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BGonline.org Forums
Large Scale Nation vs Nation Tournament
Posted By: Perry Gartner
Date: Wednesday, 1 July 2009, at 5:46 p.m.
I believe we can advance the popularity of Backgammon by attracting a large number of casual players in the US and overseas to an Olympic style (no prize money)tournament. The thrust behind this idea is that players of all elk would be motivated to represent their country in such a competition. Professional players and those that mostly have their eyes on equity would gain by the publicity generated, and the number of new casual players attracted to playing. On the other extreme, casual players with no tournament experience would consider playing to represent their country and then possibly playing for your country, with little expense on their part,to be great fun. There might be as many as 30 countries that would participate based upon the attendance at the Cannes Nation Tournament the last several years.
How do you do it? Here are my ideas-
Sponsorship- Such an undertaking could attract sponsorship by corporations and even government backing(see below). But I think it is do-able even without much in the way of sponsorship and sponsorship could take place in some countries and not in others.
Here is a outline of the basic elements:
1. The number of players representing each country- Is 16 a good number?
2. The Venue- Each country would have sites in major cities for qualifying rounds. There would be a nominal registration fee to cover staff and facilities, and travel expenses to the International Site where the Nations would face each other. The fee could be as low as $25 or as high as $50 or $75 in the US, depending on the number of entrants expected. The number of players in the US to enter such a tournament of course depends on the marketing program. My wild guess at the range would be 1500 to 5,000.
3. Qualifications-National associations, or committee's formed for this venture, might give a number of players byes into later rounds or even select them as members of the team.
4.Experienced tournament directors would be attracted to such an undertaking because this is a means of attracting potential new players to their tournaments. Bottom line is they would not need lots of compensation to run these qualifiers.
5.Some countries might like the publicity of holding such a tournament for purposes of tourism. Chiva, a while ago, told me that Bulgaria or some such country was prepared to put up added money and provide a site for a tournament, as an example.
6.We need people in the bg community, some directors for sure, willing to organize into a committee to move this forward. BG organizations in other countries need to be consulted. Who is willing to step up? I am not in a position to lead such an undertaking but would offer support.
Perry
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