I don’t really think Bismarck teams are scared, It’s more so teams really could care less to drive to play when we host enough tourneys in Bismarck to play 4 or 5 tourneys a summer without travel which doesn’t cost as much money. Nobody has ever asked or told Fargo teams to come to Bismarck to play, believe me if Fargo teams didn’t show these tourneys would still all continue each year. The upper/open is not what carries a tournament, it’s the open players just wanting a division. 10-15 years ago there were only really 2-4 teams that actually traveled anywhere to play. So maybe we got spoiled when everyone was in their 20’s and could do so without a weekend costing 1 player a few hundred dollars, unless a tourney director and reverse aging I don’t see much changing.
This is all accurate. Scared is probably not it. Apathetic, more like it. Or too old and busy with life. Or maybe the upper divisions have just gotten too stale. Same teams year in and year out and we play each other all year long, over and over again. Traveling to do it again, a couple hours away, probably gets to be a tougher and tougher sell.
Plus, nobody else complains about teams not traveling to come play in their invitational tournament besides guys from Fargo. I've never once heard this from Minot, ****inson, Williston...they all host tournaments and get nobody east of Bismarck, if that. I mean, even if I get a couple Fargo teams at any of my tournaments, I'm doing pretty well. But even that's pretty rare.
You're also right, we were spoiled. In general, I think the upper divisions are just getting a little shy on ambitious managers, which means we're getting shy on upcoming young teams with the means and desire to travel. The established teams are rapidly aging or dissolving. I do think these things are cyclical and the pendulum will eventually swing back the other way, but right now, the upper divisions in softball are in a bit of a rut.
I don't know how to fix it. I doubt you're going to convince too many teams from Minneapolis to drive out to Harwood (which is an unfortunate problem for another post). Maybe bigger payouts would help. Maybe not. In my experience, they've just been another thing for people to cry about. I also get the desire to include the B teams, but there's no doubt they keep some C teams away. How many? I don't know. Might be an even swap.
I also don't know about all the rest of the issues you guys posted, since I wasn't there this year. But what I will say is that the solutions to these things are never, and I mean never, simple. The good news is that you have people in charge out there who actually do care about softball and all hold pretty high ranking positions in the state, so I'm sure they'll figure it out.
