---UPDATE Tues Oct 18th--
Experiencing technical difficulties with Google. This may delay the shift to the new site for a few days. I'll follow up once we get through a few extra steps that they need to keep from losing all our old links ;)
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Effective tomorrow (Tuesday) this blogspot domain will shift to my new domain which will have the same web address except you drop the blogspot.com part. I've owned collegetennistoday.com since I started this site but have had it forwarded to blogspot - hopefully the switch will be seamless and you'll enjoy the added information that I have in my new dropdown menus. All my content has been shifted over except for the comments part from the last few months.
You won't need to do anything to get to the new site because this site will automatically redirect you.
Until the technical issues are resolved you can view the new site at dev.collegetennistoday.com
Experiencing technical difficulties with Google. This may delay the shift to the new site for a few days. I'll follow up once we get through a few extra steps that they need to keep from losing all our old links ;)
---
Effective tomorrow (Tuesday) this blogspot domain will shift to my new domain which will have the same web address except you drop the blogspot.com part. I've owned collegetennistoday.com since I started this site but have had it forwarded to blogspot - hopefully the switch will be seamless and you'll enjoy the added information that I have in my new dropdown menus. All my content has been shifted over except for the comments part from the last few months.
You won't need to do anything to get to the new site because this site will automatically redirect you.
Until the technical issues are resolved you can view the new site at dev.collegetennistoday.com
16 comments:
Bobby just so you know, Netflix is $9 a month. I think your pricing scheme is set way too high, especially given that during a normal week, the updates are sparse during the week and start to ramp up towards the weekend.
Thanks for the feedback
This site is great and as a fan of college tennis I'm on it every day and LOVE it.
Thanks Bobby!!
I will ask some questions why I can still be anonymous today. Who determines how many players and which draws they play in at the ITA regionals? Is it the host, the coach of the team, or the ITA REg committee? Who decides if freshmen play? Is UTR used for draw placement if player does not have ITA ranking? For what events is UTR used?
Some schools have as many as 8-9 players in ITA Regs. Do the MMs only get 4 or can they bring full lineup of 6? Also some teams play Futures instead of invitationals. If a team has 3 guys on the Qualifying list, but several guys on the alternate list, if the coach is a Power coach is he able to get WCs into Qualifying for the alternates and some of the Qs in the main? How much pull if any do Power college coaches have at Futures as far as getting WCs into main or Qs? Do they only have pull if they are local? Do you know how TDs usually decide on WCs-do they give them to the pros returning from an injury, hotshot D1 players, or to local pros? Some of these 10Ks with 32 draw main and 64-128 qualifying have close to 400 applicants. College players who have done well at summer Futures are still on Q lists. I wonder how many Future QFs or SFs they have to reach to start in main draw.
Good Q's - I'll answer what I can.
All the ITA Regionals have one main draw (unlike regular tournaments that have an A, B, C, etc) with a consolation for early losers. The coach determines how many representatives that he or she sends and if freshmen can play. If a coach brings MORE than 4 players to an event it is considered a TEAM DATE and teams are limited to 25 team dates per season. So if a team brought 5 players to a Fall Tournament that means they'd only have 24 team dates left in the dual-match season in the spring. Now just because they have 24 team dates doesn't mean they can only play 24 dual-matches because they could schedule multiple double-headers with each double-header only counting as one team date since it's played on the same date.
It seems like a 128-draw is fairly standard for most regionals however the women's Central Regional was a 256-draw.
UTR was used for the ITA Summer Circuit, the Oracle Events last week, and some fall tournaments here and there but to my knowledge it is NOT used at any of the ITA Regionals.
Most Futures TDs have a wild card or two set aside for players with local ties and usually the rest are given out in Wild Card Tournaments that take place a month or so before the tournament begins. There are several Futures that are part of the USTA Collegiate Series (UVA, Wake, Ohio State, Cal, Baylor) and with the events held on campus those host schools usually get almost all the wild cards. I'd say the Power 5 coach has some pull at local events but once you go out of region probably very little unless they have a prior relationship with the tournament director.
Every tournament varies depending on geography and time of year but on average to get direct acceptance into a main draw you usually need to have an ATP ranking of at least 900 or better. Right now to be ranked 900 you'd need 17 ATP points - if you make the quarters at a $10K Futures you'd only get 2 ATP points while the semis would get you 6. The entry deadline for these events is usually a few weeks before the tournament so if you went on a tear and made several back-to-back quarters/semis you wouldn't be on the radar for the immediate upcoming events because they would have used your ranking as of X date. Plus Futures points are added in a full week after the events as opposed to ATP/Challengers where you get the points right after the tournament finishes.
Hope I answered enough of them for you - if you or anyone doesn't feel comfortable using the comment section I can always be reached via email - bobbyk@collegetennistoday.com
Great answers Bobby, I don't know if I would have the patience to respond to that many in one paragraph! As Bobby said, coaches have pull only at Futures if they have something to do with the tournament (organized it in some way, held at campus, etc) or it is a regional thing. The percentage of Futures where coaches have control of WCs is very small statistically compared to the total amount of Futures. They just happen to be tournaments that get the most press, at least on here for example. USTA/ITF/Mgmt agencies control a lot more WCs than the college coaches. To get into main draws you have to win consistently, not be a one point here and there player. Many players float above 1000 and never get into a main draw, yet win an event. Players that reach 500-600 (and lower) have proven they are beyond lucky and are the real deal pros. (Not talking making money, just they are really good pro level players.) They have had to win a lot of matches to sustain that, it is well beyond a lucky draw or easier tournament here or there. Players that never break through 1000, probably just had an easy/lucky match or two in order to get ranked at all. It is fun to look at all the brochures with older tennis coaches saying they played professional tennis then look up their ranking and find out they were like 1428 and had won a single pro match.
