Alabama Smash League - Season 3 Ready for AAAaaction

[*Cam*]

I don't know what the place is called, but Cheap gave me the address.

2017 Columbiana Rd, Birmingham, AL 35216

 

[_Keno_]

It's at a recreation center attached to a megachurch. It has three Wiis and a SSB64 setup. (The Wiis dont have brawl discs or characters, and my lack of knowledge about SD cards gives me hope that you can put the information on them without mods?)

Has 6 good sized TVs, as well as one huge-*** TV, air conditioning, pool tables, air hockey, lots and lots of chairs, among another things. Its a pretty nice place, and its free.

 

[*Cam*]

And that's why we love you Russ

 

[Urban Menace]

For the phenix city tournament, is anyone coming through the montgomery area with space in their car?

 

[*Cam*]

For the phenix city tournament, is anyone coming through the montgomery area with space in their car?

The Mobile/Pensacola carpool is. Talk to Ryker/Ragnarok/Saint

 

[I SEE YOU]

For the phenix city tournament, is anyone coming through the montgomery area with space in their car?

URBAN MENACE! Glad you remembered the date! this is elev8; hope you can make it man

 

[Urban Menace]

@cam, ok, thanks for the info! People come from that far though?

@elev8 yeah man I appreciate the info on the smash league, I want to get better and become more active so this is really awesome. Ill try my best to make it ^^

 

[Saki-]

Wooooow I haven't heard anything from Menace in a long time lol

 

[*Cam*]

Yeah, there's definitely a crew coming up from Mobile.

 

[Urban Menace]

alright, cool, ill talk to those guys you referred me to ^^

Wooooow I haven't heard anything from Menace in a long time lol

I hadn't really been playing when got to montgomery but i went back to md/va and started playin alooot again so i wanted to get into it again haha, and yeah i hadn't really been posting in here because the connection is so incosistent here at times haha.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

I'll send you my number. I'm unsure how we're gonna fit everyone (or even who all is going), but there is a car coming and I'll make it work.

 

[Urban Menace]

I'll send you my number. I'm unsure how we're gonna fit everyone (or even who all is going), but there is a car coming and I'll make it work.

Alright cool man, thanks for the help! ^^

 

[Two-Ell]

Hey guys, I just wanted to pop in and say I love what you guys have going with the whole smash league thing. I'd like to ask y'all a couple questions about it. You can answer them whenever. Would that be alright?

 

[*Cam*]

Hey guys, I just wanted to pop in and say I love what you guys have going with the whole smash league thing. I'd like to ask y'all a couple questions about it. You can answer them whenever. Would that be alright?

Yeah, go for it.

 

[Two-Ell]

Well last month I became a Smash Ambassador for this region and I wanted to look into the activities of the other states. I think you guys are probably the most organized out all of the ATL South states. I wanted to learn some more about the system you guys have running here.

How long have you guys had this system going?

What kind of numbers do you pull in at events?

Do you guys advertise your events? and if so what kinds of methods do you use?

Do you guys have consistent sponsorship for these events? and do you reach out to them as a group or does the TO take care of that?

I might have some more questions as they come to me, but those are just some I was wondering about.

 

[*Cam*]

Well last month I became a Smash Ambassador for this region and I wanted to look into the activities of the other states. I think you guys are probably the most organized out all of the ATL South states. I wanted to learn some more about the system you guys have running here.

Hmm... I didn't know about the ambassador program. I read the thread, but I'm still not sure what the overall idea is behind it (not to question your efforts). What are the main ways you guys plan to help the community?

How long have you guys had this system going?

We worked out all the details last July and had our first tournament in October. We are still in the first official season, but season 2 is already planned to go through July.

What kind of numbers do you pull in at events?

It varies. The first tournament brought in about 50 people, which is good for AL. I think it had the highest numbers because it was the first tournament of the ASL and because AUSOM is a well-known series. Other tournaments like Resist in Mobile have had lower turnout because of the distance. I'd say our average tournament pulls in 35-40 people.

