bruisedshin wrote:If the people running ASA were smart, they'd schedule as many ASA nationals as possible in California for the next few years and try to smother PGF in the crib. It may already be too late, but next year's crop
18G Oklahoma
18U Tennessee
16U Alabama
14U South Dakota
12U Illinois
10U Indiana
is not going to put a damper on PGF in California. I would imagine that AZ would also prefer SoCal to the other trips as well.
10U and 12U Westerns are in NorCal (both in Roseville?), but 14U in Oregon and 16U in Las Cruces, NM are not big draws for the California teams.
If PGF is the success I expect this year and next, it will be too late for ASA to get the horse back in the barn.
There is a natural progression that will occur. ASA has made it clear they are going to continue to pick hosting locations and run the tournament in a fashion to maximize profits for the foreseeable future.
ASA has been infiltrated/taken over by a few very savvy politicians like James K. Ellis. These politicians work for the those cities that regularly host ASA tournaments. These politicians driectly profit from these tournaments, not in their role as ASA directors, but none the less their pockets are lined for their votes. The cities that have learned the formula for using ASA to rip-off parents. I am referring to Midland TX, Johnson City TN, Montgomery AL.
As PGF becomes very popular, those cities will no longer be able to make the mass profit they make on these tournaments. These tournaments mast have 100+ teams to really make the level of profits that interests these cities. As soon as it becomes evident that ASA will have much smaller tournaments, these profiteers will move on to volleyball, basketball or some other sport/activity that is dopey enough to let them infiltrate their political process and leverage it for their profit.
When we reach that point, ASA will return to a more rational way of thinking. At that point UmpSteve can come back, all the stuff that MTR talks about makes sense again. At that point PGF and ASA could begin working together.