USTSF Sanctioned Tournaments Info for Tournament Directors

What do you get for having your tournament sanctioned?  ITSF will list your event on its international event schedule and as your tournament is about to occur will feature it on the ITSF's homepage under current events: www.table-soccer.org.  It will also be  added on our www.ustsf.org website including a banner for upcoming events on the top-center of our homepage (about three months before your event and on the main page under recent events for about six months after, with links to the tourney flier, press release, and results), which seems to attract a lot of "hits", so hopefully that will add to getting the info out on your tournament when the time comes. As points-race events, your tournaments count towards qualification to compete in the ITSF World Championships Finals (normally held in Europe) which, as many of you know, results in increased participation in your tournaments by both U.S. and international players seeking those points and trips to Europe.  Typically, this factor alone in terms of additional entries/attendees is worth the ITSF sanctioning fee.  Plus, the possibility of winning trips to Europe via the points race adds value to your prize fund.  In the case of Tornado's International Series/Tour Kickoff and Tornado's World Series, automatic trips are awarded to selected top finishers that in fact enhance the prize value of those tournaments by about $1,000 and $5,000 respectively.

This year (2008), USTSF still charges you nothing and provides only significant benefits which several of you promoters have already realized.  Our most noted benefit is the professionally targeted local, national and international press release distribution service we provide prior to your event.  Sent to everyone from local news, radio and television stations to national news-sports wire services to national sports and coin-industry magazines, to local operators, distributors and retailers, to sports bars and game arcades, to local pro and semi-pro soccer clubs and nationwide soccer magazines and websites, to U.S. and international Olympic committees and sports organizations and more, tens of thousands of people worldwide will know about your tournament.  Indeed, just one of USTSF's electronic wire services has tracked an average of 300,000 views/"impressions" on every single one of our press release distributions, with estimated media pick-up of approximately 400 media outlets per release.  This guarantees your sponsors exposure in a whole new way, way over and above simply having a banner at the tournament and their names on your fliers.  A press release of this targeted nature would cost you around $5,000 from a professional agency -- USTSF is doing it yet again for one more year, all for you and your event for free.  (All we ask is that you provide us with the necessary background information and an electronic copy of the tournament flier at least one month in advance, so as to best ensure timely distribution.)

Mary Moore (Promotor IFP) comment:
One thing that Mary said to USTSF in terms of sanctioning fees and "what's in it for me" as a promoter is that the ITSF sanctioning fee is equal to no more than one or two package deals at the Pro Tour Series level and two or three package deals at the Master Series level. All she needs is one to three more players to show up and she's even on the investment. Add to that all the added publicity for her sponsors and the event, and paying the ITSF sanctioning fee becomes an exceptional value. At least, that was her perspective.
 

Sanctioning steps:

1. USTSF has overall authority for submission of candidate tournaments to ITSF for sanctioning. Thus, you must first submit your request to USTSF, not directly to ITSF.

2. There are limits to how many ITSF sanctioned tournaments can be held in a given country/continent per year. So, while USTSF would like to get at least one of your events on the schedule we can't guarantee it, as USTSF is getting lots of submissions from a lot of promoters. We hope to be fair, to avoid conflicts, and to have a relatively even distribution across the USA/continent if possible; but if we end up not getting your event for this year please submit for next year at the earliest possible time.

3. Minimum tournament size for ITSF sanctioning as set by USTSF is $10,000 for events on Tornado, $2,000 for events on Bonzini and/or any other ITSF "Official" table for 2007 (Lehmacher's Tec Ball, Garlando, Roberto Sport) -- we actually need more of these, or also "multi-table" events in order to conform with ITSF continent-wide requirements (which will allow us to have more sanctioned tournaments overall). Keep in mind that there are two levels of sanctioning available to promoters: Masters Series and Pro Tour Series, each with its own modest sanctioning fees that must be paid upon designation as a sanctioned event. However, sanctioning more than makes up for that for promoters via the additional player turnout and via the USTSF professional press release distributions for every ITSF sanctioned tournament in the USA.