This system has helped about 10 new people join the community, give or take. We've made an effort at our universities to start up smash clubs, and we have 3 right now. Given that, we try to make sure everyone who wants to go to a tournament has a ride, usually via the club they are in. The cheap price helps a lot for people who don't know if they will go to a tournament. They remember "hey, I already paid for it, so of course I can go." That's the real point; we want to help make tournaments cheaper for our community (which is not limited to AL players). We have ASL members from AL, TN, GA, and FL.

Do you guys advertise your events? and if so what kinds of methods do you use?

We advertise via Smashboards, Facebook, and our website.

Do you guys have consistent sponsorship for these events? and do you reach out to them as a group or does the TO take care of that?

We haven't made a big push for sponsors, so the answer is no. There are two reasons we haven't really looked for sponsors:

1. We don't have much of a selling point. Our events don't draw in more than 40 people usually.
2. We have a pretty solid budget laid out right now that only costs our members $5 per tournament while keeping the top 4 prizes at $125, $60, $25, and $10.

I might have some more questions as they come to me, but those are just some I was wondering about.

Feel free. I don't know if this interests you, but we also implemented a system to save and organize every replay from a tournament.

 

[Two-Ell]

Hmm... I didn't know about the ambassador program. I read the thread, but I'm still not sure what the overall idea is behind it (not to question your efforts). What are the main ways you guys plan to help the community?


The program was set up by MLG_JV in order to support smash scenes in different regions. We basically serve as representatives of the site to help TO gain sponsors for their events(We have official site hosted emails and a lot of information we can use in emails to reach out to sponsors). We're here to work with or as TO's for our regions to grow our significant regions' s scenes. This is also supposed to help make the Tournament system on the site more organized. We can influence which tournaments in our regions get stickied. I came here because I saw you guys were the most organized, so there' s a lot of potential with helping you guys out.

It varies. The first tournament brought in about 50 people, which is good for AL. I think it had the highest numbers because it was the first tournament of the ASL and because AUSOM is a well-known series. Other tournaments like Resist in Mobile have had lower turnout because of the distance. I'd say our average tournament pulls in 35-40 people.

Those are actually pretty nice numbers for system that's only just started. Is AUSOM in a more population dense area? Also for Mobile would you guys say you have a less of an advertising presence there? because I thought Mobile was a pretty prominent city for the state in terms of population(not necessarily smash though). I could be wrong about that lol.

This system has helped about 10 new people join the community, give or take. We've made an effort at our universities to start up smash clubs, and we have 3 right now. Given that, we try to make sure everyone who wants to go to a tournament has a ride, usually via the club they are in. The cheap price helps a lot for people who don't know if will go to a tournament. They remember "hey, I already paid for it, so of course I can go." That's the real point; we want to help make tournaments cheaper for our community (which is not limited to AL players). We have ASL members from AL, TN, GA, and FL.

How would you say you tailor your events to newer players? Do you guys run pools? low entry fees? Any special incentives to new players? Have you ever considered any new ideas to appeal to new players? We advertise via Smashboards, Facebook, and our website.

I like that you guys have a site set up for this. You make use of facebook too. Have you ever considered using small time listings like craigslist or physical advertisement like local paper listings and posters at local game stores and colleges?
We haven't made a big push for sponsors, so the answer is no. There are two reasons we haven't really looked for sponsors:

1. We don't have much of a selling point. Our events don't draw in more than 40 people usually.
2. We have a pretty solid budget laid out right now that only costs our members $5 per tournament while keeping the top 4 prizes at $125, $60, $25, and $10.

This is where I'm here to help you. I think the important thing in gaining sponsors is showing consistency in your attendance and your potential to gain newer players. You guys still have some room to grow considering you just started out. It's actually not too difficult to gain sponsors and when you do that will actually serve as a big push in gaining new people. There are some ways you guys can start, but I will need to get back to you on that after I consult some more experienced TOs.

Feel free. I don't know if this interests you, but we also implemented a system to save and organize every replay from a tournament.

