WCLL Playoffs Info/Schedule

[Albert Man]

Cal was, I believe, the only team to submit a bid to host this year's event, and I know that they'll do an excellent job. If people for some reason are unhappy with the way it goes this year, encourage a team near you to submit a bid and then volunteer to help out. If there are multiple bidders for the tournament in the future, perhaps the price of admission will factor in to who wins the bid.

Several WCLL tourneys in the past were in San Diego, and I know that it is an enormous amount of work to do and do right. In my opinion, hosting the tournament absolutely should be a fundraiser for the host site. There are alot of fixed direct costs, not to mention the time and energy. Unless the WCLL shares in the risk of hosting the event by providing some money upfront to the host school, why should they share in profits, if any. The price point of the tickets is up to the school, and I hope that Cal's choice will result in both a good fundraiser for them as well as a crowd full of satisfied fans.

[Bluevelvet]

Seems to me that by attaching the WCLL tournament to a CoCo county youth festival, it is clear that the organizers have decided to market the WCLL final four to a small segment of the Bay Area lacrosse community.
This ignores the real people who this tournament is about. The WCLL players, their families, friends, fellow students and alumni.
These are the people who paid $800-$1200 dues, worked as a team for 9 months (fall ball), raised funds all year to play in the WCLL and MDIA championships.Does anyone think that Miramonte High School, or the Lamorinda Lightning are important to players and their families from Arizona, or San Diego?
To make this event part of a youth festival in order to entice CoCo county lacrosse families to attend is insulting to the WCLL and the college players. To charge an excessive admittance fee, makes it appear that the organizers are interested in only the wealthy patrons from CoCo county and their young children.

I am sure that the WCLL final 4 will turn out fine. People will come. There will be some good lacrosse. But, people know when things cost too much. $15 is too much for the type of audience that should be the marketing target. $15 is too much period. When something is overpriced and everyone knows it, people resent it. They resent being used (even if they can afford it).
An example of this is Cal charging admission to their home games. Since thery started to charge admission, Cal attendance has been way off. Cal games used to be the place for Bay Area lacrosse community to gather. The place was packed.
Now, the few high school and college alumni that do attend, usually stand in the parking lot and watch through the fence. The opponents family and friends outnumber the Cal fans and the attendance is sparse at best. The Bay Area community has lost it's gathering place. It is just not the same.

[Sonny]

I honestly think some of you guys are making a mountain out of a molehill.

Very few MDIA games draw sizeable fan interest, especially conference tournaments which are played typically a neutral sites (away from home collegiate campuses).

The WCLL tournament organizers appear to have scheduled some youth or H.S. games around the WCLL Final Four event to attract additional interest and fan support. Big deal. You act as if they are making UCSB play Sonoma State on the freeway or something at the expense of some youth games. I don't see how this will effect the WCLL Final Four one iota. There most likely will be more excited fannies in the seats and some additional youth/H.S. players will be exposed to WCLL/MDIA level of lacrosse. Sounds like a "win-win" to me.

$15 a day for admission may or may not be too high of an admission figure. If the crowd size drops off dramatically from years past, then you maybe able to attribute that to the increase in ticket price. (Time will tell on that one.) I would argue that $15 isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things and that many of the folks complaining about that fee will have zero problems paying it. Feel free to reference the USLIA.com premium pass threads for similar discussion.

Furthermore, the fact that the admission is a fundraiser for Cal lacrosse shouldn't come under consideration. When you buy a ticket to a SJ Stealth/Golden State Warriors/SF Giants/Oakland Raiders game, do you consider that the team owner is profitting by your ticket purchase? (Why that needs to be displayed on a poster or mail ad promoting the event is just plain silly.) The reality is that it takes a significant amount of money to produce/stage the event. The ticket admissions are an attempt to recoup those expenses and generate profit. Some of you are acting as if Cal Lacrosse is out killing seals and whales to make a buck.

P.S. We, in the SELC, take a slightly different take on the conference tournament. (It sounds as if the WCLL gives the host school full authority to do what they wish with the event.) We appoint a tournament director (non-SELC Head Coach) from the SELC Executive Board and he works with the local H.S. lacrosse program/booster group to plan & staff the event. Equitable divisions of the gate & concessions are arranged in advance between the conference and the booster group, but the conference sets the admission prices. We have had the luxury of a the same SELC tournament director over the last 5 - 6 years. And the event gets bigger and better each year.

