Youth Wrestling Tournaments- How to improve!

[babywhales]

babywhales,

That is outstanding other than the bye.  LOL!  I can assure you from running tournaments without breaks that concessions do not take a hit.  Add another mat so you can bring in another team and no byes for teams.  Wrestlers and parents will always have time to eat.

Can you please  share when your "tournament" is?  Any openings?

3 mats , 8 teams = 2 byes per round.  The teams that travel the farthest get the bye either the 1st or last round.  To get each team 3 quality Duals you never know how the matrix will fall together, the bye is needed logistically more than anything.   

That being said the side benefit is people can go see and bid on the silent auction items that fund our High School Wrestling Scholarship program and as previously stated the concessions. Either way, bye or no bye people are in and out in 4 hours, while their kids can get as many matches as they want(3-10 ish). There is no where else where that happens consistently.

Milton, Stoughton, Lodi, Reedsburg, Middleton, Waunakee, Janesville, Belmont, and obviously Portage have all attended, anyone with questions should talk with their coaches and get their comments first hand.

We talked about running a 4th dual each round instead of the exhibition mat; however, the coaches of our teams present have told us they really prefer the exhibition mat and it has become a feature they do not want to lose.

We tend to run the tournament the 3rd Sunday of January. This year we did have 2 openings. 

Next year we are sending out a save the date on November 2nd and invites going out on November 16.  Anyone can PM me if they would like to be added to the email list.  I have 4 teams already stating they want their spot held for them.  Typically the first 7 teams that RSVP with a check have a spot.

Gradetough- I completely agree 100%.  That is exactly why we stopped our highly competitive early season 5 Man tournament. We were making good money and bringing in 320+ kids from 3 states while averaging 1/3 of registered kids as state qualifiers.  The brackets were excellent! 

We attended a similar style club dual and knew in the moment we needed to change, so we removed money from the decision process and the board made the change. 

This format suits the kids perfectly, they wrestle without unnecessary pressure and win or lose walk of the mat with no competitive maturity issues, the kids head back to their coaches and teammates and talk.  Within 1 minute of the match you would never of known most kids even wrestled.  It is very nice to see a kid who normally threw temper tantrums when losing, wrestle in this form and when he or she loses walk of the mat with no issue and discuss the match with his teammates.  The format brings out the best of youth wrestling.  All of the coaches love it, the coaches room doesn't hurt either. It is much harder on the parents than the kids. We actually reference the event as the Parents in the Stands Club Duals.   

[Handles II]

1. Parents in the stands unless a certified coach with that somehow easily identified. 2 per mat maximum.
2. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins in the stands.  If you have noticed we now have dozens of parents etc surrounding mats at VARSITY events, this wasn't the case in 2000 (example) and before. We have taught them that this is what you do in wrestling and it's ok.  We need to start teaching and re-teaching the current crop of parents that this isn't ok. Not in our sport or any other.
3. Minimum age 10 for participation (exception being a young student in the correct grade level, ie a 4th grader who won't turn 10 until late July).
4. Adults as refs (if possible certified officials).
5. Sept 1 age separation date as would be done in school year/grade. It's not perfect. July/Aug birthday kids held back won't be with their grade level, but that's ok, there are quite a few kids, especially boys, in that same boat and they will probably get opportunities to wrestle each other at some point.

[chad1p]

I find it interesting that a few people have commented that the younger kids should not be going to tournaments.  For those that have been involved with the sport for a longer time, 15+ years, has youth wrestling always been popular for ages under 10 or is this a new trend possibly due to sports getting so competitive at the high school level?  I'm definitely not against teaching your kids how to handle winning and losing, but  the unique challenge we have with wrestling is that there is really no way around the winner/loser outcome.  Most other sports I have been involved with can easily play without keeping score and therefor it seems way less emotional at the younger ages.  As they mature, then they are exposed to winning and losing.   I do like the suggestions of team duals at younger ages and maybe that is the best compromise for the less experienced kids.   