That's good, this would be very useful in exposing your scene to newer players. Do you guys have a central YT channel for smash in this state? This is something I'm actually working on for FL.

I have a class starting soon so I may have to get back to you on your next set of answers this afternoon lol.

 

[*Cam*]

AUSOM is hosted in Auburn, which is a college town, but it isn't really more population-dense than the rest of the state.

Mobile, for whatever reason, has trouble drawing in locals for Brawl (although it has a decent Melee scene). For much of the state, Mobile is 4-6 hours away, hence their reluctance to drive down.

We don't have any special financial incentives to new players, but we pushed to get them involved before the season started so they could get 5 tournaments for $25. Our clubs serve as the primary gateways for new players to enter the competitive community. I've had a lot of luck at Auburn, and perhaps I was low when I said 10 new players. I think we've had 10 consistent new players, but probably 15-20 have attended one or two tournaments this season. It's especially enticing to the players in the club when the tournament is being hosted in their backyard. I have about 20 students in the Auburn Smash Club, and about half of them showed up to AUSOM.

We also offer matchup critique on our website, so it helps new players a lot when their matches are saved from the tournament and Reflex is willing to give them advice.

We do have pools at every tournament, so people do get their money's worth. We also implemented an ELO ranking that everyone in the ASL gets put on. So, we hope to foster some competition between lower-end players.

We don't really use posters to advertise for our tournaments (unless they are the local ones), but we do use posters to advertise for the clubs. Once someone is in the club, I make sure they know about the tournaments, and I also make sure they can get a ride if they want to go. We have never really considered using Craig's list, as I'm not sure how that works.

We are certainly open to help as far as sponsorships go. I appreciate any efforts on your part.

We just started using a central youtube channel, so only the last tournament's videos are on there. However, we do have this: http://alabamasmashleague.com/Tournament video index.html

And here's the youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/AlabamaSmashLeague

 

[_Keno_]

The reason the Mobile tournaments usually receive a lower attendance is it's at the very edge our state, making it a 3-5 hour drive for even the instate players. The mobile crew itself has driven to every single tournament, regardless of distance, while GA and North Alabama are a bit lazier (4h+ drive), and past Mobile tournaments before ASL began generally had low turnouts (even going as low as 10-). Few people want to drive so far for what may be a very low turnout. Guarenteed prizes in the ASL have somewhat raised the turnout there, but its still nothing like the other turnouts.

Ausom has a centralized location between the main two states with members in ASL, Georgia and Alabama (the venue is literally on the border). Ausom has had three great turnouts even before ASL.

I would personally prefer centralized locations like Montgomery or Auburn for every Alabama tournament, in order to gain maximum attendance and lower driving times, but that will leave out states like Florida and Tennesse, which attend a single tournament o the fringes of Alabama, as well as locals that look forward to the one tournament per season in their area. (There are very few locals or TN players that really keep up with our tournaments anyways, so I dont think it will do any real harm.) The major problems with this is the lack of a cheap venue and a smash scene in Montgomery.

 

[Two-Ell]

AUSOM is hosted in Auburn, which is a college town, but it isn't really more population-dense than the rest of the state.

Mobile, for whatever reason, has trouble drawing in locals for Brawl (although it has a decent Melee scene). For much of the state, Mobile is 4-6 hours away, hence their reluctance to drive down.

How is the state's melee scene by the way? I'm not making myself Brawl exclusive, so I'm curious to see how they're doing.

We don't have any special financial incentives to new players, but we pushed to get them involved before the season started so they could get 5 tournaments for $25. Our clubs serve as the primary gateways for new players to enter the competitive community. I've had a lot of luck at Auburn, and perhaps I was low when I said 10 new players. I think we've had 10 consistent new players, but probably 15-20 have attended one or two tournaments this season. It's especially enticing to the players in the club when the tournament is being hosted in their backyard. I have about 20 students in the Auburn Smash Club, and about half of them showed up to AUSOM.

