Right now there is a lot of talk about bids for Nationals and proposed rules changes on where Nationals can be held.
Why not discuss good places to have Nationals in the future?
For fun, what pool would you suggest as a great place for Nationals? This may help prime the pump with more pools that can/will bid on future events.
I will start things off with my submission, University of Minnesota for LCM.
Why?
I am from MN and have swum in it many times during college and in Masters. It is a great facility and is fast. Plus I have family in the Twin Cities and know my way around.
It is indoors and as anybody from the Midwest knows, the weather can get unpredictable in August.
They did a great job in 1999 for LCM, very well-run meet.
An open water swim could be run at Lake Hariett or one of the other metro lakes.
Airport is a hub for NWA (soon to be Delta) and is accessable from any major metro area.
Location is in Central US, meaning flights from anywhere in the US won't take all day.
Pool is on the U of M campus with lots of places to eat, hotels, and parking.
There have been many meets run at this facility since it opened and I think that the hosts would do an excellent job. I don't know why they have not submitted a bid but would love to vote for it if they ever did.
Just my opinion, go ahead and share yours.
What states would you include in NorthEast?
Why do you break up the east into NorthEast and South East, yet the west with 40 % of the swimmers only have one area?
michael
Just to keep it simple.
West coast could have Seattle metro, Portland metro, Silicon Valley, and LA region host (not to mention unmentionables like Fresno, Sac'to, etc). Also, Denver, Phoenix, Vegas, etc.
Midwest could have Austin, Dallas, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, etc.
Southeast could have FL, GA, AL, NC, TN.
Northeast could have MD, PA, OH, etc.
Just my two cents for keeping it simple, avoiding politics, and streamlining bidding, etc. YMMV.
At the risk of starting an excessively political flame war (see discussions related to marketing, USMS plan, board, etc etc) I think that USMS needs to make it very rewarding for a club/LMSC to host a Nationals.
This can be done by, among others, charging participants more; charging sponsors more (who will pay only if they're sure they'll benefit, too); ancillary sales (t-shirts, videos, snack bars, etc); producing an increase in local membership, and so on.
Just my $0.02 - YMMV.
Jim:
How rewarding do you want it to be?
With the exception of the National sponsors, the host gets to work out how they will deal with local sponsors, snack bars and gold medal sponsors.
If the meet is held in an LMSC they most likely will experience a spike in membership.
It is not unheard of for a national championship host to make a significant 5 figure net profit.
michael
Parking, Parking, Parking.
All I really care about is the Parking. As long as I can park CLOSE and there is always AVAILABILITY, I don't care how much it costs (up to say, $25.00 per day for in/out priveleges)!!
And i'd even be a "parking sponsor" to park RIGHT UP FRONT WITH A RESERVED SPACE if that option ever became available.
The pool itself - not so particular - only because any location with the facilities to accomodate that many masters is usually a pretty fast pool anyway.
Well, first we need to get more than one bid for a given National meet...
At the risk of starting an excessively political flame war (see discussions related to marketing, USMS plan, board, etc etc) I think that USMS needs to make it very rewarding for a club/LMSC to host a Nationals.
This can be done by, among others, charging participants more; charging sponsors more (who will pay only if they're sure they'll benefit, too); ancillary sales (t-shirts, videos, snack bars, etc); producing an increase in local membership, and so on.
Just my $0.02 - YMMV.
Jim:
How rewarding do you want it to be?
With the exception of the National sponsors, the host gets to work out how they will deal with local sponsors, snack bars and gold medal sponsors.
If the meet is held in an LMSC they most likely will experience a spike in membership.
It is not unheard of for a national championship host to make a significant 5 figure net profit.
michael
Michael -
If hosting a successful Nationals can lead to a significant five figure net income, then the wrong people are organizing bids - or perhaps USMS can assist with preparing bids. I can't imagine that many LMSCs would turn down the opportunity to earn that type of money for a meet (albeit a massive one to organize). Sign me up for the committee that soliicits/evaluates, etc bids...
Michael -
If hosting a successful Nationals can lead to a significant five figure net income, then the wrong people are organizing bids - or perhaps USMS can assist with preparing bids. I can't imagine that many LMSCs would turn down the opportunity to earn that type of money for a meet (albeit a massive one to organize). Sign me up for the committee that soliicits/evaluates, etc bids...
LMSCs do not generally run or bid for nationals, it is clubs that host them. That being said, Oregon ran the last LCM nationals but I am not sure if was the LMSC or the club (which are one in the same, another topic of interest) that hosted the meet.
The USMS championship committee is ready to help the meet hosts and prospective bidders wade through the process so there should be no hindrance in that area. I think it is mostly facilities that do not want to put out the work to host the meet. There are meetings and meetings and more meetings starting 2 years before the meet, capped by 5 days of frenzied action of the meet followed by 2 days of cleanup and more days of report writing. The volunteer base can dry up quickly if there isn't something sexy to do, like hand out awards to cute guys, or hand out towels in the women's locker room.
Some clubs structure the financial reports to make it look as if there were no money made at all, charging high rents for the pool time and timing system rentals, when they control all of that and more in the facility. So, yes, 5 figures net is not at all out of the question, and that doesn't even include the decimal point! In 1983, the Stanford SCY nationals reported about 70k.
LMSCs do not generally run or bid for nationals, it is clubs that host them. That being said, Oregon ran the last LCM nationals but I am not sure if was the LMSC or the club (which are one in the same, another topic of interest) that hosted the meet.
Did I read something where USMS would run Nationals and essentially "rent" the pool from the host club and/or LMSC? This may be worth considering since there appear to be several (many?) good locations out there for Nationals that don't bid for one. Then again, how would the revenues and costs be split?
At this time, I do not believe that USMS is looking to run nationals. In a recent executive committee meeting I put forth the idea that USMS should be much more proactively involved in the hosting of nationals. Currently, we sit back and wait for someone to bid for nationals. What I suggested as that we approach facilities that we would like to swim at, bring more to the table in terms of serve than we currently do and partner with local programs to put on our championship events.
I think that is a good approach to take and would yield more potential bids than in the recent past. It would be great to have several locations for Nationals "in the can" for consideration. This would be a welcomed change for sure.
Taking the initiative = leadership in action
Did I read something where USMS would run Nationals and essentially "rent" the pool from the host club and/or LMSC? This may be worth considering since there appear to be several (many?) good locations out there for Nationals that don't bid for one. Then again, how would the revenues and costs be split?
Seems to me that if USMS rents the pool from the host club or LMSC, that's all the income the host/LMSC's gonna get, unless they're smart enough to negotiate a split of the rest...