There are very few lucky draws in any futures events (especially men's events), and very few points. The poster above said, you have to grind your way through futures qualifying (often having to win 4 matches just to qualify). You have to qualify and win 1 main draw match to get one point. If you look at the qualify draws of most futures (especially those in California and Florida), you see a ton a very good upcoming juniors and former college players fighting just to get into the main draw. Winning one pro main draw match is not lucky, it is a grind.
If a player has the resources to go to more remote locations, they have a better chance of picking up points and getting into main draws, but those points come off each year, and have to be replaced or your ranking goes back down.
what pricing scheme? I thought this was free
Around $9 month for the premium content portion
http://dev.collegetennistoday.com/index.php/item/1204-the-new-look-college-tennis-today
what will be available on the free content?
I disagree. As Bobby mentions it is .33 a day. C'mon that's a lot less than your daily soda.
The daily news, match recaps, ranking recaps, most of the day-to-day news about coaches and transfers in the summer will all still be free.
Most of the statistical breakdowns that take me more time to compile will be under the premium section.
Bobby, in an earlier comment you said most of the Regionals were 128 draws. The Midwest has a 64 Qualifying draw and then a 64 main draw (56 DA, 8 from Q). Did the Midwest Regional use UTR for splitting the Qualifying and Main draw? The reason I ask is that 5 of the schools playing don’t have a single player in the main draw. If it was coach selection, I would assume a coach would at least put his 1S and 2S in main draw. There are other MM schools that are sending 6 guys, but only 1 is in main draw. I also wonder if the MW regional is using UTR for seeding. One of the seeds is a 5 star freshman UTR 13.5 who is seeded 11th and who was not on the ITA ranked newcomer list. How could he be seeded unless UTR was used? If UTR was used, it will be an uphill battle for the MM players; only 18 players out of 15 midmajor schools were directly accepted into main draw, while 38 players were accepted from the 7 Power schools- (6 Big 10 schools and Notre Dame). Guess it is a good thing some of the Illinois players were off playing Futures, or the MMs in the main draw would even be less. Only 26% of the MM players were directly accepted into the main draw vs 75% of the Power Schools. It does seem a bit much for Notre Dame to get 8 players in the main draw and 4 in Qualifying when 5 MM schools have no players in MD, 6 MM schools have 1 player in MD, and only 4 MM schools have 2 or more players in MD(Valpraiso has 4 in MD, Western Mich and Ill State have 3, Marquette has 2). It will be interesting to see how other Regionals select and seed their draws. UTR is an approximation of rankings within a 1.0 range; in the Oracle Masters last week seeded based on UTR, 6 of the top 8 seeds had lost in the MD by the end of the 2nd round.
I asked the tournament director and this is what he said
Seeding, qualifier and main draw selections were done by the Midwest Region Committee.
Bracket draws were completed by Head Official, Tournament Manager and Region Chair.
So, without being on the committee it's tough to say what the criteria was - UTR could have been part of the equation.
The SE Regional at Florida State also has a 64draw Q and 64MD while the other 10 Regionals have/had 128 draws (though some of those had smaller Q draws for applicants >128 to play in for 8-12 of the 128 MD spots). Since most of the Regionals host 128 total players, it seems like all the Regionals would have the same format. The Q draws at MW/SE did not allow more players a chance to play; it just decreased by one the number of matches main draw players will play. The guys who do make it through the Q in those regionals will have already played 3 matches before they start the MD. There are some experienced lineup players from ranked teams and blue chip freshmen in the Q draws at MW and SE Regionals while 4 star freshmen and bench players are/were in the main draw of some of the other regionals. The benefit for the 128 draw for all regionals is that every player could possibly draw one of the top players, and each would play at least 2 matches-one MD and one consolation. For players in the Q draw, they will mainly play players from weaker conferences and the Power team bench, and half will only get to play one match. Sometimes there are talented players who are unranked only because they have not had the opportunity to play ranked players. Some of those go on later to become top 100 themselves after they get the chance to play and upset higher ranked players. In the juniors, sometimes unseeded players reach the SFs of 128 draw championships. In the 10 regionals with 128 draw MDs, those types of players have a better chance to break out vs guys who have to start in the MW or SE Q draw.
Regarding this comment:
> Bobby just so you know, Netflix is $9 a
> month. I think your pricing scheme is
> set way too high, especially given that
> during a normal week, the updates are
> sparse during the week and start to
> ramp up towards the weekend.
I disagree. The larger the customer base, the greater the economy of scale. Sites like Netflix scale to a much larger customer base, so they are able to charge a much lower price and still be exonomically viable. Specialty sites like CollegeTennsToday have to charge a much higher price to generate meaningful income. Bobby will see how things go and then make a choice as to how he wants to run things going forward.
- Dallas Oliver
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