Does the brand matter?

[The Man In Blue]

Question for you ... please answer as a parent and/or as a coach ...

Quick background (without the dirty details):

Our local complex closed at the end of last year as the organization that ran it folded. During a recent conversation with a former board member of the organization, the board member tried placing the blame on the "national alphabet organization" saying, "they dropped the ball and don't have the team counts anymore."

I disagreed and stated that, in my experience, coaches and parents don't care which alphabet is behind a tournament, that they just want nice facilities and well run tournaments in places that they can enjoy going to.

So ... what say you? Does it matter which letters are in front of the tournament or how many S's are in between the U and the A?

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Not at all. I couldn't care less about the sanction. I just want well maintained fields and clean bathrooms.

 

[Ready41]

I think as a parent, the tournament director is more important than the letters. Clean, safe facilities. Games that start and end close to when they should. Enough blues to keep all games moving. All this will be handled by a competent director.
I've also noticed that the different letters don't have the same reverence in different parts of the country, (whatever is the best in FL may not be the best in TX, MI or CA)
Unless your team is really a national brand with ties to a certain affiliation, I wouldn't think most would care either way?

 

[Northball]

About seven years ago our club director announced we would be looking for fewer tournaments run by USQWERTY and more run by USABCD, with the thought being that USQWERTY was dying out in our area. He didn't get into specifics, but to answer your question, in our case the sanctioning body did matter.

 

[marriard]

So ... what say you? Does it matter which letters are in front of the tournament or how many S's are in between the U and the A?

It is the people running the 'sanction' that matter. So local TDs, directors & state directors mainly. It is good to have some national support for registrations, rules, etc but you don't really need it all, but it really isn't that important since the vast majority of teams are going to be local 75-90% of the time.
In Florida, PGF KILLED ASA/USA in less than 12 months. ASA wasn't ready for the competition, and the Florida PGF director listened to what people wanted and then delivered on it - and kept listening and kept improving. We paid more to play PGF but we got what we paid for - worth every cent. ASA States went from everyone who mattered and 80+ teams to 10 in less than 12 months.

USSSA did the same for the next level of play down - making NSA, USFA and ISF irrelevant for much the same reasons a few years previous.

There used to be a Spring Travel League in South Florida. When my DD was 8, it had about 180 teams in it and was run over 4 parks and 20 fields. But there was many things wrong with it and someone in one of the orgs cared enough to decide to compete. Completely killed it in 2 years - shut it down in year 3 and now that org runs it and runs it well.

(What did PGF do.. they played on better field in the cities (ASA wasn't willing to pay field fees and loved being in the middle of nowhere all the time), longer games, dragged fields between games, paid the umpires the most and treated them well, matched teams well, put schedules out early, and a bunch of other things)

 

[lostcreek1]

Speaking for 12u and below, I am not very familiar with the older teams. I would say around here it doesn't matter for most teams. USSSA draws more teams and has more tournaments. Then you have a few regional orgs that is usually a step below USSSA talent wise.

 

[Sonerai]

What is most important for us is the quality of the teams in the tournament. If you have great teams and good competition the sanctioning org for the tournament is less important.

 

[FB Fool]

Have mostly played a local tournament organization in the past and they are more about handing out trophies than anything else but played our first PGF this year and it was a great experience. well run, good game day app, really great umpires, facilities were just ok, fees were double. also have USA and Alliance tournament on the schedule this year.

 

[MightyMO]

Depending on the area, yes it does.

When DD was young USSSA made a big push in our area to "unseat" ASA. I think their approach was to pay umps more and avoid some complexes that were on the decline. They effectively made it to where people avoided ASA because of the level of umpiring. It seemed that when you played those tournaments your umpires either looked like they were 75+ or like they walked over from their high school. It didn't take long before ASA had a bad rep and tournament numbers suffered. I think they are better now but it took a while to fight the stigma.

That said, I know a lot of coaches that will watch the list of teams signed up for a tournament and decide strictly on that. No matter the org.

DD's team plays mostly PGF, Alliance, Top Gun type of tournaments so we don't run into it as much.

 

[NJZoo]

In the grand scheme of things, the letters of the promotion don't mean anything. There is nothing inherent to USSSA, PGF, Alliance, USA, etc. that makes them "better" or "worse". What matters is the facilities, the organization (of the tournament), the umps, and the level of competition. That being said, locally, regionally, and nationally, water tends to find it's level, so teams looking to play a high level of competition will gravitate together, town travel or C teams tend to gravitate together, and so on.

So, whichever organization in your area caters to those different types of teams will probably be the most popular. In our area USSSA is by far the "higher profile" organization (with USA a distant second). However, we also have a couple of well known complexes that hold very popular unaffiliated tournaments that attract teams from multiple states. At the end of the day, most teams play follow the leader and look at the level of competition more than the letters of who is promoting the tournament.