Tournament prize money

[7 years]

Excuse me if some things I mention are wrong as I'm not an avid tournament goer.

Why are there tournaments where people don't receive the prize money? Venue fees exist to pay for the venue correct? Why are there TO's that pay for venues out of their own pocket before securing how many entrants there will be? I guess there's that "risk" I see people talking about when hosting a tournament. Apparently there are TO's that make deals with local hotels for discounts? How does that work? Does the same venue fee pay for this as well? If it does, why does it?

Now I want to talk about the actual money to pay for the events such as doubles or singles. This money is all collected but where does it go? It's all cash right? Why do I see people handing out checks or gift cards to pay the winners of the tournament? Why isn't the same cash that is given from everyone entering the tournament handed back out when it's over?

Is it more complicated than what I'm making it out to be?

I noticed that there are sponsors in tournaments? How does that work out? What do the sponsors do in a tournament setting?

I'm aware that there's pre-registration websites where you can pay online for the tournament beforehand. It's almost like buying those passes from MLG I guess. What are the benefits of doing this? Does this benefit how efficient the tournament runs or ensures the payout for the winners?

 

[Mew2King]

They only care about themselves that is why. I'm owed 6k from various events Winterfest from FL, SNES, ActiveGamers, and now Pound5

 

[-Ran]

There are two schools of thought:
1) Some people are shady, and are just stealing money.
2) People just suck at math.

Usually tournaments do not have sponsors and are entirely footed by the players that are entering the event. There are the -rare- cases, such as when MLG ran smash tournaments where large amounts of capital were pushed into an event, but generally it all comes from the players themselves. The key problem is that you have tournaments that are being run generally by people that aren't mentally equippped to properly handle the monetary aspects of creating a tournament. Running an event that has 100+ people in it is NOT an easy task, nor is coming up with the logistics behind it.

Most of the venue woes would be solved handily if:
1) Venue fees increased per person, and would then be refunded to players after expenses were paid or a certain level of entries was reached.
2) Venue fees were increased, but excess would be split into the pots.
3) National sized tournaments utilized the massive size of Smashboards to have a paypal donation to offset fees prior to the event.

Of course, there are always snakes in the grass waiting to pray upon people. =/