Too Low: The cost and value of ChessLife alone is worth the current membership fee. I propose raising dues for 18 year-olds and up by double.
Too High: I propose dropping dues entirely for kids Under 18.
Advertise nationally that all kids interested in chess get free membership for 3 years or until they reach 18. Give kids free entrance into USCF events.
As a parent of a 9-year-old chessplayer, I love this idea. As a USCF fiduciary, I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE this idea. (Nothing personal.) This is because I see three large problems with it - one for USCF, one for tournament organizers of all sizes, and one because I think this idea violates a basic business precept.
I don’t have the most current membership numbers broken down by age, but I suspect a healthy percentage of our current membership is under the age of 18. If USCF loses the revenues from their membership, how will it make those up? (One hint: you probably won’t make nearly as much from the 18+ crowd as you suspect. My fear is that, if you double their membership rates, that giant thunderclap you hear will be the closing of checkbooks by soon-to-be former members. It has been shown previously that there is an upper bound to the elasticity of USCF membership dues. $80/year is likely outside that upper bound for a lot of people.)
Also, if you make USCF events free for players under 18, what will tournament organizers do to make up for those lost entry fees? Smaller local events will feel it, especially in areas with heavy scholastic participation in open events. So now, you’ve encouraged more kiddies to come play - which results in bigger site headaches and larger expenses, especially in terms of rating fees and TD staff, with no offsetting income to help alleviate those problems. Larger organizers will feel it, because they will almost assuredly have to either raise entry fees significantly, or reduce prizes significantly. Neither of those is a positive consequence, IMHO.
Finally, it is a standard truism that people only value those things that have value initially assigned to them. Players who are used to getting to play USCF events for free will not, IMHO, suddenly decide upon turning 18 that they now want to pay $60+ per year for a membership, plus pay entry fees. I think a more likely general reaction will be, “Wow, that’s a lot of money to suddenly pay for something I got for free all these years. I’ll go do something else.”
(As an aside, I personally think Chess Life has lost a great deal of value over the years. There was a time when I would look forward to receiving my magazine. Now, I don’t even get the print copy - and have not been all that impressed with the online version. But that is subjective.)
If one is going to give free memberships according to age, I propose free memberships for all Seniors; with Senior being age 62, the first year a Senior is eligible for social security benefits.
But why stop there? I heard Rex Sinquefield say on one of the excellent broadcasts live from the US Chess Championships that he justified a separate tournament for women because there were fewer women playing the game. Why not also pass out a free membership to all women, too?
Armchair Warrior
Nocab: Kids and seniors have a poverty rate over 20%. I’d hate to deprive either of the pleasure of chess because of lack of funds. Half the kids are female so they would benefit from no dues too.
Eastside: If the Uscf went under financially then another group would rush in to fill the gap. Likewise with tourney organizers.
I personally would pay double dues if I knew a kid would learn the beauty of chess playing.
Wouldn’t you?
Is this supposed to be reassuring?
I think USCF history shows the exact opposite of what you claim here. Replacing volunteers, organizers, events and sponsors is VERY hard to do. And if the USCF were to go under, whatever replaces it (if anything) would almost certainly diverge from any policies that caused its downfall in the fist place.
The question is not what I (or you) would personally do. The question is what will the average USCF adult member do when hit with a 100% increase in membership dues with no corresponding raise in services or benefits. The answer to that question seems obvious to me.
What makes more sense is to look at developing revenue/membership structures that are not dependent upon individual dues-paying memberships.
For example, suppose USCF provided the tools for the following:
A school conference can use a website that lists the schedule, results, standings, sites, etc. for inter-school matches. A website that provides this (and also provides trophies) could also easily rate the games played in the inter-school matches.
The fee charged for ratings, and memberships (perhaps a limited school membership of some time) could all be bundled into the conference fee. Schools will typically NOT pay for memberships for their students and/or instructors, but they typically will pay conference fees.
Students and instructors will be driven to the website for directions, standings and results. Website advertising becomes more viable.
POTENTIALLY, the same structure could be used in non-scholastic situations for leagues (think Chicago Industrial League.) This may help with sponsors paying some portion of the league fee for a team. (We would need to work out a discount system for team members who already have a membership.)
