3gg lower tier tournaments

[Mike_Craig_-_Ohio USSSA]

I don't have a horse in this race, just a question.... From what I read here, if someone were to get Rotary Park going or somewhere else for that matter, and say they are USSSA tournament, and at the same time, advertise the same venue, on the same weekend for another non-sanctioned event, that it's cool to do so? Again, I have nothing at stake here, don't plan to, don't want to, just clarification on the subject as I read it...

Honestly it happens at Berliner Park all of the time. We have been there while there is a baseball, other sanctions fast-pitch event, and a slow-pitch event going all on the same weekend. It just happened the last weekend of October. We had Ohio State's club baseball tournament using a field while we had the other 3 fields with us in the one quad (14-17) the same weekend with freaking fouled off baseballs flying around us the whole weekend a couple of springs back. Most of the time when we are in Troy, they have American Legion BB going on on the Legion field the bulk of the time. USSSA offers baseball but I can not tell the folks who lease that park to run it USSSA or take the weekend off. They would tell me to pound sand.

Remember, when a private complex owns or leases the fields, they do what they can to fill it up. The structure for years and years in the metro Cincy area has always been private parks with gate fees and adult beverage sales going on the whole time. These are not city or municipal funded entities, but someone is privately footing the bill and is in business to show a profit or at least get back to even on a weekend. Rotary Park that you mentioned is a city funded park by the city of Beavercreek. If they decided to give the outside or inside fields out to a baseball group or another FP group running a non-sanctioned or competitors event, I am flat out of luck if I am the one renting the fields that weekend from them and do not fill all of the fields.

Do I personally like it? Not at all, but I do not pay the note or lease payment, the park owners/manager does. Who am I to tell them how to run a place they have a financial stake in?

There is a independent group called Midwest Tournament Factory that advertises baseball and softball at the same facilities every weekend in the summer. Then they see which event "sticks" and moves the teams to other places they are running at on the same weekend. Sometimes the day before and 40-50 miles in another direction. Do I think this is fair to teams especially ones who came in to stay and are within 10 miles of the complex? Of course not. It is a terrible customer service model and will alienate your customers and eventually drive them elsewhere.

Same as the guy who ran the MVP Tournaments down that way was doing. Offer 5-6 age groups in both sports, see which ones make, and then run them on top of each other at the same place. And people have wised up to his way of doing things and he doesn't get the market share he was getting before Covid hit. The negative is all of the people who have gotten the short end of the stick with him monetarily like our BB guy who he still owes 5 figures to in registration, event fees, and supposed forwarded entry fees to other BB events in the area that never got turned in to those folks. Dennis made those people whole and never got it back from MVP.

At the end of the day, it is the customer who has to make the decision on how they were treated and if they feel like the got snookered when they signed up. I can preach to this group that they are approaching it the wrong way and it will destroy any momentum they get at all. We tried with the place on the east side back in the woods but they didn't listen and now they struggle to get anyone to play over there. But the teams can see this and decide to go elsewhere anytime they want in the process. They do not have to go back and can find other places to go play at anytime they choose.