Members,
Apologies on behalf of the committee for the delay in publishing the accounts for 2019. They have been ready for some time but we wanted some more information from the recent World Cup just to ensure the figures were as accurate as they could be. Having conducted our first committee meeting with myself involved and with the Treasurer’s position entering the nomination period, it seemed prudent to release them now. Please see below for the Treasurer’s remarks on the World Cup specifically.
James Russell-Wills (Rabid_Bogscum)
NAF Vice President
There are many things that can be said about the 4th NAF World Cup.
It was an extraordinary undertaking, expecting and delivering on the largest BB tournament we’ve ever seen. It saw over 1400 players from nations in all corners of the world safely arrive, play nine games of Blood Bowl and meet hundreds of like-minded individuals (and a few others too). It wasn’t however without issue or anxiety – and the NAF came to a decision to help the World Cup Organising Committee with finances in advance and also post World Cup. This note is to explain some of that rationale and what we are doing about it.
In the early days of planning this World Cup, the Dornbirn Organising Committee asked the NAF for €15,000 working capital. Anyone that has organised a big event knows that you need to find a deposit for your location well in advance of your event to be sure of your booking, certainly in advance of selling tickets. The NAF has been delighted to help the biggest events (Eurobowls, North American Championships) get off the ground and we did so here too.
The NAF has spare capital and loaning to big events seems as good a way to use our reserves. In fact, the 1st World Cup in 2007 was heavily subsidized by NAF cash reserves, but that wasn’t the plan here and a full repayment was expected by the NAF and planned for by the Organising Committee. This loan wasn’t expected to be paid back until after the event as some of the budget was made up of city and state funding that was only payable post-event (assuming all local suppliers were paid in a timely fashion).
The budget for WC4 was tight but on target, however operational issues on the Thursday and Friday of the event led to significant delays. This caused additional hall, catering and staff costs on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The event had also over-estimated how many of the rather glorious pitches would be sold (and a decent number had to be pre-ordered to keep the costs reasonable per item). They really are quite wonderful but perhaps not the most transportable, given that most people flew to the event.
Post-event, the Organising Committee confirmed that they were over-budget and did not have the funds available to pay the caterer. Other than leading to a very unhappy caterer, payment failure would also cause city and state funding to be withheld. The NAF Committee discussed this and unanimously agreed to fund the shortfall of €13,000, taking our event exposure to €28,000. We did this to limit the financial loss the event was under, to protect the local suppliers that had provided their goods and for our reputation. We also acknowledged a substantial amount of stock in pitches, teams and paraphernalia still unsold that might recover some of the loss.
In the aftermath, there were some unforeseen additional budget changes (tax was higher, local funding was a little lower) but these have been covered by the post-event merch sales (still available if you want to buy or support). The event still has about €16,000 of stock, but now perhaps prudent to suggest only half of this will be realised so the NAF is likely to eventually recover about €8,000 from its total loan. We are trying to work out a way to expedite this. I would add that the main organiser, Torsten, has also worn some of the overspend personally.
The event and aftermath caused significant anxiety and pressure on the Organising Committee. Torsten has since stepped down from the NAF Committee to focus on real life for a while. This pained Torsten and we thank him for his time and efforts as Vice-President.
The NAF Committee has discussed this chain of events at many junctures. We were happy with the original loan, we were happy with the decision to extend the event and we accepted that covering the debts post-event helped minimise the liability. As Treasurer, I would advise the same things again given the same information I had available at the time. However we have also discussed that the NAF will not and cannot underwrite future events that go overbudget. We simply don’t have the capacity given budgets for events of this size and our responsibilities to the wider membership, rather than attendees of a particular event. Even the biggest event of them all.
I know of several bids interested in running WC5 (and the big continental events) and we need to make it clear to them that we will not be able to cover shortfall. Perhaps that means some bids don’t get off the ground, perhaps it means that events are limited on numbers and perhaps it means ticket prices are higher to minimise chance of financial loss, but it’s a conversation we need to have – and the membership would expect this of us.
