Action from Minnesota/USA Wrestling's state folkstyle tournament (Photo/David Peterson)Jeff Pape, owner of WrestlingGear.com, shares tips for running a successful and profitable wrestling tournament.
I have been involved in wrestling for over 30 years and have been to quite a few tournaments. If you keep your eyes open and stay positive you can learn something from every wrestling tournament you attend. I always tried to find something to bring back to my tournaments when I attended other tournaments. Or even learn what not to do. That is just as valuable!
Here are tips for running a successful and profitable wrestling tournament.
1. First and foremost you need to secure your facility. It is important that you understand the politics of getting your facility and confirm that you have it the day(s) that it is needed. Get everything in writing as soon as possible, especially if it is your first year. Understand what your costs are going to be. Even if there are no charges to use the facility, there may be charges for the custodians or school employees required to be there, which could add up to $600 or more a day. This is a mistake I made the first year. We received an enormous bill for custodial help the day of the tournament. The next year we were able to reduce the custodial fee dramatically.
2. Ask your local high school team for some help. We would pay the high school team to run the scoring tables. They have the expertise to keep score accurately and we had fewer complaints about scoring when the high school wrestlers ran the tables. It's important to help out the team where you practice.
3. Spread the word. In Illinois, spreading the word means getting the tournament listed on the state website. Wrestlers, parents and coaches find out about local events and other information on state sites. If it's USA Wrestling-affiliated tournament, you can get on the USA Wrestling schedule simply by sanctioning it early. We would typically get several wrestlers from out of state at our tournament. You might find this to be the case with wrestlers in town for the weekend to visit family or friends.
4. In Illinois, the state organization makes its list of teams available. We sent flyers to the entire state and found several teams traveled a long distance to our tournament. By sending flyers to the entire state we had some unexpected entries. You never know who is looking for a road trip or who might have coached or wrestled near your tournament and wants to bring his or her team to your tournament.
5. Offer an incentive to pre-register. Most teams will not take advantage of the pre-registration. Offer discounted pricing if a team pre-registers versus paying at the tournament. Don't get competitive based on price. Aim to be in the middle of tournament prices. Avoid setting prices too low or too high.
6. Saying "no" your first year is critical. If you overbook the first year you run a tournament, and the tournament runs much later than expected, they will tell their friends the tournament was poorly run. However, if you run a good tournament they will tell everybody about it.
7. As a general guideline, plan to have 30 to 40 kids per mat. When you get to the 50 to 60 kids per mat, you will end up with a much longer tournament. Particularly your first year, try to stay around 30 to 35 kids a mat. It got the point where I could walk into a tournament and see how many mats where in the gym and how many wrestlers were at the tournament, and I could tell if it was going to be a long day!
8. Maximize your wrestling areas. Use square mats to save space and not waste it by making circles. Some coaches hate square mats, but they won't be complaining when you get them out a little earlier than expected because you were able to squeeze another mat or two out of your available mat space. Another idea: Have your older wrestlers compete on your larger mats and let your smaller athletes compete on the smaller circles (or squares).
9. If you have different size mats, don't just cut all the mats in half. Use some of the space on your larger mats to make your smaller mats bigger in size. Also, use marking tape and make sure it is a color that is not on your mats. For example, we would have a variety of mat tape in case we needed to use yellow on one mat and red tape on another mat.
10. We do not recommend running a round-robin tournament. They take longer since every bracket will have all wrestlers wrestling at least three matches. Using an 8-man bracket will reduce the number of matches in your final round. Also, for the 8-year-old (and under) wrestlers, use a 4-man bracket. They will get two matches and should be out early in the afternoon. The kids and parents will appreciate getting out of your tournament early. No doubt some parents will complain no matter how you run your brackets.
11. If possible, split the 5-and 6-year-old wrestlers into a separate division. There is a huge difference between 5/6 and 7/8-year old-wrestlers.
12. Spend as much as you can on awards. Consider providing T-shirts to the champions or placewinners. T-shirts are typically inexpensive and can double as a walking advertisement for your tournament. I always saw our tournament T-shirts during the season. Medals can be awarded for as many placewinners as the tournament recognizes.
13. Another key to running a successful tournament is to make sure you do not have too many or too few kids. Try to get accurate numbers from coaches. Ask them how many kids are on their roster and figure they typically won't have more than 50-60 percent participation. Some teams will have 80-90 percent. If a coach has 40 kids on his roster, chances are they will not bring 35 kids. A good tip is to find out what the teams were brining at other tournaments throughout the year. At a typical tournament, we would have 15 to 20 teams. If each team's count is off 5 kids that is 75 to 100 kids. With the entry fee, gate fee, and concession stand revenue streams, each missing wrestler is close to $15 to $20 in profit. Much of your profit is in the last 100 wrestlers. The last couple tournaments I ran, I asked coaches: "How many wrestlers from your team can you guarantee will compete?" That number was always significantly lower than the number they had given originally.
14. Take good care of your referees. They will talk about your tournament to other referees. Commit to a fair rate for the referees. And if you wind up having a few more wrestlers show up and you look like you are going to make some extra money, pass on a couple extra dollars to the referees. Give them a lunch ticket so they can grab some food when they get a break.
15. Finally, it's the day of the tournament. Make sure you have enough scales at your tournament. In Illinois, the 8-and-under wrestlers are the largest group. We bought two scales from Walmart. These are fine for the little guys and will allow you to have 2 scales for that age range, and then one scale for each of the other divisions. Put your most experienced helpers on the 8-and-under scale.
16. Invite coaches into the bracketing room. This helps your tournament start on time. The coaches have a vested interest in getting the tournament started. Plus, if they have a complaint about the bracketing, you can remind the coach you invited him or her to the bracketing room.
17. Make sure you dedicate some of your parents to help you with security. Unfortunately, every year we hosted tournaments we had problems with parents and coaches getting out of control.
Keep these tips in mind the next time you set out to run a wrestling tournament. And always keep your eyes open during tournaments you are attending to learn what to do and what not to do.
If you have any tips on running tournaments, please share by posting in the comments section below.
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