Now instead of people complaining about the EXTRA cost of the USCF membership to play chess, the cost is simply a part of the cost for their league play.
People aren’t fooled by hidden taxes. Be upfront that it is for kids who otherwise may never get the chance to play chess.
USCF could conduct a poll among adult members. People aren’t as cynical and tightfisted as assumed above.
Do not misrepresent my assumptions. I am not assuming that people are cynical or tightfisted. I am assuming that people want value for their money. This is a very, very basic business principle that, to be honest, is completely ignored in your proposal. I am also assuming that chessplayers are, on average, more frugal than your average person, not less. (I have data and about 20 years of empirical observation to support this, though.)
You make some very dubious assumptions (“USCF fails? No problem! Someone will rush in with a pool of money!”; “Tournament organizers go under? No problem! They’ll be replaced!”). These assumptions are repudiated by the cold, unyielding facts of USCF history.
Am I saying your idea simply can’t work? No. But you’ll need to do a LOT better in supporting it if you really want people to take it seriously. I would start with some facts to demonstrate that the idea won’t lead to financial ruin for USCF. Perhaps you should conduct some market research into the validity of your assumptions.
Not all value for your money is material gain.
History shows that no person or organization is irreplaceable. Nature abhor a vacuum.
Conduct a poll of all adult members. Easy to do by email. No market research needed. Just ask.
Perhaps time to think beyond the 64 squares.
If you’re lucky, 5% who think it is a great idea will respond yes, 5% who think it’s a horrible idea will respond no, and the 90% who would really make or break the proposal will just leave the e-mail in their spam folders and never respond.
How easy it is to give away other people’s or other organizations’ money. Where is the money lost to be made up? How will these proposals come to terms with rising costs due to inflation? Who will be the “white knight” that will make up the difference in revenues? For that matter, why would anyone rescue and organzation that would give away or hamper its revenue streams?
Seniors are more affluent than they used to be and certainly are in a better situation compared to other SES groups in the present economic and political climate. Giving them a rate cut is a windfall. Fortunately, at least for them, many seniors are already Life Members.
To make up for lost revenue from cutting junior dues, the USCF would probably have to raise the rating fees for scholastic events in a very significant way. Organizers would grouse at this. It would not change the workload of TDs, as they will still have to gather address and other I.D. information for processing to make sure that there are no imistakes. I can imagine that some would drop out of setting up scholastic events. The workload on the office to manage the processing of the tournaments would likely go up as well.
BTW, the type of polling suggested would not give compelling results. The results would be skewed and not meet statistical criteria for relevance. A lot of players would ignore the poll, so the sample would not be credible.
So if doubling all the adult membership rates is not going to produce some gain in services or products for adult USCF members, what is the purpose of doing that? To support junior members, a group that already has lower membership rates and a large number of local, regional and national support programs in place? And these free, non-EF-paying junior members are then expected to suddenly pay the higher rates, plus start paying tournament EFs, when they hit 18? In the words of Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler, “REALLY!?!”
USCF history, unfortunately, has plenty of vacuums. Most of them center around initiatives or events that required sponsorship or volunteer labor to remain viable. Filling those vacuums has proven rather difficult. Your idea is, IMHO, likely to create even more vacuums than we currently have…so it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate that this won’t happen.
Even if such a survey could be properly constructed - meaning, with no bias in the questions - for little or no cost (and this would NOT be a one-question survey), and if enough members responded to give you anything resembling a statistically valid reply pool, and if the data from the survey could be properly assembled and analyzed for little or no cost, the results from the survey wouldn’t be the only thing that drove implementation.
Typically, the way it works is that either well-respected business theory or reasonable financial assumptions to support an idea like yours are provided before any such survey is conducted. BTW…such a survey would be an example of market research.
Honestly, I don’t understand this sentence. However, I don’t think your idea will go anywhere unless you can show (1) that USCF won’t be financially harmed by your idea, and (2) that there is some chance of retaining a higher percentage of junior members into adulthood than we currently do.