It's a great situation because the booster group is interested in generating some money for their team and the conference is interested in a neutral site facility with all-weather guarantees. We have hosted youth and H.S. games in year's past at the SELC championships and it has generally been positive for all involved. We can't really do that now due the expansion of the SELC Championships with Division B contests, but we will host one JV game on Saturday morning this upcoming weekend.

My opinion from 2500 miles away is that the WCLL needs to find a full time tournament director (ala Dick Flory) to oversee the event with the host school/site INSTEAD of just allowing the host school to do what they want with the event.

[WCLLPREZ]

Gentlemen,

Time to let it go here. It's Cal's tournament and they can do with it what they want as long as the WCLL is the featured event. End of discussion.

They are risk, they get to charge as much as they want, they get to bring as much or as little help as they want, and they get to reap any profits made.

If they feel that attaching HS or youth games to it, on surrounding fields, will increase their draw to the featured event, kudos for them. If not, and the crowds they expect don't materialize, then they are at risk to lose money.

We had NO OTHERS bid to host this tournament this year.

[batman]

Will Cal be accepting Visa, MasterCard or Discover at the front gate...or do I need to go to the ATM before hand?

[pistol pete]

Wow, and the award for the long-winded, overly dramatic, and otherwise pointless post goes to...

Bottom line, $15 bucks per person per day is too much to ask family members and friends (ie, non die-hard lax fans) for a couple club lax games.

Its a fact that there is no way SSU, UCSB, or UA would draw the voracious hounds they do to games if they charged scandalous prices.

If you wanna recoup money, dont pass the buck to the little man. Work a little and get some money bags to underwrite the bill.

next time please - remember the little man.

[laxmom]

First and foremost, this is the WCLL playoffs (whether or not it's also a fundraiser for Dini's team and Miramonte is another issue).
At least let the kids playing on the youth teams that day (such as Skyline, Lamorinda, etc.) at the same location get in for free for all their hard work!

[Sonny]

Wow, and the award for the long-winded, overly dramatic, and otherwise pointless post goes to...

Bottom line, $15 bucks per person per day is too much to ask family members and friends (ie, non die-hard lax fans) for a couple club lax games.

Its a fact that there is no way SSU, UCSB, or UA would draw the voracious hounds they do to games if they charged scandalous prices.

If you wanna recoup money, dont pass the buck to the little man. Work a little and get some money bags to underwrite the bill.

next time please - remember the little man.

Nice (typical) class warfare post where people want something for nothing. There is no free lunch.

If people (fans, parents, voracious hounds, etc.) derive value from purchasing a WCLL Final Four ticket at $15/day... then they will open their wallets. If not, they won't. That is the bottom line.

A few grande lattes ain't going to kill any potential fans, non diehard or diehard.

[TrojanLaxman5]

A few grande lattes ain't going to kill any potential fans, non diehard or diehard.

While I have no doubt that some people will be turned off by the price of this year's event, I agree with Sonny that I doubt it will break anyone's bank in the Lamorinda area. I'm from Lafayette and most of the youth players/families from that area will have no problem paying the admission fee.

If SB or Arizona fans are intense enough to make the trip to NorCal for the games, then what's an extra $15/day in the grand scheme of the trip?

To most people who haven't been involved in event planning, it probably doesn't seem like a difficult task to put this event together, but I'm sure it has taken countless hours for Dini, Cal, and Co. to put this on. I think Cal deserves to make money for their program through their hard work putting this together. As stated in earlier posts, no one else offered to host it, so I don't think persons/representatives from other WCLL teams have much room to complain...

[onpoint]

I can see both sides of this issue having helped put on the RMILL championships in Fort Collins in 2000. It's not easy work at all. Securing fields, refs, trainers, etc. can be a daunting task and I can see why the organizers might want to get a little coin out of the deal. Our tournament was run entirely by the student leaders of the CSU lacrosse team with the help of our Club Sports department. On the other side of the coin, we did not charge people to get in because we wanted as many students and lacrosse people to show up as we could possibly get. Sounds like this is more of a money-making thing to me than a lacrosse event. My compromise would be to sell two-day passes for $15 to adults and two-day passes of $7 or $8 to kids under 15. For one day or game, charge $7 or $8 for everyone. I think both sides would be able to see that as more than fair, and yes, I agree that all youth playing in games beforehand should be able to be there for free. It's awesome having little kids out there to watch you play, especially when they start choosing sides and fighting each other over who they want to win! Can't change what is already in place, obviously, but $30 for two days is more than most DI programs charge.

