Monday, July 2, 2012

The Mondy Poll

In the PSP Chitown wrap-up VFTD had a few unkind words for the CPX fields that had a surface fit only for reenactments of the Great War. It occurred to me at the time that it might be a good poll topic, or rather, what are your priorities for a major league tournament venue? If you go way back with VFTD you might recall I've already done a similar poll but that was then and this is now. Besides there's unlikely to be a (competitive paintball-oriented) poll topic VFTD hasn't done. I've even done a favorite gat poll that left me feeling dirty--but I kinda liked it.
Enough silliness, today's poll will list the features of a tournament and you will choose up to three features, the 3 features you consider most important, to a successful event. This way the leagues will get a sampling of your thoughts on the matter before they ignore you completely. (Just kidding. Or am I?) (I have had a brief convo with the PSP regarding the CPX grounds but I won't spoil your voting choices by filling you in just yet--other than to say the league apparently has not made an extended committment to use CPX as the Chicago venue but it is an option. And I don't know if it's been discussed formally yet or not.)
Many of the options, like "location" are open to fairly broad interpretation as is "accessibility." For the former think general area and take time of year, weather, etc. into your consideration and for the latter it's about how easily and/or quickly you can get to the venue. 10 minutes on a highway versus an hour of stop and go traffic kinda thing. "Public profile" covers an event/venues capacity to attract/interact with the non-paintballing public and choosing "public profile" would indicate you put a lot of stock into venues like HB for their potential to reach the public. "Proximity" refers to the venue design and layout. Preferably one that keeps all the elements relatively close together making it easy and quick to get around, collect paint, drag gearbags to the pits, etc. "Schedule/logistics" is the actual daily operation of the event; on time, with minimal interruptions or confusion, delays, etc. "Infrastructure" is all the off site necessities like decent hotels, restaurants, night spots, and so on all within a reasonable distance of the venue. And "hospitality" refers to on site food and drink availability and prices. I've purposefully left "cost" off the list as everyone would like competing to cost less but what the poll is really about is what matters most for what it does cost.
Remember, pick up to three options and let's see what y'all think is most important to a major league tournament's success.

9 comments:

Nick Brockdorff said...

If the reffing sucks, none of the other items matter.

Missy Q said...

True enough, but one should expect that the reffing would be adequate. I don't even think the reffing option should be there, as like 'cost' it will always be a 'gimme'.
Someone in one of the previous topics said that if the PSP got more money we would see the standard of reffing improve - I disagree. The only way this would be true is if we assume that the refs are intentionally doing a substandard job because they don't feel they're getting enough money at the moment, and I haven't seen any indication of that.
I chose location, public profile, and playing surface.
I feel that if you are at a venue with 'Public profile' the liklihood is that along with that profile should come 'Proximity', 'Accessibility' and 'Hopitality'. Thats knocking down 4 pins with one ball. Location is the 'weather option' and as such becomes one of the most important choices.
I chose playing surface because I know from experience how important this is to the players, and felt it out-weighed the other remaining options.

Baca Loco said...

Aw, Missy, how soon some forget. If reffing is a gimme why did NPPL 1.0 fly in Swedish refs? Why did NPPL 3.0 hire Tony & Dan away from the PSP last year? And so on. ;)

Anonymous said...

It's not that current refs are intentionally reffing bad because they don't feel they are being paid enough.

The more money you're able to compensate refs, the more people will be interested in reffing, and the larger pool of potential candidates you'll have to choose from to pick the best officials.

Missy Q said...

Reffing is a Gimme, you don't have to believe me - look at your own Poll. You didn't even mention Reffing in your post describing the poll, and I imagine everyone will choose it, which means you're really asking for 2 options rather than 3.
If someone asked me what a gimme was, I would give them this as an example, and I feel they would gain full understanding.

To answer your questions:

The NPPL flew in swedish refs because reffing is a gimme.

The NPPL hired Tony because reffing is a Gimme.

The NPPL hired Dan because Tony told them to.

Baca Loco said...

Missy, if by gimme (in Harlemese) you mean a category almost everyone will agree is a priority--I get your point--but my point is that's kinda the purpose of the poll as a whole, yes?

And of course the hiring of the Swedish refs was a gimmick, not a gimme, because the cost was prohibitive and lasted only long enough to have hopefully established the new league's reffing bona fides.
And to make your version of "gimme" accurate NPPL 3.0 would have had to hire Tony (or someone like him) on Day 1, not Year 3 or 4. Your "gimme" may be obvious from the players' perspective but it clearly hasn't always been from the leagues POV.

Missy Q said...

Yes, that's what I meant, and I'm glad you agree.

Does this mean you're removing it from the Poll or shall we just accept it as a gimme?

Anonymous said...

What you're really after is a Conjoint Analysis where you can determine which characteristics of a tournament people value the most, and if designed properly you'd be able to get a pretty good estimate as to how much ($) value people place on those characteristics. How much is reffing worth, how much is location worth, etc. etc.

Baca does a good job pulling out many of they key value drivers... but the way the survey is presented won't tell us much as Missy's comments point out.

What Baca needs to do is get a $200k grant from PBA (I hear they spend money like it's going out of style) and then he can conduct a proper conjoint analysis.

In exchange for the 200k, to sweeten the pot to the PBA guys, Baca could offer to do such valuable things as put a PBA logo on his website and and a PBA logo on his jersey. Maybe even a sticker on his hopper during practice, but that might cost extra.

Baca Loco said...

Anon
I like how you think and to the PSP I'll kick in the stickers free o' charge.
While not the possessor of a marketing degree I have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in the past and it seems to me regardless of the process the end result is still reliant on the quality of the analysis. (And that of course will continue to be first rate.) :)