Questions, Questions, Questions - About the $1000 Epee Tournament

[dekko13]

Lots of questions and lots of people who think they know about what is going on who do not.

I will try to answer some of the questions but I will probably not get to all of them and I am sure there will be more.

First off, any high school or college fencer needs to be very careful about competing in any event with a $$$ prize whether they give cash or in kind gifts that happen to be easily exchanged for cash. They will need to check with their own high school or college association to see if they will not put their staus into question and not be allowed to fence in those events in longer.

Second, the goal of the organization formed to host/run this event is to get fencing on TV. Bottom line. We want to have as many TV markets air these programs as possible. Airing these programs will no doubt help interest in those markets and get more people into fencing. The prize for this event is $1000 and as some of you have pointed out, the math is very easy, $25 entry fee, 40 fencers, $1000. There is a cost for us to have the local cable company to come to the location and film the final 8 of this event and edit the contants to tape for airing in any TV market around the world. This cost will be covered by advertisers and sponsors.

Thrid, this event has been compared to the PFL that was started in 1997 and had events in early 1998 in upstate New York. Many things were accoplished by this organization. Many rule changes that we now have were first applied in the fencing events of this organization. The last of which may fall soon and that being that off target hits in foil to not stop the action. The PFL did many good things for fencing unfortunately it also made many mistakes and by mid 1998 was no more. Alan has been accused of making those mistakes and while he may have made a few mistakes he was not the only one, many individuals shared in mistakes made by the PFL. Also, Alan did not run off with any money and actually lost quite a bit of his own money trying to make the PFL work and survive.

This concept will start small and work it's way forward and be what the PFL should have been in 1998. Maybe one of the problems the PFL had was too big too fast. If that was a problem it is not anymore. Many things were learned in 1998, some good some bad. This year will be epee only and every other month. Next year another event may be added but which one has yet to be decided. We may instead add more people and make the prize money bigger. We shall see.

Now that no barriers exist from any fencing organization aroudn the world about giving a cash prize we have decided to go forward with this event and get fencing on TV. It is our hope that people will be creative with their uniform designs and paint or decorate them to their hearts content. We do discourage any vulgar or clearily inflamitory images or words but we do believe that fencers would like to fence in colors other white, or the occassional dull unwashed white.

I will be happy to answer any questions you may have about this event if you email to david@usafencing.com. Be assured of one thing, we will have 40 people fencing and they will catch a great deal of attention and we will give out 10 $100 bills to the winner, unless they prefer another less problematic form of payment. I would suggest that you get in now before all 4 spots are gone. The main thing about this is that the fencers in this will have fun and isn't that whats it's all about anyway.

Enjoy!

David
www.swordmasterseries.com

[mtarascio]

Does the organization carry insurance to cover competitors if they are hurt during the competition?

[dekko13]

There is insurance through a company in California from one of the sponsors.

[CvilleFencer]

Dekko13, just how outlandish do our uniforms have to be? Some will think this sounds a bit strange coming from me, but any thing I would were would be a little tame compared to some of the stuff that Santeli was showing at nationals.

Would it surfice to have three different colors on your mask, or a very large symbol, like a flag or club insignia on your back? Also, can we register without having our uniforms ready at the time of registration? I would have to have new kit custom made somewhere as I am a very tall guy and I can't just buy off the rack. This could take a bit of time, and I would hate to have kit made that I could use no where else only to find that my uniform was made too late to sign up.

Along a similar line I would almost rather fence nude than use a lot of the stuff Santelli has, so that leaves Triplette, Blade, or BG for stateside, and Uhlmann or LP for overseas. I know that Triplette and LP can get really creative with fencing kit, but do you know of any other vendors that offer colors and such?

Also, how many spots are left in the register, and is there any kind of refund policy if the tourney should not happen or not attract the full 40 fencers.


Thanks!

[Dragonfly]

questions questions questions!! I know how you meant it, now, let's think. It'll all probably work, but you'll have to bear with those who don't know anything, Like me. But, here's one realization: 1. televised fencing doent' necessarily mean professional fencing; professional fencing can certainly exist without being televised. 2. television fencing may have to start with televised collegiate fencing like their basketball games; 3. it could be good, if it's done really well, and selective like some of the golf circuits, you'd have to get a really great sponsor, what about microsoft? we have all their stuff on the e-bay which everyone buys a ton of, the microsoft guys should put some money into the project; make a hugh purse like 25,000 for the top fencer to create a professional circuit. Why don't those people get together with some of the experienced sports developers and create an entire circuit, that's all you need, then invite the elite fencers; offer big money and you've got a league?

