USTSF Sanctioned Tournaments Info for Tournament Directors
What do you get for having your tournament sanctioned? There are a number of usually very exceptional benefits to ITSF/USTSF sanctioning. Past USTSF/ITSF promoters can verify this for you. To begin, ITSF will list your event on its international event schedule (World Tour Calendar) and as your tournament is about to occur will feature it on the ITSF's homepage under current events: http://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 two months before your event and 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 ITSF "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 (you will likely draw some "points-chasers" who normally wouldn't attend your event). Typically, this factor alone in terms of additional entries/attendees is worth/offsets the ITSF sanctioning fee. Plus, the possibility of winning trips to Europe via the points race adds value to your prize fund.
This year (2010), USTSF has established its own sanctioning fee structure for those promoters who desire USTSF promotional support, but who wish to opt out of ITSF sanctioning. In either case, our most noted benefit remains the professionally targeted local, national and international media and industry press release distribution service we provide prior to your event. This comprehensive distribution includes web release, email release, and hard-copy mailings. 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.
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 well over $2,000 from a professional Public Relations agency -- USTSF is doing it yet again for one more year, all for you and your event and all included in the sanctioning fee. (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). USTSF's goal in this is to attract news/sports media to your event, increase visibility of the sport of table soccer not only at your event but statewide and nationally, and thereby significantly contribute to both immediate and long-term exposure for your sponsors and/or any charitable organizations you may be working with.
If you have any doubts you might ask other promoters who have repeatedly taken advantage of this for all their tournaments, such as Mary Moore (Independent Foosball Promotions). 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 and/or USTSF 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 sanctioning fee becomes an exceptional value. At least, that was her perspective.
STRONGLY RECOMMEND: See this USTSF forum for Tournament Promoters Sponsorship Best Practices ideas (and the Sponsorship Best Practices page of this website).
In addition, this document has outstanding ideas for running tournaments: 2009/2010 USTSF STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS PROGRAM.
Important: USTSF sanctioned tournaments must comply with the "USTSF Sport Code" document on the Bylaws & Documents page.
Important: Any USA tournaments desiring sanctioning by ITSF must be submitted by to ITSF via the USTSF.
Sanctioning steps:
Note: You can have your tournament sanctioned just by the USTSF if you don't want to be ITSF sanctioned also, in which case some of the ITSF provisos (and benefits) below won't apply.
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. Requests to the USTSF to have your tournament sanctioned by ITSF must supply (to USTSF, at ustsf@foosball.com ) the following information: Required information to submit tournament.xls
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, or on the ITSF "Recognized" Fireball). We actually need more tournaments on these latter tables, 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: ustsf@foosball.com.
The USTSF has to submit all requests not later than the yearly January ITSF General Assembly meeting for approval. Approval of the year's tournaments for ITSF sanctioning by January 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 Your Tournament Has Been Sanctioned by ITSF and/or USTSF:
Please send the following ASAP for use in creation of the eventual Press Releases: 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: 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.
In most cases USTSF can supply USTSF (and ITSF) banners and the like to display at your tournament, if you let us know sufficiently in advance. Alternatively, if you are a promoter that holds several USTSF (and ITSF) sanctioned tournaments, you may want to create your own banner(s) to display. Here are links a high quality USTSF logo graphic (in 2 formats) that can be used to create a USTSF branded item (similar graphics for ITSF are available on the ITSF website): USTSFlogo.jpg (for use on tournament flyers, websites, etc), USTSFlogo.eps (used to make banners, flags, posters, etc). Important note: These graphics are NOT to be used without explicit written permission from the USTSF.
USTSF will also try to have a USTSF presence at your tournament, either by staff members being there and/or having a booth (with your permission) with information about USTSF/ITSF and to answer questions etc.
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 (first THROUGH LAST place) for Open Singles, Open Doubles, Women's Singles, Women's Doubles, Junior Singles, Junior Doubles, Senior Singles and Senior Doubles, to the ITSF rankings coordinator at: info@table-soccer.org, within seven days of tournament's end. (The rankings absolutely MUST be updated in a timely manner! - especially since the results of your tournament could affect travel plans for players from over a dozen countries). If there were any Canadian or other international players, please put country of nationality next to their name in the results lists.
Ratings: ALL tournament charts (with the exception of specialty events such as forward shoot-out, goalie wars, DYPs, etc) must be submitted to USTSF for purposes of inclusion in the national ratings. National ratings are computed using an ELO system quite similar to the one used on both Tornado and Dynamo 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 chart results (i.e., for lower class events too like rookie doubles and singles, etc, but not for Specialty events like DYPs and Forward Shootout; not just the ITSF OD/OS/WD/WS events) must be submitted electronically (or as a last resort, charts on paper if that's what you are still using) within 30 days of tournament completion, to ustsf@foosball.com. 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: ustsf@foosball.com and to 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.