[bigoil]

babywhales,

That is outstanding other than the bye.  LOL!  I can assure you from running tournaments without breaks that concessions do not take a hit.  Add another mat so you can bring in another team and no byes for teams.  Wrestlers and parents will always have time to eat.

Can you please  share when your "tournament" is?  Any openings?

3 mats , 8 teams = 2 byes per round.  The teams that travel the farthest get the bye either the 1st or last round.  To get each team 3 quality Duals you never know how the matrix will fall together, the bye is needed logistically more than anything.   

That being said the side benefit is people can go see and bid on the silent auction items that fund our High School Wrestling Scholarship program and as previously stated the concessions. Either way, bye or no bye people are in and out in 4 hours, while their kids can get as many matches as they want(3-10 ish). There is no where else where that happens consistently.

Milton, Stoughton, Lodi, Reedsburg, Middleton, Waunakee, Janesville, Belmont, and obviously Portage have all attended, anyone with questions should talk with their coaches and get their comments first hand.

We talked about running a 4th dual each round instead of the exhibition mat; however, the coaches of our teams present have told us they really prefer the exhibition mat and it has become a feature they do not want to lose.

We tend to run the tournament the 3rd Sunday of January. This year we did have 2 openings. 

Next year we are sending out a save the date on November 2nd and invites going out on November 16.  Anyone can PM me if they would like to be added to the email list.  I have 4 teams already stating they want their spot held for them.  Typically the first 7 teams that RSVP with a check have a spot.

Gradetough- I completely agree 100%.  That is exactly why we stopped our highly competitive early season 5 Man tournament. We were making good money and bringing in 320+ kids from 3 states while averaging 1/3 of registered kids as state qualifiers.  The brackets were excellent! 

We attended a similar style club dual and knew in the moment we needed to change, so we removed money from the decision process and the board made the change. 

This format suits the kids perfectly, they wrestle without unnecessary pressure and win or lose walk of the mat with no competitive maturity issues, the kids head back to their coaches and teammates and talk.  Within 1 minute of the match you would never of known most kids even wrestled.  It is very nice to see a kid who normally threw temper tantrums when losing, wrestle in this form and when he or she loses walk of the mat with no issue and discuss the match with his teammates.  The format brings out the best of youth wrestling.  All of the coaches love it, the coaches room doesn't hurt either. It is much harder on the parents than the kids. We actually reference the event as the Parents in the Stands Club Duals.   

How did this effect your revenues? Presumably you had less kids which means less parents/GP but also had far fewer registration dollars, 7(teams)*$300 vs 400(kids)*15 registration fee. That is nearly $4,000 or greater in revenue you are giving up with I would also think less fans to buy concessions.

Trackless will save you $300 and depending on refs may save a little but not huge savings.

Curious on your results and what you have done to lesson the blow of those impacts.

[wrastle63]

babywhales,

That is outstanding other than the bye.  LOL!  I can assure you from running tournaments without breaks that concessions do not take a hit.  Add another mat so you can bring in another team and no byes for teams.  Wrestlers and parents will always have time to eat.

Can you please  share when your "tournament" is?  Any openings?

3 mats , 8 teams = 2 byes per round.  The teams that travel the farthest get the bye either the 1st or last round.  To get each team 3 quality Duals you never know how the matrix will fall together, the bye is needed logistically more than anything.   

That being said the side benefit is people can go see and bid on the silent auction items that fund our High School Wrestling Scholarship program and as previously stated the concessions. Either way, bye or no bye people are in and out in 4 hours, while their kids can get as many matches as they want(3-10 ish). There is no where else where that happens consistently.

Milton, Stoughton, Lodi, Reedsburg, Middleton, Waunakee, Janesville, Belmont, and obviously Portage have all attended, anyone with questions should talk with their coaches and get their comments first hand.

