1812 (IIRC),
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>Not even WWII? Wasn't there extensive participation by >Swedes in the Finnish conflict against the Soviets, and didn't >some Swedish officers serve in the German Army?

No, yes, and a few. We managed to stay out of WWII by a combination of diplomatic tippy-toeing, bending over backwards to Germany, and dumb luck. While Swedes fought abroad on their accord, that does not amount to the nation taking part in a war.

Have a nice time, and happy new year!

Peter Gustafsson

[Inquartata]

Originally posted by PeterGustafsson
I believe that a fair number of coaches from the former Iron Curtain countries would not move in order to continue coaching, they would take up another job and stay put. Not everyone want to move overseas to stay in the same job.

Secondly, even if all coaches from those countries would move west and continue coaching, it would not (at least in the short term) represent a boost for fencing. W. European and US. fencing, yes, but also an accompained bust for E.European fencing.

This is what I meant by the statement with which I ended my last reply to epeemike: the outcome depends on the relative magnitude and interaction of a number of assumptions, none of which can be predicted with any certainty.

For instance, take the assumption that without the Olympics fencers would stop fencing and the sport would contract. Well, no one can really say anything about the magnitude of this effect. Would a few fencers quit? Many? All? In which countries? How many of these, assuming there were any, would be from the elites? Would their numbers be made up for by new recruits?

I just read in the most recent issue of American Fencing that the number of fencers in the USFA ( there are assuredly others who fence but aren't members ) is about 17,200...and that this is a 77% increase over the last six years. Are we really to believe that all, or most, or even many of these came into fencing only because the sport is in the Olympics? And that all, most or many would depart just as fast were Olympic staus lost? I cannot do so.
The USFA was founded, according to this same article, several years before the modern Olympic Games were reborn. The premise that without the Olympics fencing will face extinction simply flies in the face of common sense and of history.

Then there is the same assumption about coaches quitting. How MANY would this be? Impossible to say. Some, like myself, believe that it would be few, and those mostly the lower-quality ones, who'd be replaced by high-quality ones competing for the remaining coaching jobs. Others believe it would be many, or perhaps all. Who is right? Unknown. And it depends on the answer to the previous assumption, as well as others.

Then there are assumptions about the interaction between the Olympics and the NCAA. Between the number of fencers and the viability of equipment manufacturers. Etc.

Until all of these assumptions can be quantified---there's the making of a market study here!---it is impossible to predict what would happen absent the Olympics. Your guess, and Mike's, are as good as mine...

But no better.

The original challenge was to name a sport that was successful despite not being olympic, NCAA, or professional in USA.

In that statement, olympic, NCAA, and professional are limiting criteria. There are no criteria given above for what "successful" should mean.

Very well. But I stand by the statement that trying to establish more limiting standards after the fact is to stack the deck in ones own favor. One can define those standards so carefully that ones argument cannot help but win out, and that is no way to conduct an objective debate.

I therefore think that it is perfectly reasonable to try to define what a successful sport is. My definition suggestions are as follows:

Media success:
1. National championships covered more than in the "results in a nutshell" page
2. Unexpected loss by national team noted in media
3. Sport covered at least somewhat regularly in media, even except "human interest pieces", coverage due to acts by sportsmen not on the sportsfield, or other non-sport coverage
4. Whenever sport is covered, rules are not (or only very rarely) explained - media assumes that rules are known by general public

Participatory success:
1. When a person doing a sport on lower level tells this to others, they don´t draw blank stares
2. Most people, if they checked out, could say that they knew someone who knew someone who has done the sport
3. Parents, who do not do the sport themselves, on a regular basis get the idea to get their kids into the sport

Economic success
1. Some sportsmen (or women) on a level lower than national team get at least a large part of their expenses covered so that they can train
2. At least some sponsorship agreements are initiated by sponsors
3. There are sponsoring companies other than those controlled by persons in the sport, or companies producing/selling gear for that sport

My suggestion is that of these 13 subcriteria, a sport should fulfull at least 2 in each category in order to be called successful. This is of course subjective by me, and your counteropinions are valued.