On behalf of the NAF committee – and the membership, I want to thank the WC4 Organising Committee for the incredible amount of work they put into the Dornbirn WC. It was a triumph to break (smash) the record for attendees, let alone be bigger than the two previous world cups put together. Over 1400 players and many more in the form of crew, referees and retailers gathered to celebrate their love of Blood Bowl. There were some issues, but the event will live long in the memory for all that attended.
If anyone wants more details, please pm me on the NAF website.
Paul Gegg aka Geggster
NAF Treasurer
Thanks for all the explanation about the world cup budget and their problem. And huge thanks to the Organising Committee and specially to Torsten. Hope he can rest and get back to enjoying the game now.
Long live the Naf
Thanks for the explanation and the writeup. I kinda disagree on the point in regards to not supporting the world cup because the money should to go to all the members. I haven’t been at the world cup, but I followed the proceedings quite closely and thought it was very interesting and entertaining. Given that the members area shows 20k members that’s a buck for me…which I’m glad to pay for it.
I’d suggest the opposite and have the NAF spearhead the organising of the World Cup. This way experience won’t be lost all the time, budgets might be better calculated and stuff that’s developed for the event stays in the NAF. And money that’s left over too.
Approx 3838 members, as per the accounts report – don’t take membership numbers from the members area, as that includes former and current members, and there are gaps in the numbering.
With everyone chipping in only 5 or 10 of local (depending how you pay) currency for membership it’s hard to see how the NAF can be expected to cover routinely for such events there is simply not the revenue available. People spent a lot of money to travel and stay at the event it might therefore be reasonable to ask that the share towards hosting the event be larger. Merchanding always holds a risk and while “cool” is too big a risk to take on when scaling to a large event. In future maybe the supplier is the one who holds that risk, it is not like these nice to haves were intented to make profit therefore we only have a downside risk.
As has been said, we’ve got about 3800 estimated members every year so 20k is a higher amount per person.
The plan was always for the event to run to cost (or slight profit) – because we simply cannot bail out this type of event – given a budget of somewhere between 250k and 300k euros. On this occasion, we felt it right to reduce the personal losses of the organising team as much as we could. Perhaps we can help more once we have received sales from stock. That remains to be seen.
As for spearheading the event, that has to be a no. Local knowledge and a committed team is a fair better judge of what is appropriate and what isn’t than an oversight committee with no feet on the ground, hundreds if not thousands of miles away. The NAF has to have faith that the organising team can deliver.
Your explanations are very clear. Thank you.
My first reaction is that I can not accept that Torsten wears personally overspent. I do not know the amount but at least for this, I think that a small contribution from every attendee of the WC4 should be requested (not mandatory but suggested) and collected by the NAF to transfer to Torsten afterwards.
In my opinion, the NAF organization is here to support the major events such as WC and Eurobowls. So I am happy that my yearly payment is used this way. Nevertheless, lessons have to be learnt from this event and mistakes/approximations should not be repeated. I am sure every analysis will be transmitted to the next Organization Comitee. But I hope that one of the conclusion will not be to limit the number of attendees too much.
Hi there – let’s just say we’ve not heard the last of this. We are in the process of selling remaining WC stock and then it will be down to whether we try and square away Torsten’s loss or the NAF’s. Sadly it won’t be both.
Torsten is a star and I agree that he shouldn’t lose out personally, having taken two months unpaid leave to organise, however he is a perfectionist and also has remorse that it didn’t run as well as he had planned.
Essentially, he cares very much about the NAF and wants to make sure it doesn’t pay for what he considers are issues that he created. Like I said, he’s a star.
Hi,
Actually I would like to see a little bit of more Detail. You don’t have a P&L view of 2019 aggregated results?
The accounts are always prepared with a starting balance in each currency, income & expenditure from each and end balance.
The accounts have been updated with more consolidated information. Fyi
Great write up. I fully agree with the decision to no longer cover tournament shortfalls. Lesson learned by all. Let’s look forward to a successful future!