Oh okay I see. I asked about that because I've actually seen a lot of interesting ideas used as incentives for new players entering a scene. Both financial and in the way an event is ran. It sounds like you guys have something really good going on though. Do you hold these events at the University or at a venue in town? You guys have a very attractive foundation being laid down that I'm sure sponsors would be interested in.

We also offer matchup critique on our website, so it helps new players a lot when their matches are saved from the tournament and Reflex is willing to give them advice.

very nice, one thing I feel is important is that the new players have a chance to communicate and play with the better players of the scene. It helps them feel more involved and a part of the community. Have you introduced them to sites like Smashboards and AllisBrawl?

We don't really use posters to advertise for our tournaments (unless they are the local ones), but we do use posters to advertise for the clubs. Once someone is in the club, I make sure they know about the tournaments, and I also make sure they can get a ride if they want to go. We have never really considered using Craig's list, as I'm not sure how that works.

Physical advertising is something I feel tournaments haven't taken enough advantage of. I understand that you have a gaming/smash club set up at your local university, but you'd be amazed at the numbers you could pull in with simple posters around a campus/dorm along with local gaming stores. MikeHAZE who has become a pretty good TO in his region came up with an interesting idea of a discount on venue fee for new(keyword, as in their first event) players by having them bring in a poster. Also using online advertising is very simple. I'm not sure what the official newspaper for your town is, but I found these

http://events.oanow.com/ (assuming it's this one)
http://www.theplainsman.com/pages/events

You can post events to newspaper sites like these by either going to their community or entertainment section and clicking 'events'. From there they allow you to post up a community event. Craigslist was one site that was mentioned by another ambassador. I'm not sure of what success you can with it, but it would hurt to consider as it's pretty easy to use as well http://auburn.craigslist.org/cal/ (click 'Post' in the top right corner to post an event).

We are certainly open to help as far as sponsorships go. I appreciate any efforts on your part.

One of the first things to do is to survey what potential businesses are around your venue. They can be food restaurants(Subway), gaming stores(Play 'n Trade, Gamestop) and even electronics supply stores(Best Buy and T-Mobile). Another potential resource you can make use of is local conventions. Anime and electronics conventions are amazing sources of attendance. I can help you reach out to organizers, so that you can run events for them. This benefits both of you with attendance.

We just started using a central youtube channel, so only the last tournament's videos are on there. However, we do have this: http://alabamasmashleague.com/Tournament video index.html

And here's the youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/AlabamaSmashLeague

The reason the Mobile tournaments usually receive a lower attendance is it's at the very edge our state, making it a 3-5 hour drive for even the instate players. The mobile crew itself has driven to every single tournament, regardless of distance, while GA and North Alabama are a bit lazier (4h+ drive), and past Mobile tournaments before ASL began generally had low turnouts (even going as low as 10-). Few people want to drive so far for what may be a very low turnout. Guarenteed prizes in the ASL have somewhat raised the turnout there, but its still nothing like the other turnouts.

Would you say that you guys put in the same effort in exposing your event in Mobile? Is there any sort of TO that could maybe help in developing a scene in the city?

Ausom has a centralized location between the main two states with members in ASL, Georgia and Alabama (the venue is literally on the border). Ausom has had three great turnouts even before ASL.

I would personally prefer centralized locations like Montgomery or Auburn for every Alabama tournament, in order to gain maximum attendance and lower driving times, but that will leave out states like Florida and Tennesse, which attend a single tournament o the fringes of Alabama, as well as locals that look forward to the one tournament per season in their area. (There are very few locals or TN players that really keep up with our tournaments anyways, so I dont think it will do any real harm.) The major problems with this is the lack of a cheap venue and a smash scene in Montgomery.


What would you say are the top four cities/areas in terms of activity and ease of hosting in AL? Melee and Brawl if you happen to know.

 

[Saki-]

Our Melee scene is Huntsville, and unless there is a tournament up there then it's "meh". Though ASL has been trying to promote the Melee scene with free to play Melee tournaments, and I admit it's helped make a larger Melee tournament but hasn't really motivated Brawl players to play more Melee.

answer to last question

1.Auburn
2.Montgomery
3.Huntsville
4.Birmingham

 

[Two-Ell]

Does each city have it's own TO? Are all of them part of the league's organization?