Now, see, I too can define "success" in such a way that my opinion is "proven" and irrefutable. I need only say that "Successful" means "greater participation year over year". Then any sport which began with two guys in their back yard and has grown to include a dozen of their friends is a fortiori "successful".

But I would not do this. It is not a fair way to conduct a debate.

I suspect that the average person would not define a "successful sport" anywhere nearly as narrowly and stringently as you have done. In fact, I would demur from the assumption that informs most of your conditions right from the beginning: the necessity for there to be a "national team". Sports such as auto racing, which you yourself have admitted to be "successful", have no such team. There is no national team in many thriving sports, and there ARE national teams in a good number of tiny, obscure sports which are far from successful. And so it goes.

Well, the only sponsorships that yield substantial money are of exactly that kind. Sponsors can give stuff/money when they do not expect at least the same in returns on their investment, but only small amounts.

This is not so. Many large corporations engage in sponsorship merely for the tax write-off, or because they have provisions in their charters requiring them to allocate such and such a percentage of pre-tax revenue to "promoting social responsibility" or "community support" or what have you. It is our misfortune that we have not managed to bring fencing to the attention of any of these, alas.

You get the general idea - while this is good, the total amount is second order compared to NOC funding and membership dues.

However, necessity is the mother of invention, and I suspect that we have contented ourselves with such "small potatoes" only because the large cash infusions from the USOC have tended to make private fundraising a relatively low priority. In other words, why go out "selling" when you've got a revenue stream being given to you? But if we had to REPLACE that funding---who knows what could be accomplished by properly motivated people?

what you describe are rules suggestions, most of them not being carried out.

Yet!

Well, with a nick of Inquartata, writing "Buzz Lightyear lights", and your wish for deemphasizing olympics in fencing, I can certainly say that I presume that you see getting the Classicals back into the fold as something a priori good.

I think anything which expands the membership is a good thing, all the more so were we to be kicked off the USOC gravy train and have to make our own way. However, I was really being half-facetious. As you pointed out, I don't think the classical fencers are disposed to come into the modern electrical fold simply because we stopped getting even more esoteric and technological. They would need a retrogression by us, I think, not just a halt in advancement.

The inefficiency topic (and similar monetary drains) should warrant a thread of its own.

OK, I'll refrain from delving further into thia area here. Though I did spot another instance of the ( to me ) misallocation of funds recorded proudly in the latest "American fencing" magazine. A small one, to be sure, but symptomatic, I think.

you and I have discussed this topic to great length, and it appears to me that we differ greatly in the degree of desirability of some things, differ on whether some things are at all desirable, and in our guesses at the outcomes of a hypothetical and large change for fencing. Unless I have misrepresented you, I have posted something worthy of comment, or you figuring out a new argument it may be so that the right honorable thing to do is that we agree that we disagree, and be gentlemen about that.

No doubt you are right. I do tend to keep worrying at a juicy argument like a terrier with a rat, long after the rodent has expired.... It is a fault. But I do love an argument. You may have noticed!

Anyway, I will try to hold my peace henceforth. As you note, it's all been said...

[oiuyt]

However, necessity is the mother of invention, and I suspect that we have contented ourselves with such "small potatoes" only because the large cash infusions from the USOC have tended to make private fundraising a relatively low priority. In other words, why go out "selling" when you've got a revenue stream being given to you? But if we had to REPLACE that funding---who knows what could be accomplished by properly motivated people?

This sounds like the argument for the Libertarian Party's referendom this past November to abolish the personal income tax in Massachusetts. No offense to EDew or any other Libertarians on the board, but that would've been REALLY stupid. The reasoning there is the worst part. "If I chop off my legs, maybe necessity will teach me how to fly!"

Though I did spot another instance of the ( to me ) misallocation of funds recorded proudly in the latest "American fencing" magazine. A small one, to be sure, but symptomatic, I think.

At least tell us what it is.....

-B :)

[vigia]

Originally posted by oiuyt

At least tell us what it is.....

-B )

Which goes back to my eariler post. How is the USFA mis-spending its budget? So far, we have only had a response that maybe they are spending too much money on airfare, although that seemed inconclusive to me. If money is being wasted, how so?