We talked about running a 4th dual each round instead of the exhibition mat; however, the coaches of our teams present have told us they really prefer the exhibition mat and it has become a feature they do not want to lose.

We tend to run the tournament the 3rd Sunday of January. This year we did have 2 openings. 

Next year we are sending out a save the date on November 2nd and invites going out on November 16.  Anyone can PM me if they would like to be added to the email list.  I have 4 teams already stating they want their spot held for them.  Typically the first 7 teams that RSVP with a check have a spot.

Gradetough- I completely agree 100%.  That is exactly why we stopped our highly competitive early season 5 Man tournament. We were making good money and bringing in 320+ kids from 3 states while averaging 1/3 of registered kids as state qualifiers.  The brackets were excellent! 

We attended a similar style club dual and knew in the moment we needed to change, so we removed money from the decision process and the board made the change. 

This format suits the kids perfectly, they wrestle without unnecessary pressure and win or lose walk of the mat with no competitive maturity issues, the kids head back to their coaches and teammates and talk.  Within 1 minute of the match you would never of known most kids even wrestled.  It is very nice to see a kid who normally threw temper tantrums when losing, wrestle in this form and when he or she loses walk of the mat with no issue and discuss the match with his teammates.  The format brings out the best of youth wrestling.  All of the coaches love it, the coaches room doesn't hurt either. It is much harder on the parents than the kids. We actually reference the event as the Parents in the Stands Club Duals.   

How did this effect your revenues? Presumably you had less kids which means less parents/GP but also had far fewer registration dollars, 7(teams)*$300 vs 400(kids)*15 registration fee. That is nearly $4,000 or greater in revenue you are giving up with I would also think less fans to buy concessions.

Trackless will save you $300 and depending on refs may save a little but not huge savings.

Curious on your results and what you have done to lesson the blow of those impacts.

AMEN! People keep saying youth tournaments are fundraisers(which they can be), but they should be about the kids! Do what is best for them not what makes you the most money like handsandtoes says. There are a million fundraisers you can do. We need to start thinking about what is benefiting kids and the sport of wrestling. Most youth tournaments are not a positive experience for K-2 kids.

[bulldog]

1 - Lunch Break - Yep...waste of time. People will go get food when they want it and the lunch break doesn't add money because everyone rushes out at break.
2 - Announce brackets the night before - nope. That is just an invitation to have everybody call and want to "adjust" brackets. If you have brackets hung in the morning when they walk in there is more than enough time to check the brackets. If coaches need a list the person running track at the tournament can easily run the info off for the coach. But if we are honest every parent can check the bracket and tell the coach that "Johnny is bracket 2 on mat 5" the morning of the tournament
3 - wrestling start on time if the work is done the evening before. Check in can start as early as you can get workers there and refs there
4) Bracketing - there does need to be some adjustments at time but yes stick with the 10% default
5 - Yep

Trackwrestling IS better than Flowrestling. The brackets are easier to read on all devices

There really is no great value to releasing brackets the night before. And the negatives typically outweigh the positives. You have to take the calls because there may be someone that legitimately has to pull out of the tournament and that give you time to rework brackets. But so many calls of guys wanting to wrestle that kid or "my kid shouldn't be in that bracket" or people not showing up because they saw a stud in the bracket the night before.

90 second periods...depends on the age - Pre-K - (maybe) 2nd grade 1 min periods are enough

[babywhales]

To start when we decided to switch we were conscience there  would be monetary loses. The coaches and the board decided we would deal with the loses in other ways but developmentally we needed to switch our tournament. 

The first year we had 10 teams 4 Duals a team over 5 rounds.  2700 in registration vs (350*15=5250) It was a loss I will not lie. 