I'm sorry I ask a lot of questions lol. I'm just trying to educate myself.

 

[*Cam*]

Ok, let me give you a little history then.

We started with a bunch of independent TOs running tournaments in different AL cities. After HASL (a large Huntsville tournament I hosted in June), the Madison crew got in contact with all the other TOs and proposed to schedule our tournaments together. We wanted to avoid having awkward spacing between tournaments (in June we had 3 tournaments and then no other AL tournaments until October).

After we agreed to scheduling together, Chris proposed we have a group entry fee to make the tournaments cheaper for the players. We put them together as a package deal, drafted a constitution, and founded an organization with 12 TOs on a ruling committee. We elected a president, vp, and treasurer.

After that, we started making more and more decisions together, but the TOs, who started out independently, still have primary control over their tournaments. TOs find the venue, name the tournament, create a schedule, and essentially run the event. ASL handles the money, food, and standardized rule set. We also run the website and require that every tournament in the league put [ASL] before it on the tournament listings page. We have our own sd cards that we save all the bracket matches on and upload to youtube. Essentially, Alabama Smash League tries to make things better without completely taking over any individual tournament.

Finally, what has helped more than anything else in my opinion, anyone and everyone on the TOs committee can be drafted to help the TO at the tournament by virtue of being on the committee. This means TOs have 10 extra hands when running any given tournament. This takes a lot of pressure off what could be a solo-tournament organizer doing everything.

Now to answer your questions. Forgive me for not quoting, but I will answer them in order at least.

Our Melee scene, actually, is focused more in Mobile and a little bit in Tuscaloosa. The Huntsville Melee guys don't have any interest in coming to any of our tournaments (despite my best efforts). They just don't want to travel, even though there are some really good players there (like Moogle and Chad).

Tuscaloosa has a player named GAWes who just started there last semester I believe. He was a well-known Melee TO from Georgia and he's got the beginnings of a Melee crew going in Tuscaloosa. Mobile has the best active Melee player in AL: Ragnarok. I know there are like 5-10 serious Melee players in their area.

However, for the most part, Melee has suffered in AL due to lack of interest. No one wanted to spend money on it, hence us making it free to enter in hopes that some Brawl players would pick it up. We can't afford to offer the same deal for Melee players that we do Brawl because there's not enough interest to raise money for the prize pools.

As for the universities, we have finally convinced Auburn to let us host an event on campus, so we will have 3 tournaments at universities next season, one for each club. So that's one at Auburn, one at the University of Alabama, and one at UAHuntsville.

We felt the same way about introducing newer players to good players, hence the clubs. Players too often go to their first tournament as the best player on their block, and as reflex aptly put it, "they get their balls rocked." The first few weeks of club, people usually get their egos put in check. About 2/3 of them develop a better attitude about it and show a willingness to learn.

One thing we also noticed about new players is that A LOT of people know how to play Smash, they just don't know how to play it well. That's something we can remedy, and hopefully, as other new players are joining the scene from other cities, they will have other people they can compete against on their level.

We have introduced all the new players to smashboards in hopes that they would get interested in learning more advanced strategies with their characters and in hopes that they would participate in discussions in the regional threads.

We'll remember to post an event on OANow.com next time we have a tournament at Auburn (April).

What will we have to do for these businesses in order to get their sponsorship? I suspect we will need a bank account before we even approach them.

 

[Two-Ell]

hahaha no, you don't need a bank account. You don't pay a business to sponsor your event. You simply have to propose to them the benefits of them becoming involved with your event. That's where we work together. In the future I'll have plenty of material to make a decent proposal with. I can then reach out to them as a representative of smashboards(I have an official @smashboards.com email for these kind of correspondences). This can be combined with you presenting your consistency in hosting events. A business wants exposure and I doubt they would stand up the chance to appeal to younger consumers like college gamers. Gaining a companie's sponsorship will mean things like better prizes and pots, which in turn will help generate in state and out of state interest. Even your universities can be come sponsors as you build trust with them over time by hosting sucessful events.

