The ACBL Gets More Than 50% of Their Members from Clubs
By Chris Compton
For over 40 years my family has been involved in club ownership. Presently, Donna and I own the Bridge Academy of North Dallas, while my mother and father owned the Bridge and Games Studio of Houston for over 30 years. Through the years the ACBL BOD has never represented the clubs, rather the BOD has continually focused intently on sectional and regional tournaments. Of course, this can be traced directly to the fact that only unit board members vote for BOD members. Let’s take one example, my long-time friend and District Director, Dan Morse reported to his District 16 Board a few years ago, under a new board motion “Good news, if we go over 9000 members then District 16 can have an additional regional each year!” The clubs owners did not take that as good news.
When I joined the ACBL in 1974 there were about 160,000 members (we counted dead members back then, so at some point we claimed 190,000 members) and there were about 55 annual regionals. Today, we have about 160,000 members and 120 annual open regionals, plus Senior regionals, Intermediate Novice regionals and now the new animal, the Gold Rush regionals. If new additional tournaments increased the total dollars expended by Members on Bridge, that would be one thing; but, at this point, each additional sanctioned tournament transfers tables from the clubs to tournaments.
The end result of increasing the number of tournaments while the membership stays constant is smaller and smaller tournaments – and some to extinction. Additionally, we are killing our source of new members (clubs) with regulations limiting the holding of club games or limiting MP awards for club games held while nearby tournaments are played. In the last 18 months, many of the 6.5 day regionals are moving to 7-day regionals. Just one more session the local club must be closed while the rent accumulates.
Now for the solutions. How do we balance the number of tournaments with the actual number of members? If cutting back is an option, where do we start? It is much easier to give than to take away. What kind of fair reduction plan is there out there? Does the ACBL BOD need more club owners to balance off the Unit/District Representatives?
Let me hear from you!
21 responses to “ST: Clubs and the ACBL”
Well Chris, it is hard to beleive a lawyer. Its the regionals that you as owner attend with your co-owner attends to make the top masterpoint player for more than one year. It is a club sponsered sectional that makes our club profitable that complained about your club removing your members for special events at your club from our sectional. Yet we stop all our games for the sectional you run each year and not being in your unit we lose money so doing.
Now to the real point which I do agree, we have too many tournaments and I do agree that the ACBL has neglected the clubs. As some of you may know the ACBL has reduced its money support in the last BOD meetings and the last year for funding of youth bridge and advertising subsidies. Both items that help clubs grow. I even feel the reduction of Unit Game masterpoint awards has made Unit games that could help the geographic area of clubs does not fare well since they make Sectionals or STaCs a better choice for Unit income.
Our region, district 16, removal serveral years ago of Club GNT qualifiers and this year of GNT Section qualifiers again takes away from club participation. And with the price increase on club games starting soon this makes it difficult for some of the smaller clubs to survive.
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Actually, I suspect that Chris and Donna have done more for getting new members and young members involved in the ACBL than many muck-a-mucks in the ACBL. And there is a problem with your first statement – a suggestion that Chris is provided an opportunity to take advantage of a significant income source through multiple tourneys you forget that you may have actually removed an alternative income received through added bridge club attendance). It is the clubs (and maybe 299’er and youth tourney’s) that will provide the long term viability for a disappearing ACBL.
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Thanks for the support, Pat. As to Donna and I personally, we will always be able to make revenue from Bridge, but under the present ACBL BOD, it will never come from owning a club. It’s funny, the League loves BAND as an exemplary club, but keeps increasing fees and reducing subsidies. (see the Cooperative Advertising Program reduction and the increase in club sanction fees as recent examples.
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However Chris did call for some solutions.
1. Recommend removal of requirement for Units to have a sectional every two years. Make it once every three years or let a participation in a regional STaC meet the requirement.
2. Include more grass root events that require club participation.
3. Have more Units look at the sectionals they have and if they don’t make money, don’t schedule them.
4, Have zonal masterpoint awards for games with global results like “the common game” .
5. Increase the masterpoints for Inter – City Club Championships.
6. Districts to hold district championships with qualifications that come from the club. Like Texas state championships with things like Mixed Pairs. Mens, Womans, Open ,10K + winners, 10K winners, 0-5000 winners, NLM or 0-750. Or even have winners with across the field (with “the common game” like) events played in the clubs.