5250
-trackwrestling fees
-4 medals per bracket plus bracket boards and programs
left us at 3900ish roughly
2700 vs 3900

We used to charge $2 at the door; however, with clubs paying the team registration and parents having no registration cost to attend we upped the door to $5 (under 10 and over 65 and Armed Service free)

We used to have raffles that we purchased at black Friday deals for the raffle and silent auction. We stopped that and got corporate donations, and asked club parents to partner to make donations.

We run a 50/50.

Recreated our concession menus to sell items with the highest return and lowest  time investments from volunteers. Example not limited to,  Soda was raised to $3 a bottle but water was lowered to $1 a bottle, we make $21 a case on water. now our takehome from beverages is much larger. We did away with walking tacos as the time investment was huge, plus you need so many condiments driving the profits down to almost nothing. We got a deal on Pizza from the local pizzhut and sell slices. 

We also revised our approach to our summer/fall corporate sponsor drive and increased our donations there as well.

The first year we actually made more off the Dual with 280 kids than we ever had with 350+ kid tournament. Shockingly we found out we made more money.

We asked for feedback from the coaches and found a couple teams felt 5 rounds was too much so we made a change.

In year two we decided to go with 8 teams in 4 rounds. Another monetary lose but it was Ok, the first event was excellent and we were committed to making it better.
Our board was committed to making decisions based on wrestling development first and money 2nd.  Do not get me wrong we need to raise money but it does not drive each decision. 

Ideally we have the team slots filled by Mid-December.  We have rosters 10-14 days in advance.  I pair up ever team vs every other team then figure out how it will all come together. We know numbers attending well in advance before we purchase concessions.  We do not purchase medals, bracket boards, T-shirts, track fees, raffles, etc so there is very little upfront overhead and no stress about last minute registration and competing with other tournaments.

This past month we had 160 wrestlers (6 teams- 2 teams short)and the club made as much as we used to make on 250ish wrestlers running 5-man brackets with half the volunteers. There was much more wrestling and the best environment for youth wrestling you could ever imagine. As a side note in addition we had an excellent silent auction and raised funds for the scholarship fund.

It works for us as a board. It is much easier to host. The kids and the coaches love it.  I will say this we receive a lot of complements but the best one I heard was when a Milton coach said this year it was best event they attend through the season. 

All and all we have it so the money is shockingly close.

[DocWrestling]

People matside are a problem and always have been. 
1) Size of mats makes a huge difference.  The larger the mat sizes the fewer people piled up matside
2) Size of facility matters-  need enough seats in stands in viewing of mats
3) Need chairs and ropes so it is easy to enforce
4) Credentials-  I have always thought it would be easy to buy lanyards with with a placard stating for which teams and give to each team represented based on how many wrestlers they have attending.  Only those with a credential around neck can be matside and in chairs.  Credentials could be shared between coaches as needed and also could be taken away based on conduct during the tournament.  Only those with the team credential for the team wrestling are allowed matside.  Honestly I think this would help the coaches because they also want mom and dad in the stands.  Better for all

Eliminate K-2 tournaments
No other sport starts true competition prior to 4th grade, maybe 3rd grade in some places.  There is no reason for K-2 to be wrestling in tournaments.  They should be practicing, etc.  Yes some are ready for it but it has no benefit for the overwhelming majority of K-2 wrestlers and also makes the experience worse for the older kids.  It turns off more K-2 kids and parents from wrestling than it helps.  If tournaments had the guts to eliminate K-2 there is a fear of lost money but I bet their attendance goes up.  Without K-2 that is more mat space to have proper wrestling for older kids and a more organized environment.  Giving K-2 wrestlers all these awards only diminishes their excitement for in the future when they more earn them.   Eliminating K-2 from tournaments might cost a club some money but would help WRESTLING greatly.  Protect the kids and protect the parents from themselves.

[bigoil]

Baby whales, that is a great summary and I like your approach.

I think that is something we will look at doing in the future. We need the money like you said, but we lever other fund raisers, raising the quality of the end result, is a far better calling.

What age groups do you do?