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BGonline.org Forums
Attendance ... Perhaps it is the Money
Posted By: Dan Pelton In Response To: Attendance ... Perhaps it is the Money (Chuck Bower)
Date: Friday, 19 June 2009, at 5:38 a.m.
The site headquartered in KC is the United States Backgammon League. USBackgammon.org is the website. The group is fairly stagnant, the successful clubs are those that have a regular entry fee club and have a regular no-entry fee tournament in addition to their regular tourney.
IMHO, it was a nice idea, but lacked in execution. Backgammon by its very nature is a "gambling" game, and little effort was made to attract the internet players who are used to playing for no money just "bragging rights". There is a club that meets monthly in Phoenix that I started, and we try to attract the beginning and intermediate players, but average attendance is around 5/month.
I agree with the need for getting backgammon into the schools to attract players at a young age. I've seen a somewhat successful program done with cribbage, another game where counting is a key skill. I look forward to hearing how UBK does with his JC class in the fall. Bill Davis also holds a multi-week class teaching backgammon, I don't know whether he does it every year or not. I would like to see more ABT events have a separate childrens division like the Midwest Championships.
I hadn't thought of "Pop-O-Matic" Trouble as a backgammon derivative, but remember that the game was very popular with my family when we were growing up.
I don't know what efforts tourney directors have made toward getting publicity about their tournaments in the local media. I do recall an article in the local Detroit area paper about CJCs tournament a couple of years ago. I would think that the fact that most events attract at least a couple of the "Giants of the Game" would be enough to spark some interest among the local media, if only they were made aware of the event. Backgammon seems to fly under the radar too often.
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