4. When submitting your tournament for USTSF-ITSF sanctioning, please provide as much of the following information as soon as possible: Tournament name, prize amount, dates, location (exact hotel/venue if possible, to include address/phone), promoter/tournament director contact name/phone/email, and website for more information if available. Please submit to both: larry.davis@ustsf.foosball.com; ustsf@foosball.com.

The USTSF Executive Director has to submit all requests at the yearly November ITSF General Assembly meeting for approval. Approval of tournaments for ITSF sanctioning by November will allow ITSF to include your events on tour posters/advertising, and let players better plan their travels to participate in more events both locally and internationally.

Once Tournament Has Been Sanctioned by USTSF-ITSF:

Please send the following ASAP for use in creation of the eventual Press Release: sponsors, last year's winners, likely key challengers/participants this year, host hotel address & reservation telephone #, anticipated number of attendees, any specialty events/categories, any charity fundraisers/drawings, professional looking tournament flier in .PDF format, etc. Please submit to both: larry.davis@ustsf.foosball.com; ustsf@foosball.com.

We recommend having about 40 USTSF Press Releases of your tournament out on side/flier tables during the tournament, another 10 with tournament fliers attached handy for any visiting press, and about 40 or so along with about 40 tournament fliers on the front counter of the host hotel.

Sanctioned Tournament Follow-up:

Please be sure to immediately follow up on the following (in order of priority):

1. Send an electronic copy of your complete results (1st thru last place) for Open Singles, Open Doubles, Women's Singles and Women's Doubles to ITSF's rankings coordinator Boris Atha: boris@netgates.co.uk with copy to: info@table-soccer.org. (The rankings absolutely MUST be updated in a timely manner!) If there were any Canadian or other international players, please put country of nationality next to their name in the results lists.

Ratings: As of 2007 USTSF assumed oversight/responsibility for USTSA's ratings, thanks to the donated time/efforts of Mury Johnson.  This is done using the ELO system quite similar to the one used in the early-mid 1980s and which a few of you may recall was the most accurate system ever used.  The beauty of modern technology is that now the ratings list can be published instantly rather than once or twice a year and can therefore be used to more accurately categorize players.  However, to be accurate the system requires data input.  That means results.  Tournament charts.  Because the system's accuracy is based on who beat who and the difference between their points, all charts must be submitted electronically (or as a last resort, on paper if that's what you are still using) within 10 days of tournament completion, to Mury Johnson.  Please note the following: these ratings are calculated for the national ratings only.  (ITSF points-race calculations are done separately with points awarded to first through last in Open Singles, Women's Singles, 17&Under Singles, and 50&Over Singles.  Doubles events in each of these categories are assigned the same ITSF points, but only for world rankings purposes as opposed to counting towards trips to Europe.)  Note: If you are a promoter with your own ratings or ranking systems/categories (Mary Moore and Bill Maloney come to mind), you are free to continue doing what works best for your tournaments just as you have done up to this point -- but we still need your charts in a timely manner for the national listing and the complete list of results (1st - last) for the ITSF events.

2. Send a brief follow-up story w/photos to: larry.davis@ustsf.foosball.com and info@table-soccer.com as quickly as possible after the tournament so that we have time to get in a follow up story with the trade magazines. If you want, you can borrow some of the lines from the USTSF press release if there is anything in it that will save you time.

3. Send thank you letters to any news media that attended, whether or not they published/aired anything that you know of.

4. Strongly suggest sending recognition plaques to your event's sponsors (best if done within 30 days).

Note: As a courtesy to those tournament directors still doing charts manually, a free downloadable web-based tournament program is now available at: http://software.battlenation.org/ (just look for and click on the word "English" on the left hand side of the webpage and everything will become easy from there!) This one is not nearly as good as Mary Moore's but it is a start, and will save a lot of time when it comes to submitting results and charts for ratings.