7. Districts to encourage and even sponser inter-distirct club competition events other than STaCs; which will require some changes to current ACBL approval. They should not burn up your club’s championship quota.
8 Concepts like Red River (Oklahoma and Texas) events that are again club based with across the field scoring.
I would really like this to be a club (or group of smaller unit club) wins the event by the club getting the best results combined in each of the following flights Open, I/N (2500 – nlm) and NLM.
Chris, I wish more clubs could hold sectionals like you and Donna do. They are more of a bridge festival than a just another sectional.
Side comment here: the ACBL occassionally has tried the opposite of many of the concepts above. That is they have tried to kill – ACBL wide games and Unit wide championships rather than schedule more such events. There is a cost problem here, they (BOD members and even chairmen of the committees that recieve the benifits) say to hold these games and to maintain the staffs to maintain the games.
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Hi Tom,
First, thanks to you and your wife Dorothy for your very strong membership recruitment efforts connected with your Arlington, Texas bridge club. It is exactly clubs like yours and BAND which are totally unrepresented by the present ACBL Board of Directors. Because the unit board members elect the national board members, the current BOD focuses on sectionals and regionals despite the fact that members come from clubs.
I did have your complaint about our scheduling a special game in violation of the 25 mile radius researched and i am afraid it did happen once in July of 2015. We inadvertently scheduled an NAP against a session of your sectional. It was a mistake, we apologize, and have taken steps to insure that our scheduler does a better job of tracking all the various local tournaments so that this mistake will not be repeated.
Tom, I would love it if you would write up a summary of the issue related to your unit subsidizing the rent of your local competitor club games — and post it on this blog. We need the unrepresented club owners to organize. Thank for participating.
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First of those that think I’m angry at BAND, I am not. The problem Band and our local club have is that Sectionals are both a blessing and a curse. When clubs are allowed to run sectionals it is often their major source of a profit. Day to day operations are often just break even at best.
As has been noted sectionals do take players out of the club. Clubs can run games but the ACBL does not allow special games. But as noted the best option at most clubs is to close during the events. The Arlington club takes that option to close. In the past few years our Unit (183 Ft. Western) has realized this revenue lost and when they hold a sectional or regional they provide a subsidy for each session that they interrupt to any normally operating club within the Unit. This helps a lot; I recall that BAND gets something similar from Unit 176. However, I doubt the subsidy for BAND, a large club, comes anywhere near meeting their lost profits.
By the way the ACBL is aware of this tournament problem. They ran statistics that showed that it goes more than just the days of the tournament. They showed a marked reduction at club games the two days after a local tournament. They have asked for a reduction of tournaments (especially Sectionals) a couple of years back and yet this does not appear to be occurring.
If you look at our club attendance you will see drops not only for local tournaments but also NABCs that are within driving distance. The last Dallas NABC was a real killer since it came after a winter that forced many ice days closing the club. Likewise Regionals nearby kill our open games – Examples Houston, Oklahoma City, Hot Springs AR, etc. Gatlinburg is one of the real killers of attendance.
The subsidy I discussed in my original post was the CAP discussed by others plus a change was made that the ACBL that provides $350 if you get 8 or more students for items like bridge camps. Luckily before last year it was interpreted as $350 for each 8 kids you had. That is no longer, the ACBL now provides $350 period. Even if you had 400 students you get the same as those that have 8. .
As discussed in previous posts ACBL BOD is and our District has a trend to discourage Unit wide games, reducing grass root events and have gone as far as to even considering removing ACBL wide events. These are not favorable for clubs. And as noted and worth restating to make-up for lower revenues from smaller sectionals and regionals have increased the fees for club games.
I made suggestions in another post and they net out to make clubs an active part of bigger events and return Unit games masterpoints to a value between Charity and Sectionals. And get Swiss team masterpoint values where the winners actually get something meaningful.
Okay, one last request ACBL figure out a good way we can use credit cards in our clubs and not lose significant profits by high fees.
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Tournaments used to be a big deal, now people won’t go to one because there’s another one coming up in 2 weeks somewhere else, I think they have killed the golden goose
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Thanks for your comment, Daryl.
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I’m a fairly new club owner, but It certainly hurts us to have to close for four sectionals and one regional every year. And I just got notice that the CAP program is being cut back.
