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What to do if you lost 1/2 your budget? |
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Jason Pauli
Senior Member Joined: 8/29/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 915 |
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Posted: 11/25/08 at 7:27am |
With the way the economy is going, losing budget money this year is a possibility. As an athletic director, how would you restructure your program if you lost 1/2 your budget? What would be your strategy in your restructuring? |
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C. Smith
Admin Group Retired Joined: 8/30/04 Location: Antarctica Status: Offline Points: 6661443 |
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Depends what the budget consists of. If it is a Pro game and your talking about prize money, then cutting the # of athletes would make the most sense.
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will barron
Postaholic Top 10 in the USA - '03, '04, '07, '08 Joined: 8/30/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1455 |
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hacking into the computer systems of the Highland Games Governing Board and cancelling the contracts with the pipe bands? I will probably try to find more local sponsorship and try to get the local paper involved in promoting the festival - advertising something unique and special that is going on at the games...something like "Mike Zolk, world class International Strongman and Scottish Games competitor will try to surpass Bill Kazmaier's weight over the bar feats of over 18' and join the worlds strongest men in the halls of glory- all right here in Cortland NY this summer" or like: "Dave Barron will try to throw within 5' of Will Barron in the 28 for distance..." when people try to spend less - they just need to be sold. |
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McSanta
Postaholic Joined: 4/12/05 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1595 |
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This is a realistic question so lets hope this does not end up going down the well traveld path of "athletes should not pay because they are entertainment" or "pipers are killing the games". In an ideal world, those items can be changed, but it is much harder in the real world. Games Structure - Consider your games structure - open format is a cheaper games format as the AD can judge the games as well as play score keeper. Only need an announcer Reduce the Number of Flights - If flights can be combined, the judging costs can be reduced. If a flight is eliminated both the judging costs and the cost of prize can be eliminated. Medals - This should be the first thing eliminated in a multi flight games. They are costly and not greatly appreciated by many throwers. 7 flights (A, B, C, Masters, Women, Novice, Lightweights) X 9 events x 3 medals per event = 189 medals. Assuming a bare bones cheapo medal costs of $3, that is a savings of $567 Judges Fees - Ask your regular judges if they will forego their fees and settle for a hotel room. If they are local, you can save both. Another method is to trade judging services with other games. Judges fees is a big part of my games budget. Announcer Fees/PA System - This should be one of the last costs to be eliminated as announcers are so important to the entertainment value of the athletic area. Again, ask if your announcer will reduce costs or trade with another games AD to do their announcing and they do yours. Benefit Package for throwers - Throwers expect a t-shirt and perhaps some grub and refreshments. This should be another thing that should not be eliminated. Registration Fees - One of the benefits of being an AD is to have support of throwers. Many will still come if the games reasonably raise the registration fee. |
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Mark McVey
"The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances and demonstrations for impressions." -John Ruskin |
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JWC III
Postaholic Joined: 8/30/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1277 |
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Keep my attitude that I do this because I love it and not for the money, recognition and/or fame. Then I'd do whatever I had to do to get it done until more favorable conditions come around. |
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Thom Van Vleck
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Borges
Postaholic The Conrad Dobler of the Highland Games Joined: 8/30/04 Location: Jamaica Status: Offline Points: 2188 |
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I'd put a call in to Hank Paulson.
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Cheers,
Carlos "Live free or die" |
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AncientOne
Postaholic Joined: 8/29/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1189 |
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Mark-
You could slash the judges, announcers, medals, t-shirts, food and drinks if you had to. These are all extras. Give out a handshake and a stack of beer tickets to each thrower. Problem solved. -K |
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Winners are remarkably adept at figuring out what's required to win.
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Trainerterry
Postaholic Joined: 9/09/04 Location: Suriname Status: Offline Points: 1155 |
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+1 |
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"A man has to know his limitations" - Detective Harold Callahan
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Wayne Hill
Postaholic Joined: 8/29/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 2935 |
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At Loon this year, we had an interesting thing happen. In the masters competition, the caber was a good Amateur A caber, but it just too light for these guys (Ryan, Ali, Steve, Myles, Baab, ...), and we were ending up with a shootout. We decided we really ought to have a challenge caber, but hadn't budgeted a prize. This wasn't really a problem, because we knew we could beg the office for it and get it, but Bill Crawford suggested an experiment: let's auction off the event to the spectators.
