Thoughts?

[lstouradmin]

Ok, I've been thinking about a few things. I think I'm going to add google ads like Links Corner does to generate a little revenue for the site. So if you see those come up in the next couple of week please feel free to click away .

I also wanted to get everyone's thoughts on this as well. I've been speaking to a lawyer about it and everything looks legal. One of our members suggested this to me and I thought it was a pretty good idea. Basically either charge an entry fee for some events or a membership fee to participate in events which have a real purse associated with them. Maybe the official LSPN events or a special separate tour. I wouldn't do this until all of the little bugs are out of the way and all of the major features have been put into place.

Thoughts?

Mark

[gibby]

small fee in a special tour would be good, might what to start them in flight mode to bring in more players to even out the odds. as for the ads if it helps defray your costs go for it.

[Westview]

Events with a purse? Wow...Roy will be rich!

I wouldn't mind paying a small monthly fee for unlimited use of the Tour, but not pursed events.
The top 1% of players would win 99% of the ca$h. Would not be fair to other 99% of players who pay to play that Tournament.

Unless.....only the top 1% of the players enter. That would be fun to watch!

[ErnieB]

Entry fees and purses - I can already hear the TMBC rants....

Why not start with a paypal donation link and see how that goes. I know many have said they would donate, it would be interesting to see how many really meant it.

If that isn't enough, why not have a "premium" tour. Keep the arcade and the regular tour events (flights, mayhem, RAW, etc.) as they are now free and with limited stats, and have a single "premium tour" (e.g. $20.00 per year) with a full range of stats, perhaps access to a separate (and faster) server (when feasible), maybe award some small prizes at the end of a given season as long as the bills (bandwidth, domain registration, etc) are paid first. In order to make it (a single "premium tour") accomodating to everyone, it would have to be a handicap event so that all swing types and difficulty levels may compete together. Many tours already employ this methodology and it works quite well.

Anyhow, good luck with this one Mark.

[Larry_Warrilow]

a fee for use of the tour is fine here.

an entry fee event that pairs players at the end of the week by random draw, combined score counting, would eliminate most of the elitism grousing. it's been a popular real world format around here.

my guess is that pursed events would be popular in the short run only, unless handicapped, and that opens a very large can of worms.

another option would be a fee-to-play tour that paid off at the end of a given season according to end ranking (by points), based on the actual ranking (not the total number of points), giving many more players a reason to show up every week. lw

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[Dr_Dave]

Thoughts....not a problem Mark.

Structured weekly tournaments both scratch and flights in Amateur, Pro, Champ and Elite with ongoing stats. Tournaments that mimic the PGA Tour with 2nd round cuts that include tournament purses and annual earnings (fake money) the same as the PGA Tour.

Charge a monthly fee giving players a break in 6 month and 1 year pay in advance membership. The membership fees would cover all operating expenses including an administrative wage. Donations wouldn't work unless there was a tax right off.

The Links Sports Net could be awesome as long as there's an incentive to make it that way!

[HeavySwinger]

I'm starting to have wild thoughts...how about a VGA event for each swing type, powerstroke and RTS never had one.

oh...oh...now I'm really getting warmed up - approach pgatour.com about having LSPN events synchronized with the real tour.

...and while we're at it, develop an interface for links so it can display ibm shot link data... ...well maybe I went a little far on that one

[RoyHiggi]

I maybe wrong but I assume money is THE key to keeping the Tour going from the administration side if not from those currently playing here. More money coming in brings upgrades/better structure to the tour/stats keeping/more tourneys /more variety etc etc. So hopefully the more money coming in the better it gets and hopefuly the more people that play and so on and so on.

A question I would ask , again , is is it ever going to be possible to improve the game itself. let's face it it is 2003 and many many improvements have been or could be suggested and I belive only such improvements could bring back the many many players who have left this game or could bring in big numbers of new players.

So back to the money issues. Charging to play for me depends on how much and what you get. How many players here now would pay for what we currently have? I know a number who post here have said yes but I am not convinced the majority would despite the fantastic efforts going on to get the new tour off the ground.