 

[*Cam*]

Well, I hope that can work out for us. We have had some... bad experiences with sponsors in the past. ABXY Gaming is a large club from Tuscaloosa that wanted to pay for the prize pools at the Tuscaloosa tournament. A few weeks before the tournament, they changed their minds, and we had to lower the prize pools at all of our tournaments to compensate.

At HASL, the UAH Starcraft II Club offered to sponsor us, telling us they had like $500 in their coffers. It turns out, the president lied to me; they had no money. He went off the grid and one of his officers (who was in the dark) paid for HASL's prize pools out of pocket. Needless to say, we are reluctant to put our faith in university sponsors.

 

[Two-Ell]

I see, well we don't have to focus on more obscure groups/companies. We can also reach out to more notable ones. I'm sure those will be more trust worthy. You'll have me to help discern that too.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Our Melee scene is Huntsville, and unless there is a tournament up there then it's "meh". Though ASL has been trying to promote the Melee scene with free to play Melee tournaments, and I admit it's helped make a larger Melee tournament but hasn't really motivated Brawl players to play more Melee.

answer to last question

1.Auburn
2.Montgomery
3.Huntsville
4.Birmingham

Actually, the AL Crew is just as big, if not bigger. Your problem is that you have the highest concentration of AL's top level payers in Huntsville. Melee beats out Brawl in Mobile most of the time.

 

[Saki-]

Oh right how could I forget about the 3 people in Mobile

 

[*Cam*]

For those of you who were asking about the rankings, I got them updated for Melee and Brawl, but the formatting is being a pain. I've spent 2 hours on it, and I don't really plan to work on it anymore today. The rankings are accurate, but you'll notice the sizes of text are a little wonky. It should be easy to alter the size of specific text, but it's not.

 

[KOkingpin]

SO who ever wins the melee tourney gets a 25 dollar gift card from Gamestop. Supplied by me. BTW I will be late to this but I will show up. This should give people reason to enter since It is free.

 

[B_AWAL]

The ASL is fantastic. You should totally sign up.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=315124

and if you intend on coming and like black girls/goon music then hit me up asa n u can get a

VIP booth, bottle of liq & 10 ppl into the club I work @ 4 $55

This is not the place for that. This thread is specifically for ASL information and news.

 

[*Cam*]

Please don't advertise for your tournaments in this thread. Go to our social thread if you want to do that.

 

[B_AWAL]

Wait....

*Looks @ Title*

When did the thread CHANGE?



Edit: WOW My bad I aint even realize :-(

 

[Saki-]

The PR thread you're probably looking for is a couple of pages down

 

[shaSLAM]

shoot i dont care where he postin

yall tellin me you aint neva down for liq and dat VIP status?
yall cray



also CHEAP do you need help running the birmingham tournament? ill be more than ready to help out our tourney scene here and so we can get more tournaments here.

 

[_Keno_]

Honestly, I have no idea how to run a tournament. Originally (this was way back before first season), i thought I was just supposed to find a venue.

But yeah, I'll need help.

Where can I find the TO bracket organizer btw?

 

[*Cam*]

Honestly, I have no idea how to run a tournament. Originally (this was way back before first season), i thought I was just supposed to find a venue.

But yeah, I'll need help.

Where can I find the TO bracket organizer btw?

I apologize we didn't make it clear enough from the beginning.

You can find the software here

I'm going to make a guide to running ASL tournaments for reference by new TOs.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

You essentially have access to every TO in Alabama. It's no biggie?

 

[shaSLAM]

i just wanna sit behind the table and run brackets and stuff so you dont have to worry about that cheap cuz i know how to do that because i run wifi tournaments using tio brackets.
and i wanna be the one doing it cuh i wanna represent birmingham and be like a TO here or something cuz i would if there was a place nearby. but its up to you and whether or not you want my ameuatur help or the help of ASl members more lool

but i dont think running a tournament is that hard tbh.