Saving Money by Reducing RO Compensation?

[Sarge]

20 minutes ago, broadside72 said:

Make nats an actual national championship that you earn your way into.  Points from sectional and area matches get the top X shooters in each division invited (right of first refusal) and need to pay to shoot, at a single nationals event. Staff gets to shoot the match for free and maybe a per diem and maybe even lodging/travel allowance. 

 

When was the last time a full-time nats staffer actually won nats anyway? If you chose to "volunteer" to staff you get your pass to nats since you are "earning" the slot via working rather than being a good shooter and earning the points. 

The costs should go way down with that model, at least not losing money multiple times per year. 

I’ve always believed this. When I first started I thought it was nuts that Nationals was available in one way or another to anybody. 

[Fishbreath]

1 hour ago, RJH said:

I mean look at fishbreaths post earlier, he flew across country and worked Nationals and it still cost him $1,000 out of his own pocket. Are you willing to do that? I damn sure ain't. So I'm not going to try to short change the people that are going to actually show up and do the work

 

That was motosapiens. For my part, I was roughly break-even on working 2023 CO Nationals, if you count the $130 earmuffs I got at roughly 200th on the prize table. I was close enough to drive the three hours home after the awards dinner, however. If I'd had to stay until Monday, I would have been out of pocket again.

 

Anyone flying, or driving further than you can feasibly fit in on Sunday after the last shooter wraps up, is probably losing money.

[broadside72]

22 minutes ago, Sarge said:

I’ve always believed this. When I first started I thought it was nuts that Nationals was available in one way or another to anybody. 

 

Exactly. It's like saying the Cowboys can go ahead and pay to compete in the SuperBowl every year

[shred]

Until TV shows up (spoiler: they never will), letting large numbers of shooters in is about the only way to pay the freight.

[rowdyb]

There is a medical aphorism, "no procedure is too difficult for a generalist to order it."

 

There is no budget item in uspsa that is too difficult for a disgruntled member to want cut.

[rowdyb]

I like that nats is essentially a pro-am event. I also support shred's one match to rule them all nats.

[858]

43 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

thats a reasonable topic for discussion. imho, yes, but it doesn’t bother me if others want to jealously guard their $3.

 

i think even the whiners would probably be ok with it if there were other national programs that they felt provided value to them and their clubs, like a stage design library (which already exists) or more resources to help new clubs, or open/expand ranges.

 

The $3 is a strawman intended to trivialize the objections. Each nationals is losing something like $80k. Should non national shooting members pay for the shortfall? Your questions imply that anyone not participating in nationals should not have input.

 

All events should be revenue positive or neutral. If they are not, there should be a clear explanation what benefit is derived from the expense for the membership not attending. In years past nationals were not open to every member to attend that wanted to. There were limited slots and once full new signups were closed. 

[GrumpyOne]

2 hours ago, Racinready300ex said:

At $400 CO nats will likely still loose money. In fact a AD told me that himself. Assuming the match has 500 shooters again, that's 200 grand and still loosing money.

 

Maybe we need to break that down a bit and find out the total costs?

 

How many RO's to work that match? By that I ask, how many volunteers were given the per-diem, lodging, and re-imbursed for a portion of their travel expenses? 

 

Based on 50 RO's (or volunteers)...

 

If a match ran 4 days, each RO (or volunteer, if you like) gets $100 for their per-diem.  $5,000 total, at $25 per person, per day.

 

If they shared a hotel room (and, just for arguments sake), and that hotel room was $150 a night, out the door, that is an additional $300 per RO (or volunteer). $15,000, for 25 rooms for 4 nights

 

If 75% of the volunteers got re-imbursed the full amount allowable, based on 50 volunteers, that is roughly $14,320 paid to those volunteers. 

 

So, add all that up, and you have 

 

$5,000 per-diem

$15,000 in hotel rooms

$14,320 in travel re-imbursement.

 

That is a total of $34,320 for RO expense. A little over 1/6th of the total brought in by the above example. 

 

If the volunteer "gift" is worth $100, then add another $5,000 to that total, bringing it up to $39,320. Still less than 1/5th of the total brought in.

 

How much does it cost to rent / lease the range for those 4 days?

 

How much does it cost for the targets used?

 

How much does it cost for the banquet?

 

How much of that $200,000 is spent on prizes or plaques for the winners?

 

What other expenses not listed above are incurred and how much are they?

 

Not slamming anyone or anything, but these are the questions that need answers before any informed decision can be made on where to cut costs and get the matches back in the black. 

 

What is the total cost vs what is brought in, and what is that total cost derived from?

[Racinready300ex]

37 minutes ago, GrumpyOne said:

Maybe we need to break that down a bit and find out the total costs?

