The short answer is just assume you are NOT charging your skaters enough! While we have a lot of financially healthy games, the majority are not breaking even when they start with us. That stresses me out.
For games that use our system, we can reflect some very interesting data back to the organizers over time. What their average attendance is per game. Which full timers always respond late. Which full timers say yes I’m coming this week, then bail a few hours before game time.
The core question is always how much do I charge? The ideal scenario, from my experience, is that you have 20 paid full timers. You cover the bulk of your ice costs with those 20. You work with us to sell any available sub spots weekly. The money you collect from your subs quickly becomes gravy that you use to reduce your full timer fees next season.
This model works great as it encourages your full timers to respond early and accurately each week as they will see the rewards next season. As well, the lower your season fees, the simpler it is for you to have 20 full timers.
We have a very simple calculator on our homepage. I’m working on a more complicated version that’s intended to help organizer’s decide two things.
- How much do I charge my full timers for the season?
- How much do we charge our subs?
Have a look at the screenshot below which is the initial spreadsheet that I’m trying to simplify. The yellow background cells can be changed by you, the others are calculated. This allows you to play with how many subs you feel you’ll get, what you charge subs etc and see how that impacts what’s in the kitty at the end of the season.
You can see in the numbers below, this person would start the season $2000 in the hole. If they average 5 subs each week, they should quickly make that up. In this case, I would likely increase their season fees slightly to lower their risk. You can also see here that their full timers are only paying $14 per skate, assuming 75% attendance, which is a good deal versus the $20 sub cost. That’s a good incentive to pay for the season.
Helpful? Anything I can remove? What should be added?
20Skaters Fee Calculator