[MikeHarm]

Is it true Alan was suspended by the USFA? If so what for and how long was the suspension?

[dekko13]

Answering more questions.....

First off, the professional tag has been thrown around due to the fact that the winner will receive a cash award for winning this event. If one person wins all the events we have planned over the course of the next year that will total $21K. I don't know about you but that wouldn't pay all of my bills. It is a nice supplement to an income but not a income to be proud of to say the least.

I do agree with the person who said that it does not need to be on TV to be professional or the other way around. Remember, the goal here is to get fencing on TV and that is what we will do.

I have been asked by severatimes why this is not usfa sanctioned. Very simple, the written word in there rules still prevent the awarding of a cash prize and we are changing the rules of the final 8 to better fit the TV time frame. Basically it will go pools, DE, then a pool of 8 with a running time bout with the winner scoring more than there opponent not the first to score X. We have no problem with the usfa necessarily, yes they have problems and issues like any other big organization but they have done some good things as well. I know that the board of directors for the usfa has given the verbal nod to cash awards being given in events but until their written word is changed what is in black and white is 'law'.

Lastly, Alan was never banned from the usfa as a competitor. He has been banned from ever holding a division or section officer position unless a very lengthy list of demands are met by him to the usfa, bottom line, why bother.

Keep the questions coming, that's why I am here. email them to this post or david@usafencing.com.

[MikeHarm]

Are part of the profits going towards paying people the purses that they said they never received for competing in the PFL?

Also, what were some of the demands the USFA made?

[oiuyt]

Very simple, the written word in there rules still prevent the awarding of a cash prize and we are changing the rules of the final 8 to better fit the TV time frame.

Where in the written rules does the USFA prevent the awarding of a cash prize? The closest that they come AFAIK is in the policy that bars professionals from national championships which has been disavowed by the Board of Directors (and it is a BoD policy not a rule). There's no rule against cash prizes. Even if the policy WERE still in effect, that would be true.

Why doesn't the website mention things like the rules change for the final 8? How does this fit with the website saying that, other than for uniform requirements, FIE rules will be followed?

What types of requirements did the USFA place on Alan's reinstatement? I can easily see that some such requirements could be not worth fulfilling just for the right to be allowed to volunteer a huge amount of time, but what were the specifics?

Are there any plans to extend the prize money to below the top finisher? It seems likely that after the first couple of tournaments that a large number of participants will balk at ponying up $75 or $100 with no realistic chance at a prize. While this isn't out of line for a national competition (although the $150 for July is getting more than a bit pricey), it's a 40 person competition with little track record (even at the time it'll have little record). If only 1st place gets the money there are likely to only be about 5 people in contention and everyone will know whether or not they fit in that category after 2-3 events.

Another idea could be a split purse, 50% to the winner, 50% to a random participant. Still results in a nice prize for the champion, and for the rest it turns into at worst a 50-50 raffle that includes a fencing tournament. Just a thought.

-B :)

[Dragonfly]

David: Thank you for the respectful response. I do take fencing seriously. May I ask one more question. I do know someone who was affiliated with the Professional league of fencing. I feel he was hurt by the connection in spite of the comments from officialdom to the contrary, that it was 'okay'. In fact, I'll go so far as to state that he was badly liabled by others. The professional league as it stood years ago, was as sort of flash in the pan and it quickly died out. Why is there so much stigma still attached to it? Without naming names, at a rather large competition in recent years, I asked a fellow fencer, whom I respected, "what should I do here, I'm at a loss with the next competitor" and he snidely remarked "just fence 'professionally' " He was referring to a former coach and instructor of mine, who was linked to the professional organization. Bottom line is: is it worth it to a fencer to break with the long traditions to risk entering into the pool of professional fencing?

[dekko13]

First off, Alan was never banned as a competitor to be reinstated, he is prevented from being an officer ever agin and both sides of that fence are ok with that situation and neither has an interest in changing that situation. I do not know all the terms he must meet to be an officer and it doesn't matter because that interest is not ther.

Let's try this route. I think some of the people and questions are focusing on the wrong things. Fencing has several problems with being on TV. None the least of which is most people don't understand it, it seems boring, unimaginative and mondain. The uniforms are a way to help catch the eye of the non-fencer who travels by it while channel surfing. Most non-fencers understand that if the light goes on, someone gets a touch and have a problem with the idea of right-of-way in the beginning. Can they be taught yes but the interest to be taught must be there first. If they watch epee and come to an understanding about what they are watching then introducing sabre or foil later becomes easier because now they have an interest in watching and learning.

