Received this email this morning. Curious what everyone thinks. The cynic in me thinks this won’t really do anything but raise tourney fees.
I hope everyone had a great fall and our now gearing up your teams for the summer. I'm sending this email to inform you that there has been a major change in how USSSA tournaments will be run in Illinois.
Our State Office has partnered with Official Finders, Inc to assist us in assigning umpires for ALL USSSA tournaments. This decision was based on several years of feedback about umpires, lack of umpires, need for younger umpires and costs discrepancy of umpires across the region.
Our office has addressed these concerns from our coaches, tournament directors and are proceeding forward with a plan. This effects your team in regards to higher team registration fees for USSSA tournaments. You could see a $75 – $100 increase in tournament registration fees this upcoming season. This increase is NOT the blame of tournament directors; this increase is to close the gap of what umpires are getting paid from tournament to tournament. It is not fair to our USSSA teams that one tournament has all the “good umpires” and the other one doesn't because of the cost of umpires.
I wanted to let you know asap about this changed that just occured yesterday and I apologize if this effects your playing in USSSA tournaments but I wanted to be upfront and fair. We value you as our customer and want to provide you better umpiring across the State. If you have any further questions please feel free to email me.
I greatly appreciate your patronage to USSSA and we will see you on the fields.
I hope everyone had a great fall and our now gearing up your teams for the summer. I'm sending this email to inform you that there has been a major change in how USSSA tournaments will be run in Illinois.
Our State Office has partnered with Official Finders, Inc to assist us in assigning umpires for ALL USSSA tournaments. This decision was based on several years of feedback about umpires, lack of umpires, need for younger umpires and costs discrepancy of umpires across the region.
Our office has addressed these concerns from our coaches, tournament directors and are proceeding forward with a plan. This effects your team in regards to higher team registration fees for USSSA tournaments. You could see a $75 – $100 increase in tournament registration fees this upcoming season. This increase is NOT the blame of tournament directors; this increase is to close the gap of what umpires are getting paid from tournament to tournament. It is not fair to our USSSA teams that one tournament has all the “good umpires” and the other one doesn't because of the cost of umpires.
I wanted to let you know asap about this changed that just occured yesterday and I apologize if this effects your playing in USSSA tournaments but I wanted to be upfront and fair. We value you as our customer and want to provide you better umpiring across the State. If you have any further questions please feel free to email me.
I greatly appreciate your patronage to USSSA and we will see you on the fields.