Not unlike the length of the Games, followers also question the time of the year and holiday proximity. Hopefully we can adequately justify our decision making in these final two installments.

Keeping the length of the SG in mind, the time of the year for Super Grands needs to mesh with the NBL tournament scheduling, ratings and magazine scheduling.

• SG Date in Proximity to Other NBL Tournaments - Why don’t we schedule NBL tournaments in October? It seems like such a good month for competition. October is always a month we’ve justifiably had to resist NBL sanctioning however. If SG are to be held November, December or even January we must have time to prepare for the event. The scenario works like this: the last NBL of the season concludes generally late September. Our office works like mad to receive the final NBL tournament results along with any other negligent tournament results (there are always some). We then work like mad to process those NBL ratings while answering hundreds of phone calls regarding the SG at the same time.

Simultaneously we try to be patient and understanding to the multitude of people that don’t bother to read and understand that SKIL point charts were due on the 10th of September and then use every excuse in the book why they didn’t send them in since the season ended the past June 30! Somehow in the following two weeks we have to get the SKIL ratings completed, get all the NBL results in and processed, NBL tournament stories done and update the schedule for the following year (because everyone is already calling about that as well), so that we can update the internet and print the magazine by early October.

Next we have to hustle to get the SG qualifying invitations in the mail quickly enough so that the players have time to plan to attend and can schedule travel and arrangements. Now if we process the impossible (which we do each year), the two weeks from September 30 to October 14 is when we accomplish all of this and, if the SG are scheduled for the end of November, that only leaves potential attendees a little over four weeks to decide to attend and process flight or travel arrangements.

After the nightmare of processing pre-registrations, answering more phone calls, loading the SG truck and preparing to shut down our office (that’s assuming all the other SG work was long since accomplished –i.e., staff confirmations, ordering, awards, etc.), we spend three weeks at the event with set-up, the competition week and tear down. Then we return home only to face six to eight weeks before the next magazine date and new season. The later is also nearly an impossibility after almost a month away from the mail, phone calls, etc., let alone, processing a return truck load of SG equipment, SG results, statistics, stories and photographs. Six weeks time frame after returning is miraculous at best to get the first magazine of the year out.

• Timing - Why Not Summer - Summer seems so logical; kids are out of school, adults take vacations and warm weather encourages travel and driving. But unfortunately those things are just the problems. Why are Christmas decorations expensive in December and half price in January? Obviously the demand is lessened in January. The same holds true for travel. In most cases warmer weather induces more travel, thus demand for hotel rooms and function space also increases. In many areas hotel rates are at their peak.

While this certainly does not hold true for all areas, it is overwhelming the case for the majority of destinations. Take for example the Super Grands in Panama City in 2002. We could offer a room rate for $109 at this upscale resort hotel because it was off season. That same hotel in mid summer was $295 a night and generally sold out! Hardly a rate that karate competitors would afford each night for a week.

But just as important is the time frame to fit in with the already existing NBL tournament and magazine scheduling. While it may be easy for you to say, changing the NBL tournament dates or magazine publication dates would spell instant disaster to the league. First of all consider the NBL tournament dates. As was already explained we must have a minimum of two months before the SG without any NBL tournaments to be processed and must have two months afterward. Just how would we go about telling our NBL promoters to move their events away from four months time frame in the middle of summer so we could run the SG? That would go over like a lead balloon! We could never convince our constituents to move all their events into winter months as the apex of the season instead of summertime. Can you picture no NBL tournament in say May, June, July and August and moving all that were there into October, November, December and January?

Despite any justification for the SG to choose winter and holidays as its scheduling time, the majority of NBL tournaments can’t all be held in winter holiday months and face fears of weather conditions since the majority of their competitors drive not fly. For an established league - a major schedule change based on rescheduling tournament dates alone would spell demise.

Part 3 - Holiday Time Frame, will conclude our explanation of Super Grands Scheduling in the next issue.

Thanks for your time
Boice Lydell