I would note that based on the number of Monrois and Chronos clocks I see at scholastic tournaments relative to adult tournaments, the scholastic players seem to be the ones with the greatest ability to pay. Scholastic tournaments gather hundreds of players while comparable adult tournaments gather dozens. So I don’t see any need or upside to bring in more scholastic players at the expense of adult players.
The kids price for USCF dues is already very small relative to tournament entry fees, or even in an absolute sense. Kids who can’t afford $20/year for a membership won’t be able to afford $20 for a weekend tournament. And if they’re not playing in tournaments, they don’t need a USCF membership. So what’s the point?
No one is trying to fool anyone or create hidden taxes. The point is that sometimes other ways to pay work better. Many schools/school groups refuse to support USCF because it requires membership. However, they would support paying for a conference where a form of USCF membership was provided “for free” within that cost. Sometimes bundled pricing works beter.
Apparently you missed the part of Mr. Williams-Lawrence’s proposal that had free entry fee for players under 18 at USCF tournaments. Not sure if this was for all tournaments, or just ones organized by USCF.
Alex Relyea
This tries to directly accommodate the IHSA prohibition on requiring a player to belong to another organization before representing the player’s school. It seems to be a reasonable attempt and might (if there is a single-tournament state championship exemption allowed) result in finally USCF-rating the IHSA team tournament that runs about the size of the USAT-E.
Some issues are:
Identifying the events that such an option would be valid for (maybe a new affiliate type that could be used similarly to the current K-12 JTP option available for single school events using a scholastic affiliate);
Getting IDs for all of the players (the excel upload option for JTP or non-member IDs would be used extensively);
Handling the rating fee payments;
Having certified TDs submit the events (IL would probably not have a problem, but some other areas might);
Avoiding misuse of affiliates (would we want a single conference affiliate used for an entire state?).
This sounds like it is worth being considered. Whether or not it is feasible to implement is up in the air. It may be revenue-negative (at least in regards to IL players) if it is used extensively for K-8 chess in IL.
I’ll admit I did, but that’s even more insane. Does he think the trophies, supplies, etc. appear out of thin air? Most scholastic tournaments I’ve been to supply sets and boards, who pays for that? It doesn’t cost much money to play chess, but OTB tournament chess costs money, and prizes in particular cost money (even before you find pure volunteer organizers, TDs, and assistants). The only scholastic tournaments organized by USCF are the nationals, and as discussed elsewhere on the site, those are too much of a cash cow for the USCF to consider making free.
How many little Nakamuras are out there who will never realize their chess potential? We will never know unless we think outside the 64 squares.
Eliminating the entry fee for the scholastic nationals would mean that somebody would have to:
pay the travel/lodging expenses of the TDs and organizers (figure an average of $350 unless it is held in some area that already has a lot of good, nearby scholastic TDs - Chicagoland anybody?) - I know that I wouldn’t be able to justify the expense to my family;
pay the TDs or get them to work free (working free is a tough sell when you have to burn up vacation time that would otherwise be spent with the family - and a real tough sell for the Mother’s Day weekend national elementary);
pay for the trophies or eliminate them;
pay for the venue or have the room rates raised so that all of the attendees end up paying for it;
pay for the scholarships or eliminate them.
If you have no trophies, no scorebooks, volunteer local organizers, generally less qualified and unpaid/unreimbursed TDs, and the venue cost covered by room fees, then you might be able to do it. The 1996(?) National Elementary in Peoria had SrTD and LTD section chiefs and went well (granted a number of those section chiefs later became ANTDs and NTDs when they finally got around to taking the tests, but that is not something to depend on). The Peoria organizers had heavy civic support, a very experienced local volunteer corps, importable Chicagoland TDs, and multiple IL NTDs to draw on - so the potential sites that could do something like that would be limited.
If you want the events to be run with the amenities and staff they’ve had in the past then you need to find somebody to supply maybe $40,000 to $60,000 (admittedly a very wild guess and could be significantly more but probably not much less) for just the National Elementary.
It’s easy to say that people should think outside the 64 squares, but such thinking would need to still figure out how to run the national events (unless thinking outside the squares includes scrapping the nationals that might discover a future little Nakamura).