Seems like they could afford to raise the CAP subsidy if they cut back on the size and cost of the board of directors and their thrice yearly two week long free cocktail party. That and learning to manage IT projects better.
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Hi Burt, thanks for posting. For those that don’t know, Burt now owns the Westside Bridge Academy in Houston Texas. Burt is right about the Cooperative Advertising Program rate change. This is yet another example (club sanctioned fees were recently raised by nearly %25) of clubs paying for a $2M technology fiasco. Again, since the Board of Directors is elected by District Board members, rather than recover the lost money from regional and sectional tournament fees, a disproportionate share appears to have been passed onto the clubs.
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For those that are unfamiliar with the CAP – Cooperative Advertising Program, this is copied from the ACBL Website.
YOU DO THE ADVERTISING. WE’LL HELP PAY!
The Cooperative Advertising Program (CAP) reimburses ACBL teachers, clubs, units and districts for advertising expenses for programs and lessons designed for newcomers and/or to recruit ACBL members. ACBL CAP-approved logos can be found here and sample ad templates here for a professional look.
CAP will refund 50% of eligible advertising costs with a maximum reimbursement of $500. Qualifying advertisements are Date-Specific Ad Campaigns* for beginner bridge lessons, newcomer programs, social bridge recruitment events and ACBL member recruitment.
This is the letter that the club owners received today: March 22nd, 2016:
Dear teachers, club managers and volunteers,
During the 2016 Spring NABC, the conditions of ACBL’s Cooperative Advertising Program (CAP) were amended. Beginning April 1, 2016, the following changes will be implemented:
• The partial reimbursement will be 50% of advertising costs.
• The maximum amount that can be received per campaign will be $500.
The partial reimbursement can be applied to advertising expenses for beginner bridge lessons, newcomer programs, social bridge recruitment events and ACBL member recruitment. Please note that the full CAP-approved ACBL logo that includes the website must be used. To review the CAP policies, please visit our website.
Thank you for your continued efforts in sharing the game of bridge.
The previous reimbursement total was 75% up to $750 per campaign. In a perfect world, I believe that the Club owners should be notified when such cuts are on the BOD agenda. Since clubs are severely underrepresented on the BOD, there needs to be some notification process so that the club owners can be heard on programs that affect their bottom line. For example, We have two 12 month contracts for ads and I was signing a 3rd one today (until I heard about the CAP cut). We had budgeted our advertising dollars based on the CAP program and now with one week’s notice we are caught holding the bag…At least I was able to avoid the 3rd contract until the others expire.
There was a similar issue a few years ago with the allocation of charity point games (double points) in which a club was allowed to host all games as double point games. The BOD, without notice, reduced the number to one per sanctioned game based on the complaint of one club owner in New York. What about the rest of us?
So the solution suggestion is that the BOD agenda be emailed out to all club owners in a timely fashion so that their voices may be heard.
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I have long felt that the CAP program was the most successful marketing program that came to be and I am saddened it is suffering a budget cut. Perhaps the money has been moved to the buy more cameras fund to help catch liars, cheats and thieves lurking amongst the 1%. It is as it as always been. It is the broad base of little guys who pay.
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Hi Rena, would have like to have seen you in Reno. Can you tell me if the regional and sectional per table sanction fees were raised at the same time as the club per table sanction fees were raised? I am having trouble wafting through the minutes of ACBL BOD meetings, but thought the motion passed at the Denver NABC?
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Chris, it is my understanding that the regional and sectional sanction fees were raised at the same time as the clunbs, at the Denver meeting. Of course, our regional budget was already set and approved, so we will have to absorb the increased sanctions, the increased directors fees, and other additional costs without the option of increasing our prices. We will manage, but it’s hard to work with a situation where our members have to deal with the ACBL’s lack of financial responsibility.
I really appreciate a place for everyone to state their concerns. Thanks!
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I have a Saturday game in NJ. My club is in District 3 but Districts 4 and 24 surround us — so tourneys in other districts are often not more than a 60-90 minute drive. Between snowbirds and the number of tourneys, it is killing me! District 3 has 15 sectionals, 4 regionals, District 4 has 39 sectionals and 4 regionals, District 24 has 4 regionals and 2 sectionals. This is not even taking into account the 3 NABCs each year.
Do we have too many tournaments?