Another big problem with fencing on TV is how long does it take. Save the emails about not knowing when baseball, football, etc ends because if fencing was the multi-BILLION dollar industry that the big four are we would be having this discussion and everyone would now being slotting for their fantasy fencing teams. Back to reality, the person or group who wants to put fencing on TV can either pay a great deal of money for editing an episode into a fitted time slot, half hour or hour, or make it timed, as we will do, and have a definate ending point. We have timed the bouts out to have a good clean ending. The cable company here wanted that or they would not be willing to broadcast any of our show. Also, when they are done filming the 'raw footage', very little editing, if any, will be needed to have to show ready for air play.

Some are worried about not having a shot at the prize and why should they fence. I'll tell you why, if you love this sport as we do and have an opportunity to make a small(tiny) 'investment' into getting fencing on TV you will participate. we have people signed up now who are foil fencers by nature but want to see this work and are willing to spend $25 then $50, etc, to see this on TV. Some are epee fencers who know that they are not the best in the world but feel the same way. Some are even sponsored by others who know they have a shot to win and want a cut of the purse the sponsor can't win themselves. I don't expect a olympic wanna-be in this event but that may happen. If that does, fine. They will most likely win and be $1000 to their dream of making the olympics. They may even get a sponsor to help them further who knows.

Again, our goal is to get this sport on TV as more than a human interest story on the 6 o'clock news no one watches anyway. Yes, public access cable stations are a small way to do this but the viewer gets an hour of actual fencing and not 2 minutes of edited material of a cameraman trying to win some random journalism award with bad camera angles. How many of you have seen the camera inside the mask angle and rolled your eyes? Me too.

As for the uniforms, make them as wild as you want. Get a sponsor and have their logo all over it in every color you can think of, that's what we want to see.

Do we have all the answers, no. But please do not focus on the wrong things here. Again, the PFL in New York made some mistakes and it's time to move forward and make this work.

Please keep the questions coming but also be sure to sign up, spots are filling up. Forms are on www.swrodmasterseries.com and my email is david@usafencing.com

Enjoy!

PS: As for the domain name, I got lucky one day while brainstorming and ran across this one and a couple others I was surprised to see were available.

[MikeHarm]

I haven't heard of many people getting a lengthy list of demands to meet in order to be able to hold an unpaid volunteer office with the USFA before and I find this an interesting subject.

I'd like to know more about how it came about and what happened to make the USFA have that ruling on him.

Could you tell us some of the story of what happened or a few of these unreasonable demands he won't meet if you can't list all of them?

[oiuyt]

Originally posted by dekko13
I'll tell you why, if you love this sport as we do and have an opportunity to make a small(tiny) 'investment' into getting fencing on TV you will participate. we have people signed up now who are foil fencers by nature but want to see this work and are willing to spend $25 then $50, etc, to see this on TV.

So you're saying that the majority of the league will be people that are willing to make a slightly more than $500 donation for the first year (and presumably higher in future years)? A) That just doesn't make sense, B) If you can find 30+ people that are willing to do that locally you'd undoubtedly be better off dropping the tournament, fundraising nationally and having a significantly larger purse with which to televise an already existing, higher profile event (NYC or Louisville World Cups, NACs, etc.).

The fact that people might be willing to participate for the first few months when it is cheap but not after that without a shot at a prize was exactly the point that I was trying to make in my original question. $25 for a tournament isn't too much. $50 isn't if you decide the tournament is worth it for some reason (particularly good tournament, helping fencing on TV, etc.). Once the entry fees get to $75 and higher with the third and subsequent events, especially considering the loss of the "newness" factor I see a major difficulty in filling a 40 person field. If the field is significantly less than full it can be predicted that getting enough sponsorship money to cover just the cost of the prizes will be a non-trivial problem.

I understand that this is not the PFL. Given that it is run by some of the same people, the track record of those people with regards to actually being able to pay promised prize money, and the apparent likelihood of future difficulties with being able to cover expenses even fairly early on in the first year, I would hope that you'll allow for some degree of caution or doubt from people that are interested and looking into the organization. Any information that you can provide that might alleviate these concerns -- where enough money is likely to come from to keep this a going operation -- could go a long way. Vague allusions to "money from sponsors will cover the expenses" doesn't do much to quell doubt.

When no plan is presented for what will get competitors to return after the first couple of events, when it's reasonable to see a cause for doubt, that raises concern. I hope the Series does well. I just see a lot of questions that make me doubt that it has been thought through well enough and I find a significantly likelihood that it won't be able to keep afloat through more than half of the premier season. If I don't feel that there's a reasonable chance of success even for the first year, why should I devote any mindshare to it? Much less why should I be willing to make the $500 donation that you seem to be asking of participants?