 

How many RO's to work that match? By that I ask, how many volunteers were given the per-diem, lodging, and re-imbursed for a portion of their travel expenses? 

 

Based on 50 RO's (or volunteers)...

 

If a match ran 4 days, each RO (or volunteer, if you like) gets $100 for their per-diem.  $5,000 total, at $25 per person, per day.

 

If they shared a hotel room (and, just for arguments sake), and that hotel room was $150 a night, out the door, that is an additional $300 per RO (or volunteer). $15,000, for 25 rooms for 4 nights

 

If 75% of the volunteers got re-imbursed the full amount allowable, based on 50 volunteers, that is roughly $14,320 paid to those volunteers. 

 

So, add all that up, and you have 

 

$5,000 per-diem

$15,000 in hotel rooms

$14,320 in travel re-imbursement.

 

That is a total of $34,320 for RO expense. A little over 1/6th of the total brought in by the above example. 

 

If the volunteer "gift" is worth $100, then add another $5,000 to that total, bringing it up to $39,320. Still less than 1/5th of the total brought in.

 

How much does it cost to rent / lease the range for those 4 days?

 

How much does it cost for the targets used?

 

How much does it cost for the banquet?

 

How much of that $200,000 is spent on prizes or plaques for the winners?

 

What other expenses not listed above are incurred and how much are they?

 

Not slamming anyone or anything, but these are the questions that need answers before any informed decision can be made on where to cut costs and get the matches back in the black. 

 

What is the total cost vs what is brought in, and what is that total cost derived from?

 

Exactly my thinking. There is to much information we don't really know, so we're just speculating. 

 

The org spent 300k on travel expenses on 2022. How much of that is for nationals? That number seems like a lot. Maybe a break down of that would be helpful too. 

 

[broadside72]

36 minutes ago, Racinready300ex said:

 

Exactly my thinking. There is to much information we don't really know, so we're just speculating. 

 

The org spent 300k on travel expenses on 2022. How much of that is for nationals? That number seems like a lot. Maybe a break down of that would be helpful too. 

 

Since every nationals includes a member meeting now, that means any AD and the pres can expense their travels to any nats event

[GrumpyOne]

13 minutes ago, broadside72 said:

Since every nationals includes a member meeting now, that means any AD and the pres can expense their travels to any nats event

Even at $2k each, that's still only another $20k or so...still leaving upwards of $140k unaccounted for.

[zzt]

FWIW.  I'm never going to a Nationals.  I have absolutely no problem with a portion of my dues or match fees going to support Nationals.  I think there should be fewer Nationals.  I like @shred 's idea of one or two big Nationals.  If that were the case, I'd be fine with the org losing 20-30k on each.

 

That being said, I think matches should be self supporting.  I'll run 50 matches this year.  Last year was similar.  Every one of them was in the black after all expenses and prizes were awarded.  That included t-shirts for the league shooters.  Even the NRA sanctioned 2700 bullseye matches make money after expenses, registration fees and mandatory prize payouts.  We are a volunteer org.  If I had to pay ROs I'd raise entry fees to cover.

 

Another thing USPSA could do is raise vendor fees.

[JWBaldree]

I was playing around with a nationals budget, 15 stages, 3 day match, 2 days for RO match, 2 week foot print on a range for set up and tear down. Granted, I made a bunch of assumptions, because I don't know what actual expenses are but I went low on revenue leaving out title sponsorships and what I feel are high on expenses. I also assume that USPSA or the range has a certain level of infrastructure, such as canopies, ice chests, walls, steel, etc. and is not paying for everything new at every nationals. Looks like $390 per shooter is about break even, but even if I drop entry fee to $325 it's still just a $17k loss. The only way I can figure USPSA is losing $70k in a match is if it is heavily subsidizing the prize tables. 

 

No, I have never put on an area match, much less a Nationals, and again I do not have any inside information as to what actual expenses are for Nationals. This was just a mental exercise for me, based on seeing some level two match financials and MDing my own specialty matches, mainly 3 gun, with a three day foot print, comping ROs, and providing lunches for all and trophy awards. Feel free to point out where I made assumption errors or things I left out, you won't hurt my feelings. 

 

If the mods think that this was inappropriate to post, then please delete and apologies in advance.

 

[Fishbreath]

2 minutes ago, JWBaldree said:

I went low on revenue leaving out title sponsorships

 

I've never put on a major, so I'll defer to someone with experience in that field, but everything I've heard says that cash payments are very hard to extract from sponsors. There's a profit/loss statement for the 2016 Georgia State match in this thread, and they picked up $2000 in cash sponsorships total, against about $23,000 in stuff donations. Nationals might have more pull, but I don't think it has 30 times more pull. On the flip side, there's probably no need for a swag bag line item if we're only accounting for cash—sponsor donations will cover it.