Heck YES! Do the numbers! In the month of April, D3 has a sectional on April 8-10, then April 29-May 1 and if you’re bored in between, you could go to the April 15-17 sectional in NYC or the sectional on the 24th in Wilmington, DE.
For almost all of these tourneys, I am sent a packet of flyers to hand out to my players. Then I can say, “Oh great, why don’t you NOT play at my club and go to this tourney.” (As much as it pains me, I still put the flyers on the counter for them. After all, they did get subsidy money to print them, no?)
The players go, when they do well, I congratulate them. With all the tourneys around, Masterpoints have become meaningless. Recently had 2 players win 16 Golds for a 2 session limited event at the NABC. Being a Life Master used to mean something. Now? Not so sure….
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Hi Arlene, weird that there are 39 sectional in D4 and 39 sectionals in D24. Thanks for giving us your thoughts, we are interested in organizing clubs.
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There was a time (seems not long ago to me but is probably at least 25 years) when each district was allotted 2 regionals a year, with 3 or 4 special extra regionals. Then the number was increased to 3, then to 4 if one was a senior regional, then just to 4. Also, additional regionals were given to large districts ( a substitute for redistricting, perhaps. The result is over 100 regionals a year, when 75 would probably be too many. Unfortunately, no district wants to give them up (my district offered, as long as we were not alone- we were).
We have too many tournaments in too expensive places, and we hold NABCs in locations unhealthy and inaccessible to our members (see Denver and Reno for unhealthy, Reno for inaccessible). Certainly clubs suffer from this, but so will districts who begin losing money on these excess regionals.
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Hi Bill, Appreciate an ex-ACBL BOD member commenting. Until the electors for the ACBL BOD reflect something other than the values of Unit Boards, clubs will be abused.
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Tomi, First of all best wishes to you and congratulations to the grooms. I have not seen either since the nuptials. I think that while the Sectional and Regional fees were raised, that the percentage increase was less? Tanks posting.
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Chris, thanks! The wedding was great – the name changing part is hell.
My notes from the Denver report say that club table fees went from .74 to $1.00. That is a HUGE jump. STac fees went up 3% and regional and sectional sanction fees went up 2%. Our big tournament budget problem is that TD sessions fees, that make up an enormous part of our budget, went up 9%. I understand costs are rising, but in the case of the ACBL, they have never been contained, and we are all now bearing the brunt of uncontrolled spending.
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I too think there are too many tournaments. Things are getting out of control in San Diego. Somehow we ended with FIVE units. It probably started decades ago when the wealthy La Jolla folks didn’t want to descend from their hill any further than their beach. But at least that provided a healthy rivalry between two units (U526 – La Jolla and U539 – San Diego). Somewhere along the way the weak 519 (Coronado Chula-Vista) was formed. Then we ended up with two north county units (U531 and U549) simply because one group of people didn’t like another and broke off.
So now if each unit has one regular sectional and one NLM sectional per year, that’s 10 weekends. U539 is large; last year they ran 2 each and so did U531. All in all it was 13 weekends of sectionals. There are four easily accessible D22 regionals every years (one local, two easy day trips, and Palm Spring). Each wipes out a weekend and effectively eclipses the preceding weekend. The D17 Las Vegas regional has a similar impact. Sometimes a national is close (Las Vegas, Reno, San Fransisco), which takes out another two weekends. So it works out to about 19 weekends of tournaments that locals might attend, a half dozen eclipsed weekends, a few weekends lost to the holiday season. Half the realistically available weekends have tournaments scheduled.
The upshot is that no one tournament feels very special. It’s pretty much the same group of people wherever you go. And the event formats are predictably boring, pairs and teams. I’ve run one session of BAM or one session of IMP Pairs (out of six) at four different sectionals, despite cautions from directors / ACBL. But I only dare run them for the open group and take a small attendance hit. Individuals, Mixed Pairs, and two sessions events with a qualifying session and separated championship and consolation groups, all seem to be a thing of the past at local sectionals. One of old time locals, Bob Rosenblum, told me recently with more than a big regret that there used to be a lot more variety. I believe him.
One small consolation for club owners like Chris is that the large Adventures in Bridge used to recapture some of money that would have been lost to sectionals, in the form of rent and convenient services, because it was such a convenient place to host a sectional. But they had to relocate at the start of this year and no longer large enough to host a sectional.
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