Just ran some quick math and through the first 3 months of the year in 2017, WI would have brought in ~$600 already.

Since the next 9months there will be even more events and larger events, we can take a random stab that ~$3000 would come in fr0m WI alone in 2017.

at 25% donated to nationals, that means WI would be donating $750 to send a player to Nationals. F that!

you get all 50 states in and get them that involved and you are talking over 30k in prize pool for the same elite group (with the ocassional new to the scene guy).

What does that payout structure look like Josh? 12k to First? 8k to second?

Just curious since people are saying you and your brother wont make any money off this money grab...

$1 is not for administrative fees. It goes to the state and national tournaments.

What your saying about the same 10 people winning all the time is the problem I think a lot of people will have. It's not the idea of giving a dollar, it's the principle.

In the write up for this change, it says the "TD can do a go fund me, etc"? Ok... why not have the IFPA try that first?

Wow, that would be $2250 for the Wisconsin State Championship.

This year at Nationals, I didn't know at least half of the players in the field. It was NOT the same 'ol "elite players".
And with the new structure, I think you could pay down close to all the way. So the WI State Champ will get some of the money back to WI anyway, and possibly WAY more than the $750 you project.
And a nice big prize pool for state, paying all 16 players.

I think the easiest way would be that you can still have IFPA sanctioned events, but you either pay the fees for all (or most of the events) or you opt out of the SCS series. You can have your own State Championship and ranking system, just not IFPA endorsed. And everything would continue as normal.

I'm under the assumption we'll see an attrition rate here. There will be a shift of organizers that go from weekly reporting to monthly reporting (so you only pay one time for every 4 events). But we do have that data from 2016:

Wisconsin pool was $2598 . . . $1948 went to WI SCS, $650 to Nationals.

Here would have been the payouts for the top 16 State finalists (which will be a mandatory payout structure for all states):

1st - $584.61
2nd - $350.76
3rd - $233.84
4th - $155.90
5th through 8th - $77.95 each
9th through 16th - $38.97 each

This is logistically far more challenging for us. Right now we have an interface that deals directly with TD's, and this will simply be an extension of the results submission process. We can easily stage events through that same process we do now for approvals. Dealing with individual registration of 50,000 players and building that process from scratch is a far bigger nightmare.

We will definitely find out if what we're doing works or not . . . and we'll go from there. This whole process will be a Staples Easy Button press from being repealed if it tanks. We're at the points of having seen the player base grow to the level it has to 'play with our food' a bit and try some things. NOBODY (myself included) knows how it's going to play out.

And if Nationals gets a ton of money in it, then they could pay all participants. Dave Daluga would have cashed.

Not all players would agree to opt in or out, who makes the call for the entire state?

Not that I care to ever profit off of IFPA work, but for tax/legal reasons we have to set this up intentionally to not keep ANY of the funds. It all has to be paid back 100% or we end up in some sticky situations.

Good point. I think Wisconsin is a special case given the personalities involved, but if all the TD are on the same page, they can go their separate way, IMO. Let the players give them hell about it or not.

We will have to be sure that $1 is paid on EVERY ENTRY at some of the PAY FOR PLAY TOURNAMENTS. In Chicago expo they have that silly buy as many entries as you want format. So these players that spend hundreds or dollars just to qualify need more insentives (MONEY) to keep spending money. I dont play in these types of tournaments because to me they are just money grabs by the TD and it really not a good indication of who is best that day. It who ever can spend the most and have a decent day. Again there are 10 elite players and every tournament , so lets collect .25 cents from all 50 states all year so we can pay these pros. Not a good argument for the fee!

Whysnow is mad, CrazyLevi is snarky...

So, the usual then? Is the pinball sky falling or not?

SO GAMBLING PAYOUTS ARE OK BUT NOT ADMINISRATION FEE?

Nationals payout structure would actually not change much at the top at all. Our plan would be to pay ALL SPOTS (versus the top 8 we do now), so even the person finishing in last place gets some of their travel expenses paid for by attending.

again, so 2598 player entries in order to give cash to the top 16 people. Then WI pays another $650 to nationals for more money to the elite.

What would the Nationals payout structure have been?

Sorry but in principle this is all obviously a way to make other pay for the prize pool of the elite.

give us the 2016 nationals payout then, with 100% assumed participation.

Safe to assume my large charity event is exempt form this shenanigans and IFPA waives any BS fee?

or do you also want to take money away from Cancer patients so you can bring more 'prestige' to pinball?

Pinball isn't gambling . . . so said my dad in 1976

Oh dear god. No wonder serious people stay away from Pinside like the plague.

1st 1000 (plus NIB game)
2nd 2000
3rd 1500
4th 1000
5th-8th 500
9th-16th 250
17-32nd 200
33rd-49th 200

buck up buttercup. It is the right thing to do.

It cant be all that difficult. Heck, Pinside has the ablity to take individual donations form users and immediately give them a red heart and other features of the site open up.

IFPA has all indicidual player profile pages. This cant be all that tough. instead you are attempting to shuffle a poor form for money generation and putting all the added work on TDs.

I am guessing it will be too late to just simply hit the reset button after 1 year.

Seems people are already taking action to work things out, and assuming they do then they are unlikely to go back in a year.