So, Art McDermott (on the mike) asked the crowd who wanted to see these guys toss a really big caber (which Dana Florence had cut for Celtic, the following week). Who bid $25? He went this way up to $50 and said, "Oh, by the way, the winning bidder gets a T-shirt signed by all of our athletes." The price rapidly went up to $100, and we figured that was good enough. We invited the winning bidder to come down to the field to receive his prize, and six people came down. That's not six people who were each kicking in $16.67, but six people who each kicked in $100. Naturally, we gladly obliged with 6 T-shirts. There's a lesson in this for us all: if you've got the competitors, there are opportunities for fund-raising sitting all around the field. As if they weren't already excited, the crowd was well and truly into the competition now. Every pick, runup, and pull was met with a deafening roar. And guess who won (hey, who's gonna come through when it's needed?): Ryan Vierra. And do you know how he celebrated? He split the money six ways with the other challenge competitors. There's a lesson there, as well. |
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"We may be small, but we're slow." - MIT Rugby
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meat
Senior Member Top 10 in the USA - '07-'12 Joined: 11/18/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 715 |
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Absolutely amazing! I don't recall the same thing happening the folowing day.....oh, I didn't win anyway. I would definately say: Do away with medals. I threw most of mine out or gave them to kids. If you must, then give them away for overall, not every event. Most of us could do without a t-shirt unless it can really advertise the main sponsor. Beyond that I couldnt tell you anything never having run a games. From an athletes point of view I could do without. |
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COLEWINE
Senior Member Joined: 8/20/06 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 171 |
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Good Morning, Good question. I believe that Games need to be run just little a business. Board members need to be very much aware of costs, investments and payback time frames. A good AD must have their arms around the financial aspect of the Games. Sadly some don’t. Mike, I disagree with you about the medals and shirts. I know you are long past that phase in your career but many aren’t. The reason I would keep them is that they increase the gate. At least two am’s brought 10 people each with them to the Games here last summer. That’s $300 in gate money we got, for two $7 shirts they got for a day’s work on the field. That’s good business. Faced with a 50% loss of operating capital I would examine what would give me the “biggest bang for my buck” There are many moving parts that make up a Highland Festival But gladly last year the Maine Games made twice as much as it ever has in one year in its 31 year history. The really funny thing is if the 15 people on my Games Team(people who put on the Games) had taken a part time job and worked the hours they put into the Games prep. We would have made almost 8 times more. For the love of the Games! Bruce |
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McBain1975
Postaholic Joined: 8/30/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1596 |
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Cut the awards down to just top athlete, no t-shirts and toss in some of more of my own money to pay for athlete beer.
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N�l m� ag duine le daoine.
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mcdonl
Senior Member Joined: 8/22/06 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 971 |
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Here is what I would recommend if I had too.... 1 - Limit pro field to 5 2 - Eliminate PRO women class (We now host the New England's Womens AM Championship to showcase our women) 3 - Just pay a stipend for travel, and a hotel room instead of pro money 4 - Continue not paying judges and volunteers 5 - Cut the MC 6 - Cut PRO Class If none of that worked, then just run an open AM event with home made trophies. The best thing I have sitting on my desk at home is a Dirk Bruce made me. Leroy - Maine AD |
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Leroy McDonough
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McBain1975
Postaholic Joined: 8/30/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1596 |
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Oh, I would have to find money to bring in some top notch cheerleaders (aka, hot chicks in short short short kilts) to cheer on the athletes while shaking pom-poms and thus bring more attention to the games and increase audience attendance among the male patrons. When the festival fires me for this stunt I would have gone out in style. When the money gets tight, its time to get creative.
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N�l m� ag duine le daoine.
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Wayne Hill
Postaholic Joined: 8/29/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 2935 |
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In lieu of event medals, give all participating athletes a pin for their kilt. These should be lapel-sized, so an athlete can put a bunch of them on their kilt. This avoids the "embarrassment of riches" issue that Mike referred to, where a few athletes get a pile of medals they don't care about, and gives something to all the rest of the athletes who wouldn't get any medals. Even with a custom design, pins for everyone are cheaper than medals. You can also give them to everyone who volunteers, and to special spectators (e.g., wheelchair kids).
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"We may be small, but we're slow." - MIT Rugby
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McBain1975
Postaholic Joined: 8/30/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1596 |
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Wayne - that is a hell of an idea ...
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N�l m� ag duine le daoine.
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kiltedsyco
Groupie Joined: 1/05/07 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 109 |
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mcdonl
Senior Member Joined: 8/22/06 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 971 |
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I may be missing something, but as Bruce indicated, we did well in Maine this year. Maybe it was right at the point where the economy was going South. I guess it will depend on what the gate brings next year, but as for how we run the games we will not change much as we have been having pretty good success. We of course have room for improvement, but lets hope that by next summer people have some more expendable income.