For me in 2003 Links was very very very good. Loads of tourneys , a new Links version , with new features and great competition. Any one of 10 or more players could win an event so you had to be at your very best to win an event. The numbers now are down and the vast majority of the top players have gone elsewhere probably never to return.Somebody has already said already that only 1% of players would win things and that is possibly true depending on what type of tourneys are created with prizes on offer.

Personally I have never thought of playing Links for money and never will but I do relish a new structured tour with good competition which I think is more important. I feel if there is only a charge for certain events where a purse is involved it is unlikely to get enough competitors to bring in very much money anyway. How many will pay to play in a special event where they have no chance at all of winning anything especially if there are all sorts of other events to play in for free? Thus I guess to get sufficient money in to make it worthwhile it would be better to try for a regular 1/4ly / annual fee for playing the tour in the first place even though I fear the numbers likely to pay might not be great.

[Arnie11]

while i agree that money is needed to keep this game and probably the apparent up coming tour regime alive,after all,time is money and someone will have to put in the time to make for an excellent tour,i cannot see myself paying to play on a tour against people using charts,square edges,multiple compt's etc,etc because of a simple return for money against money spent.
case in point:i've been playing Links since day one and recently i competed in a user created tourny at Shinnecock Hills under 4 difficult rd's cond' wise for a -5 (pretty good i thought) only to see the winner -35.is this what i will paying to be up against?
sounds greedy but i don't have a lot of money to throw around and thus my online play for ANY comp' game is at the bottom of the budget.
obviously the amount of the fee(s) will have some bearing on my final position but can't help feeling that once money is involved,the fun is the first thing that gets thrown out the door.
i know certain people are working on improvements to LK3 but these changes will have to be rather major inmo to keep the game viable.the only thing keeping this game alive at the moment is no-one has made a golf game better,but surely given time someone will.
maybe some idea from the admins here as to what sort of $'s they are talking about (ball park figure) will go along way to nipping any arguements about this before they start.

[fundraiser]

If you keep the fee reasonable so those casual players can enjoy it is a good idea if there is improvement in the tournament structure. I liked the ratings (rankings in each swing type) so I can try to improve my personal best. Possibly an annual fee to join the tour with a rank clearing at the end of each season. You could also keep a cumlative ranking for thoes who want to be on top forever. Oh well, thats my 2 cents worth. FR

[tryandtyoneon]

lemme know where to send the cheque

[mike58]

I have no problem with a reasonable fee to play on the site. Nothing in life is free, Links golf included. I probably would not play in purse tournaments, as there is no way I would be doing anything but giving my money to others (mostly like I do in real golf). That said, I have no problem with others having the opportunity.

For me, I like having the old categories (Flights, RAW, etc) and getting points and rankings. While I will never be at the top, I like to keep improving and having a measure to be sure that I am.

I like the arcade feature, and all of the other new stuff that you have added.

As for flights vs match play, I vote for working on flights first. Since I will never be playing on the PGA tour, playing here is as close as I will get, so I like formats that approximate tour events.

Thanks for all your hard work.

[fundraiser]

tryandtyoneon-great [censored] processing insert. I don't know how to do that stuff. FR

[akduffer]

My view: an annual user fee per person (e.g., $50 per year) makes far more sense than all purse tournaments, per very different skill levels of players. However, perhaps there could be certain designated tournaments if players wanted to "buy in" for that tourney, with a split of prize money to top finishers and the tournament host, i.e., Mark. While I -- like everyone else -- have long enjoyed that the Tour has been a free activity for players, it is only fair and right for participants to pay a little bit now for the pleasure, so that Mark isn't just slaving away for free on everyone else's behalf.

Thoughts?

Akduffer

[juandega]

Agree.

A monthly / annual fee would help to keep this site alive and tuned. With respect to the purse events I wouldn't get in to those unless a very well designed hdcp method is in place, so lower hdcps can compete with RoyHiggi like players.