What is the best way to split tournament fees? I’ve received several requests for information on this topic. Of the roughly 347+ racing clubs (information taken from NAFA Growth Trends 2006) there are probably that many different methods used to split tournament fees.The clubs that I have raced with have split the fees equally between the dogs on each team, which is probably the easiest way to do it. However, it may not be the fairest method since heats may not be split equally between all of the dogs on the team. If your dog only runs a small number of heats for a weekend, you may feel cheated, and it may not stop there. After all, if you had to travel some distance to a tournament, pay hotel expenses, and meals only to get a few heats, you may really feel cheated.
I have heard that some clubs pay the tournament fees from club money and then after the tournament the fee for each dog is calculated based on the number of heats each of the dogs ran. This is probably a fair way to accomplish this but it does take some amount of time to figure out. Moreover, the club may need a fair amount of working capital depending on the size of the club, number of teams, and how many tournaments the club attends.
How does your club do it? Inquiring minds want to know!
Larry
Related Post:
10 comments ↓
Larry,
My old club, we based it on handlers..since it was the theory that persons with one dog needed other dogs. So, we started with a base number for 1-3 dog households, then any housedholds with more than 3 had increments. Since it is a team sport, the “team” absorb the cost, and not just the one person with multiple dogs. By approaching entry fees, training etc as a team, the concept that the success and training of each and every dog on the team is truely a team dog - and not just one persons. It encourages involvement by all members of the “team” to actively participate in training of all dogs - not just theirs, and actively participate on all teams at a tournament, not just the one that their dog is on. (We as a club normally fielded 6 teams per tourney).
We get our entry fees sponsored. We have built a relationship with a local mom & pop dog grooming/high end dog food supply store. They sponsor us like a “little league” team would be sponsored. They only sponsor the teams we enter, not singles or doubles entries.
The store displays our ribbons and action photos of the dogs… sending a message that quality dog food supports athletic, high achieving dogs. We plug them when we are in the community doing demos.
I highly recommend developing a relationship like this to my fellow flyballers. You circumvent some of the resentment that develops when someone has paid and entry fee and their dog is not seeing much time in the lane because they are not performing as well…. At least the money part of it is out of the equation.
(Though this model wouldn’t work with the really big teams that field 6 teams in a tourney like Jackie mentions … unless your sponsor has really deep pockets!)
We have a policy that if the dog runs 6 heats or less it doesn’t pay. We divide the cost out by each dog.
I would feel a little penalized for having to pay by handler since I’m one of the few people in our club with only one dog.
In our early days (G) when ALL our dogs were *unknowns*, we did the *pay by heat* method. It wasn’t that hard to figure out and the dogs that ran the most heats, (and hopefully earned the points) were charged the most money. ALL figures were based on FOUR dogs no matter how many were listed on the teams, since only four will run each heat.
Today, we figure that each team has 4 solid spots, and each of those dogs’ handlers are charged a quarter of the team fee. If a new dog gets to run a few heats we usually ignore a settle-up. We ALL help train ALL the dogs, and help ALL the teams so anything someone *gets* is a bonus to all of us as we attempt to add more racing dogs to our club. IF a dog drops out or gets pulled, the new dog’s handler will reimburse the first handler for all or most of that one-quarter fee. We are a club small in person numbers but large in dog numbers and that seems to help in balancing our debts to each other… no one feels taken advantage of.
It is not so much as being penalized…it usually worked out that it was 50.00 per person (and about 170.00 for my husband and I, 85. per)- so only 10 over if you devided it by 4. Because we were the house with all the dogs - including height dogs - we were aiding all the other teammates dogs to be able to run full time. We had 6 teams - going from Div 1 on down…the way you see it, is the people with alot of dog enable more teams and more full time spots for dogs to run.
On my current team, we divide the full time spots..usually the back up dogs are only backup - and we don’t pay for them - unless it is planned that two dogs will be sharing.
4 solid dogs are usually on the team and 2 backups. Usually the 4 full time dogs split the fee equally. We used to do it by heat but decided that was just a pain. Now we are big with people but short of dogs and have to rotate some but usually just 2 dogs sharing 1 spot. Those dogs split their 1/4 of the fee. If a green dog is given a couple heats we also kind of ignore it and the person that has the dog pulled just pays their full share. This allows us to make sure people are paying their share and not more or less since things happen like injury, shutting down, etc…
The club pays up front and we have a treasurer who will keep track and send out a bill once a month since we also charge dues.
One of us usually fronts up the entry fee and then Linda keeps track of splits and then counts up the heats for each dog and divides it up amongst all the dogs that ran and they pay us back. She pretty much keeps a running count throughout the tournament and since we usually only take one team, it’s not too hard to keep up with.
Beth
Our club pays all the entry fees and the members reimburse the club based upon how much their dog(s) race after the event. I find it’s much easier for our Treasurer to not have to worry about ‘chasing people down’ for entry fees before an event. We simply decide how many teams to send and she writes a check for it. We save the ‘chasing’ for later and generally base it upon how much each dog ran. However, we don’t go to the extreme of figuring it out based upon the exact number of heats each dog ran (I find that a bit petty) - but if your dog basically runs a full time slot… you pay for a full time slot. If you have 3 dogs and they run in 3 slots… you pay for 3 slots, etc. If 2 dogs share a spot (ie: say a Sr. dog shares with a green dog that can only run in 1 lane, etc.) then we split it up the middle. If a beginner dog does a couple of ‘trial’ runs at a tourney - then the club absorbs those few heats. We’ve also ’sponsored’ Open dogs and paid for their spots with club funds when we were in desperate need of a dog to fill a spot and enable us to play.
On a somewhat unrelated (but in a round about way related) topic - I was VERY surprised to learn that some clubs don’t charge their members monthly dues! We rely on our working capital for just about everything. I remember a conversation on one of the Yahoo groups back in the Spring of 2007 where someone was asking how clubs come up with the ‘down payment’ to reserve a tournament location and when teams replied that they pay it out of their Treasury the asking team was surprised teams HAD a Treasury with a reserve of club funds. Larry - maybe another topic to look into to see how many teams charge dues and how the ones that don’t get along with the day to day expenses of the sport.
“Larry - maybe another topic to look into to see how many teams charge dues and how the ones that don’t get along with the day to day expenses of the sport.”
Not a bad idea. We recently split off from our local obedience club and we’ve been pondering such things as insurance issues (resolved that one), whether to incorporate, tax liability issues, etc. I’d also welcome operational discussions.
So far, we are collecting a yearly dues fee and then a smaller fee each month to help pay for our training facility rental. We will be putting on a tournament this spring to hopefully bring in some extra funds to cover equipment maintenence and purchases.
Beth
WE split the cost by heat…i believe it’s fair that way.
Leave a Comment