Charity events are welcome to run as non-point events, or if they feel they can raise more funds by opting in to being an endorsed event by motivating more players to attend, that will be their choice.

I've spoken with most of the popular pinball charities over the last few months so they have been aware of this coming for a while.

http://www.upyours.info/playerranks.html

I can't speak for the owner of this ranking system, but he may be interested in selling it to you, Hilton.

odd, I was not contacted and I am pretty sure I run the largest charity event in the midwest region...

so in short... IFPA comes before charity events. check

I believe Robin and crew work on this full time? Or at least 'enough time' that it's far more of a commitment than I'm willing to put in.

I'll stay bucked up and put this on the to-do list for 'someday not today'

Click - approve . . . instead of Click - confirm payment - approve.

edited I dont need to make it personal like that just because you do.

Only if you participants care more about IFPA *points* than the charity.

That was a legitimate site run for a few years here in MN. But it's nice to see you acting the way you always do. Cheers.

if you drop to 1/3 of your total events in a year, then I doubt you will get those TDs back.

you are the guy telling someone "up yours"

Not to put the cart before the horse, but if players aren't necessarily in it for the cash, then they HAVE to be in it for the points. I don't think anyone is playing just for the thrill of competition?

I am basically saying, I wouldn't want to be given the option to "play for charity!" or "play for points!".

That was a protest site used as an alternate rating system for events run at SS Billiards, back in like 2011, 2012 or so. I got in the top 10 one year I think. I thought it was funny. But now I see how you could interpret it that way.

One wonders why you want to be associated with the IFPA at all at this point, which is the point of sharing what someone else did before you. And this way you don't have to come up with things like a 'best of 17' final match.

I dont understand what you are saying? If an event is a non-point event, doesnt that more accurately mean non-IFPA?

I mean, if I am not paying in the $80 for the 80 players in our charity event, then why would I even put it on the IFPA?
Sounds to me like the option is either pay to have your entire event ranked, or not be an IFPA event at all?

Watching Hilton try - and fail spectacularly - to get ifpa's goat is hilarious.

So here is the question. Is the bottom line of the SCS to make the top 16 in each state money or is it to crown a state champion?

I think you got the answer to this on April 1st...

Obviously the IFPA stance is that it is all about the money.

Both? I think it really incentivizes those on the bubble to play more. Those players from about 7-24 would create a very interesting competition to make the top 16. It's not about assuming ahead of time who will be in it. Here we've seen 4-5 new people just this year who could be newcomers to the top 16. We'll see how it pans out.

curious if IFPA is now starting championship series for other countries also?

or is this new fee structure only for US and CAN based competitions and everyone else gets to be ranked for free?

Does everything have to be about money Chris?

If we drop to 1/3rd we're still at over 1000 events in the US annually. That's not necessarily a bad number for us.

If we nuke it and the TD's don't come back . . . we'll just have to wait and see. I fully anticipate a certain level of attrition and felt the landscape has grown enough to support us experimenting with this. If we blow EVERYTHING UP and competitive pinball burns to the ground, then we'll start back up from scratch like we did 11 years ago

this is a guy that colluded at Wauna to try and work with his other MN buddies because he wanted to try and secure more money...

in short, yes. It is always about the money

Given how I've played in Hilton's charity events and played at MGC the last years with zero prize money, not sure how you can ask me that and be serious.

Odd, I wouldn't have contacted you either. All you ever seem to do is argue and protest anything they do.
And now try to put this spin on it and try to make them seem anti-charity?
A new low even for you.

Not sure how agreeing to split with my friends makes me more money.

Correct . . . non-points means NOT IFPA endorsed. Many events already run this way, team leagues especially that have been incredibly popular.

Most players out there see absolutely no value in the WPPR system as they just play for fun, so for them this is meaningless. They can continue to play for fun, and not earn any rankings points that they didn't care anything about in the first place.

Now if you DO care about WPPR's . . . it gets more 'interesting' for how this will play out.

I'm just saying. How much is too much?
I wasn't trying to infer you where out to get money. Sorry about that.

I wish you good luck.

I think the way you went about all this was terrible and find it disrespectful to not have reached out to talk with some of your more active TDs to discuss this was looming (WI being an active state and nown of the TDs were contacted). Quite a few of us have worked hard to help build the sport and in turn the IFPA. This all smacks of greed totally against building of the sport.

Josh

As someone who already invests a large amount of time organizing and administrating tournaments, of which the vast majority are free entry, this decision will create a tremendous administrative, logistical and awkward headache. The idea of continuously stalking people to "fork up your dollar!" is unappealing.

My idea/request:
Automate an emailing and payment accounting system. At the beginning of 2018, send an email to all IFPA tournament participants from 2017 and invoice them for $1 X the number of sanctioned appearances. If they opt out , they will be ineligible for WPPR points in 2018. This will make life much easier for all the TDs and give the new players a grace period before we start chasing them off with fees.

thanks for all your hard work,
Shawn

Motivating players to MAKE the top 16 allows us to capture the interest of more players. In Illinois there was a huge level of interest to claim those 12th-16th seeded spots, with the understanding that most likely nobody was going to beat Zach (myself included as Hilton made sure to rub salt in that wound)

Focusing on being able to take those players fighting for the 12th-16th seeds and awarding them for making the cut is a strategy we're taking with this approach.

When it backfires, we'll change back.