[Hackalicious]

PolyLax stated earlier that he felt that the league should be taking in part of the revenue, and I couldn't agree more.

You realize that the host of the tournament bears all the risk. If it loses money, it comes out of the host's pocket.

If you think the league should get a cut of the revenue, then they should front some of the costs. They do, in fact, provide the referees. But other than that, nada.

[Hackalicious]

Wow, and the award for the long-winded, overly dramatic, and otherwise pointless post goes to...

Bottom line, $15 bucks per person per day is too much to ask family members and friends (ie, non die-hard lax fans) for a couple club lax games.

Its a fact that there is no way SSU, UCSB, or UA would draw the voracious hounds they do to games if they charged scandalous prices.

If you wanna recoup money, dont pass the buck to the little man. Work a little and get some money bags to underwrite the bill.

next time please - remember the little man.

A couple points:
1. Hosting the tournament is a lot of work that will be done almost entirely by volunteers. You say to "work a little". The people putting it on are working a lot, for free, and because no one else would step up and do it.

2. I think you are underestimating the costs, especially in the Bay Area. Fields are expensive to rent and staff for two full days. When you rent a third-party field, you need to account for security, janitorial staff, ground crew, trainers, insurance, etc., etc. Sit down and do the math.

3. $15 per day is not much for two games (or is it three with B teams?), especially if people are coming in from out of town. If you only want to watch one particular team, it will be what, $16 for the whole weekend? I think SSU and UCSB fans drink that much beer in the first quarter.

4. "Remember the little man"? I think you've got it backwards here. The little men are the broke-ass college students paying out of pocket to play the sport they love without any form of financial support from their college, not to mention their volunteer coaches.

[tamu33]

I don't know what all the fuss is about ... if you don't like the price of the ticket just hop a fence.

I think tourney organizers realize that the cost of the ticket might turn a few away but the profit they get from those who pay will more than make up for it. Plus, don't you think that by having to pay a hefty price to get in.. the usual drunk/rowdy fans might behave better because of the money they shelled out.

who am i kidding, bring out the old sonoma guy with the chair and the feathers.....

[CATLAX MAN]

All of you seem to be missing the main point here. It has nothing to do whether someone can afford to go or not. It has nothing to do with the fact that there is a simultaneous fund raiser going on. It has nothing to do with how much beer a university student can drink. It has nothing to do with trying to incorporate youth games around this event. It has nothing to do with the amount of risk that has been assumed by the organizers. These are rationalizations of the highest order.

Let me say this real slow so that you can all get the main point that people are upset about. The people who this tournament should be about are the players who are participating. This point seems to have been lost in the shuffle somewhere. These players have worked very hard in order to accomplish their goal of making the playoffs. The payoff should be to be able to perform in what should be the league's premier event in front of their family & friends. Most players immediate family (parents, brothers & sisters) will attend this event no matter how much they are being asked to pay. The ones who will not attend are those family members, friends, & others who are not lacrosse fans like the rest of us, but would go to see the player, his family and his friends as more of a social event. These are the people who are being excluded by the cost of the ticket prices.

This could be fixed real easily by just reducing the price of the youth tickets to a nominal fee so that families can bring their kids & friends and not be set back $50 or $60 in the process. I just don't see the justification of charging someone under the age of 16 the outrageous price of $12 a pop to see a club lacrosse game. It is price gouging at its worst. and can sugarcoat under the guise of calling it a fundraiser, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you've got a duck. Calling something else doesn't change the result.

[Sonny]

No one is being excluded Catlax. You act as if the fans are being sent to jail or something. It's a $15 ticket. Basic free will. They get to choose if they wish to pay for it or not. If distant family and friends don't wish to pay it, then they won't. But they aren't be excluded.

Yes, the tournament is about the players playing in the event. I'm sure the field will be lined properly, the nets strung, referees will be assigned. How you are making a giant leap of faith from all of those things to high ticket prices is beyond me.

If you don't see the justification in the higher ticket prices, maybe you can design a better mouse trap? And put in a bid to host the 2006 WCLL Final Four?