Give more financial information that help show viability.

Separate questions:

What is the "additional prize $125" mentioned on the front page? I didn't see anything resembling that mentioned elsewhere in the site.

What is the significance of "Pre-qualification Day Saturday"? Maybe if you could give a bit more on the format. Is Saturday to cut the pool from 40 to 8 and Sunday just the 8?

How long are the timed bouts in the 8? How large are first round pools?

What happens if/when the field isn't exactly 40 people?

How is seeding accomplished for the first event?

Athlete interviews are one of the things that are offered to sponsors. What if none of the top athletes are willing to be interviewed? What if the specific athlete that the sponsor wants isn't available?

Where on the entry form does an athlete give away image/TV rights? Shouldn't there be a waiver similar to that required by Disney for the Orlando NAC? I guess technically this should likely be in the enrollment/bio form.

-B :)

[KShan5[PrFC]]

Ouch. I agree though. Also if you look at any other pro sport league how many athletes are payed by their entry fee. The only example I can come up with is the World Series of Poker. But even then sponsers throw money into the pot. Plus money is handed down much further than just the final winner. I think this is pretty much what you are trying to do. The WSP has done a very good job with this system. Maybe if you look into how they do it, you can adapt to their system, because for now it just seems like people are shelling out money to be put on tv with almost no chance of getting anything back.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Originally posted by dekko13
Yes, public access cable stations are a small way to do this but the viewer gets an hour of actual fencing and not 2 minutes of edited material of a cameraman trying to win some random journalism award with bad camera angles. How many of you have seen the camera inside the mask angle and rolled your eyes? Me too.

Your TV credentials are suspect.

Let's see...you think a channel surfer will stop for a neon pink uniform, but something like a POV shot through a mask with blades flashing directly at the viewer is eye-rolling uninteresting?

And yet, you are staking the look of your fencing show on a local cable company who wants to do it live-to-tape switched, crewed no doubt by the cable company owner's son and three of his friends from the junior college A/V program?

Here's a hint. An excruciatingly bad hour of TV fencing is not an improvement over an edited news piece, Peabody Award aside.

[oiuyt]

I actually watched a WSP episode (or rather 2 back-to-back) for the first time after channel surfing in Austin. The prizes were completely paid for by entry fees. There were 630 players each of whom had put up $10,000 and $6,300,000 of prize money (actually there were more players if you include mini-play-in events where 9 players would each enter $1100 and would play each other until one of them had the $10,000 and was the entrant from that group). The sponsors money went to other expenses such as the rooms, the TV production, announcer's salaries, marketing, and of course profit.

I could easily see something like the WSP being used as a model. Prizes are (2000 data, they may have adjusted since then) 45th place. That year there were 512 entrants. As an example, with 40 entries for the Swordmaster, give all finalists double their money, round of 4 get 4 times their money, silver medalist gets 8 times his/her money, winner gets 16 times his/her entry fee. Yes this means that in the first event ($25 entry) the winner gets $400 rather than the somewhat more impressive $1000. By the final event of the first year the winner is taking home $2400. Meanwhile, the availability of accessable prizes means that there's actually a chance of continuing to get fencers to be willing to compete. Spreading out 60% of the prize money to the people who did well but didn't win is a smart move. It really shouldn't be winner takes all.

-B :)

[MikeHarm]

I like Ouit's model better than these guys.

[swordsen]

I will be honest, I would be much more likely to go and try this, when I get back to the SE, under oiuyt's money plan than under the current one.
Winner takes all isn't alot of incentive. Especially now that I am older, slower, and way out of practice. (althugh the practice thing will change too once the army lets me go....)

[Ramrod]

I feel the same as Oiuyt about the money thing. After a couple of competitions there will be a small number of individuals who are in the running for the prize money. This will make it harder to get competitors as time goes on. There will be those who may continue just for the "prestige" of being "professional".

Paying prizes down the line would increase the life of the series. Moving the event around the country would also help broaden participation.

[picojeff]

Splitting up the prize money would be better done by giving 1st place 1/2, 2nd place 1/4, 3rd place 1/8th, etc. If there's a tie for 3rd, then the top 4 take the whole purse between them. If there are no ties then you continue 1/16, 1/32, 1/64... 8th place gets 1/256th of the purse (less than $4 if there's a $1000 prize), and the remaining less than $4 can be kept by the organizers.

I am way more likely to sign up for a tournament with a $100 entry fee if I know I can get $62.50 back if I'm 6th place, and $1000 if I'm 2nd.