Tourney Thinking of starting my own bar-league (Canada) (1 Viewer)

[GoStumpy]

This was brought up at my cash game last night, from someone that guest-hosted a bunch of games a few years back... She said I would be great at running one with my organizational skills, knowledge of the game, and my extrovert personality would work well for recruiting players & running the game alike.

I enjoyed a game that was ran by a certain TD for years, it had 30-50 players often, points system, with a large tournament ran at the end of the season for cash prizes. Daily tournament prize is winner gets a Gift Certificate to the pub.

That particular TD got out of it about 4 years ago, and the game currently barely breaks 20-25 players, and the current TD is just not that into it.. no promotion that I can tell, caters to the old people that don't buy many drinks, etc...

I reached out to the ex-TD today and will pick her brain a bit, but from what I've been told when she ran the games the pub would pay ~$250-$300 per night for the poker league to come in and play, obviously that is closely tied to how many people show up, but still, that's enough $$$ to make it worth it.

Anyone have opinions on this idea? I currently own my own business that is doing very well with employees, so I know how to 'run things', this would be with a partner that lives in a neighbouring city so she would host games there one or two days a week, and I would host in my town one or two days a week.

 

[moose]

Seek out Dr johnny nitro on pokerforum.ca

He runs bar leagues.

http://www.pokerforum.ca/f60/cambridge-card-club-cave-33037/#post402085

 

[GoStumpy]

Will do!

I arranged a dinner to talk with the previous TD next Thursday and pick her brain a bit

 

[Matt Carden]

I had a business that ran bar-tournaments in the Boston area 12 years ago. All the players would get a membership card and could track their standings online. We'd give away trips to Foxwoods after larger tourneys.

Running the games isn't hard. The tough part was figuring out ways to get the players to spend money in the bars. We had a few locations where you'd have 20-30 players, but nobody was ordering any food or drinks. This is where you need to have (or be) a good tournament director. For us, it wasn't so much to keep the game moving (the players could do that...). We would focus on 'lubing up' the player base with a few brews, and eventually they would follow suit and start ordering a few rounds. Also, when you drop some hot appetizers next to a table, it's easy for the players to start ordering some too.

The bottom line is that the bar/restaurant needs to make $$$ off of the bodies you're bringing in. If not, you'll get dumped.

 

[upNdown]

I sat in for a few nights at a local league that had a system set up where players got bonus points based on bar receipts they turned it.

 

[GoStumpy]

The bottom line is that the bar/restaurant needs to make $$$ off of the bodies you're bringing in. If not, you'll get dumped.

This is at the forefront of our minds, for it to be successful the bar has to WANT us to be there, not just tolerate it for a bit of $... that way they might promote it themselves or use their own avenues of promotion.

Back in the day 5 ish years ago we always turned our receipts in at the end of the night, and got bonus points for that. I would do similar except maybe start them off with bonus chips in the following game depending how much they spent.

I love the idea of getting a couple appies that smell good to entice people to buy food.