 

I would call 3 ROs per stage understaffed for your average USPSA match, and 15 stages a little short for a Nationals. A stage of normal complexity probably wants a timer guy and two guys off to the sides; three per stage means nobody gets any breaks.

 

Don't forget that your revenue will also be reduced by up to about 3%, for match fees, if you're taking credit cards, which is increasingly expected.

[shred]

There is some cash available from the big sponsors, but from the little guys that comprise most of the sponsors, not so much.  This is why killing the prize table doesn't actually save a match much, if any money (it does save a bunch of work) -- many sponsors will put up product or sell it to a match heavily discounted to get it into someone's hands as advertising (even if resold the next day), while cash just disappears without any accountability.

 

FWIW, targets are usually subsidized by one of the sponsors at nats, so you can cut some cost there from the accounting at the expense of another match slot or two.

 

[RJH]

So, area 4 championship last year had several hundred competitors, paid out cash to class winners (so no prize table high jinks to fall back on), had some sort of ro package, and still apparently managed to finish in the black. (They may have had a prize table too, not positive on that)

 

Maybe USPSA needs to talk to the guy who ran that match.

 

I saw an article from several years back that basically said that national says ran in the red from way back in 2010 onward. Hell it may have been in the red before that.

 

I know Nationals has a banquet and such that an area match does not have, but if there's an area match that can pay out cash to class winners, it's odd that you can't get a couple of sponsors to pick up the trophies and then be able to afford the banquet, or at least a large part of it.

 

Another question is, is the banquet necessary? Do people really care? Or would people rather simply have their trophy handed to them like every other match? I don't know the answers to this, as I have never shot a nationals, only area matches and such and would rather just had my trophy handed to me and let me go the hell home. I have shot national level archery events and there was no banquet at those, but they tend to make money, not cost money

[Dr Mitch]

5 hours ago, shred said:

Tulsa, Frostproof (held a World Shoot there), St George, Columbus, Vegas, Daytona, etc... some of those ranges may be on the outs with USPSA at the moment, or need work but there's plenty of them.

 

Tulsa (USSA) is done with USPSA, saying they lose too much money reserving the bays for us for monthly matches, sectionals, area matches.  Matches were permanently canceled there starting this month by the local MD.

[RJH]

19 minutes ago, Dr Mitch said:

Tulsa (USSA) is done with USPSA, saying they lose too much money reserving the bays for us for monthly matches, sectionals, area matches.  Matches were permanently canceled there starting this month by the local MD.

 

 

Dang, that's interesting. I don't know what they charge to host a club match but you would think that it would pay for the bays. But I don't really know how big that club is, or how many days they have

[rowdyb]

People love the banquet tradition. I did at first as well but I prefer to skip them now.

[Hoops]

At least SCSA is contributing $$ to the organization revenue base.  SCSA has one big national a year…..WSSC…..600 to 700 guns.  

[mchapman]

5 hours ago, Hoops said:

At least SCSA is contributing $$ to the organization revenue base.  SCSA has one big national a year…..WSSC…..600 to 700 guns.  

But I heard that they still lost $30000 or more last year?

[konkapot]

I'd like to hear from the "Yup" crew and here the reasoning behind their vote. Not in a hateful/chop busting way just curious. 

[Zincwarrior]

Trying to figure out why the entire membership should pay for this.  It should be self supporting. 

[Hoops]

As a current exclusive SC shooter, I rarely post on the USPSA shooter forum.  But in this case there is some overlap.

 

I voted No because RO’s are essential to all matches….from L1 and up.  Most MD’s can’t operate their matches at a loss.  Consumables (paint, paper, wood, etc) have significantly risen in cost.  Setup crews are given a break on match fees.  The result is most match fees have increased because of this.  
 

It should not be hard for HQ to set a reasonable budget for each national match they host….and show this budget as line items in each annual budget given to the members.  In the P&L reports, expenses and revenue for each match should be shown.  If there is a match cost overrun, a footnote explaination should be shown in the statement.  
 

If this basic principle was followed, there would have to be a corresponding match fee set for each major match.  Since all cost overruns is membership money, the BOD’s has a fiduciary responsibility to manage membership money which is really at the root of this post….not the narrow focus of RO’s….IMO.

 

Reports for FY2023 are due soon.  It will be interesting after the significant loss in FY2022.

[Racinready300ex]

17 hours ago, GrumpyOne said:

Even at $2k each, that's still only another $20k or so...still leaving upwards of $140k unaccounted for.

 

I'd be you they get more then 2k each to cover their travel expenses. 

 

 

The org spends 300k a year on travel after all.