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Leroy McDonough
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McSanta
Postaholic Joined: 4/12/05 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1595 |
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I agree with the comments above about approaching the game as a business. If you can get the accounting information that shows "ins" and "outs" allocated by various areas (piping, dance, entertainments, athletics, Animals, .....), I have found two useful ways of reporting the data beyond just dollar amounts: (1) dividing the net income for each area by the gate income to get the cost of each area per $1 of gate income. (2) if the games has a good head count (not what they tell the press), then you can get a good estimate of average ticket price. I use that value to determine the number of people that has to come through the gate to cover the cost of a particular area. Example (not real data): Athletics Net income -$1500 Gate Income: $25,000 Athletics cost $0.06 per $1.00 of gate income and Head count of 3846 (but the press is told 5,000) people generate an average ticket price of $6.50 - Athletics: 231 people would have to pay the gate to cover its costs For what it is worth, these methods have generated some good discussion on my games committee.
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Mark McVey
"The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances and demonstrations for impressions." -John Ruskin |
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Wayne Hill
Postaholic Joined: 8/29/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 2935 |
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The last thing most committees spend time doing is figuring out the viewership at the different events. For the most part, they each spend their time in their own venues and are convinced that's where everyone is.
At Loon, we knew we were going to have a good weekend when people started leaving their chairs overnight at the athletics venue on Friday before the athletics started. |
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"We may be small, but we're slow." - MIT Rugby
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McSanta
Postaholic Joined: 4/12/05 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1595 |
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Wayne, you somewhat missed the point and underline why I made my post at the same time! The confusion is probably due to my originial wording of "would have to draw" rather than "would have to pay the gate" in my revised post - sorry. It has nothing to do with viewership... I put forth different ways of expressing the costs of putting on a games so that the chauvinist committee members will hopefully be forced to examine the cost of their area in relationship to other areas of the games. I had luck with these approaches in generating some real constructive and creative dialog among committee people of my game. It appeared to suppress some of the believe that one area's superior to another and allowed people to step back and take a big picture approach to the games. The economic climate over the next several years will probably generate pressure on games to take a long look at stream lining to survive and perhaps these approaches will give others some tools to take that look.
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Mark McVey
"The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances and demonstrations for impressions." -John Ruskin |
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Wayne Hill
Postaholic Joined: 8/29/04 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 2935 |
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OK, I see what you mean. There were a few things in what you wrote that threw me off. You mentioned "ins and outs" for the different venues, and I thought you meant people, rather than money, and also mentioned net income of an activity, rather than cost.
We had some quote the cost per participant of the athletics, piping, and dance and consequently piping was "cheapest" and athletics the "most expensive". Rather than blasting away at such twisted reasoning, we have been stressing the fact that the festival would be far poorer without any of the activities, so let's make the best festival we can. I think our pipers recognize that their activity has the most leeway in cost. They can go big or small, vary the level of the bands that compete, add a day, or not, and so forth. I think they've made very mature decisions in this regard, which should help us for the next few years. |
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"We may be small, but we're slow." - MIT Rugby
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WALLY.OLECIK
Postaholic Joined: 10/10/08 Location: W. Seattle, WA Status: Offline Points: 1594 |
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l've been thinking about this very same subject and have already decided on a different approach. Before l turned in my '09 budget, l added on some new items, such as bonus payments to those athletes that set national records at the Claw. lf the Trustees start tightening up the purse strings, l've got expenditures that l can live without. lf not, then things will be a little better for the athletes!
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mcdonl
Senior Member Joined: 8/22/06 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 971 |
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Good idea Wally. Leroy |
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Leroy McDonough
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WALLY.OLECIK
Postaholic Joined: 10/10/08 Location: W. Seattle, WA Status: Offline Points: 1594 |
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Another thought.
Any Games worth it's salt should have a little something-something stashed away to cover a possible bad year, like a rain-out. Even if attendance is a little off, due to the economy, there should still be enuf in the kitty to cover another Games one year down the road. l would advise any Games against cutting back thinking that attendance might be lower. To me, cutting back is like a self fulfilling prophesy. People attending a reduced Games are going to remember it in the future and might decide not to return. lt could be hard to win these folks back! lnstead, l would advise a Games to go heavy on the "Stay-cation" advertising. lf it's too expensive for people to go very far from home, then local events should probably reap the rewards. |
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