I am curious to hear what the reviews are from the open league after the first year of permitting COREs (players who were able to join together to form a bloc and all be on the same team as long as one of them was willing to act as captain and draft the remainder of the team).

I'm aware that there were some attendance issues at finals (I overheard that two teams had fewer than 7 players), but I don't know what the general attendance was like because I was seldom on adjacent fields to any of the open games. It seems that there was a bit of a divide in the records of the open teams, but that there were teams with COREs and teams without in both portions of the divide.

So if you are an open player and have any thoughts to share regarding the following questions (or any other impressions you may have), please share. Also please include whether you were a member of a CORE or not and whether there was a core on your team or not as it would be interesting to see the different impressions people have based upon which group they fall into.

How did COREs affect the competitiveness of each team and the competitive balance of the league?

How did COREs affect the attendance levels on a week-to-week basis and for the playoffs?

How did COREs affect the open players' enjoyment of the summer league experience (this is especially important for CORE/non-CORE players to identify themselves)?

If you were to play in the open league again next year, would you want the COREs to be a part of the open league again next year?

If you were to play in the mixed league next year would you want the COREs expanded to be a part of the mixed league next year?

Please share your impressions on any or all of these questions or others that you believe are relevant. Also, I'm sure that the league would be open to and grateful to read any suggestions you have for ways to improve either division and the experiences of the players in those divisions.

Hard for me to compare on Core since it was my first year. I'm sure many open players like it because they can play with their fall and spring teammates.

Two teams did only have 5 players on Sunday (White and Red). On White one of our five guys played the game on one knee. Our team did have several injuries, but some did not show Sunday because they got frustrated with playing savage every week (5-7 players).

The reality of the situation is all summer leagues have players that don't show. I feel WUDI should consider a policy of adding players half way through the season to the lightly attended teams.

Captains would submit their bids for more players based on a game to game head count from the first x weeks of play. WUDI would keep a pool of wait listed players. Teams deemed to have too few players would draft from the wait list. This would make the games more fun.

Ask Jim B., but I'm sure Chocolate did not enjoy playing a man down and winning a non-competitive game 15-1. Choc only playing 6 did help and they deserve credit for having a good team, but with 5 players it was not much of a game. Don't get me wrong, i did not mind losing, but it just would have been much more fun to play a 7-7 game.

Overall I had a fun time that day regardless. On our second game we combined with another team.

What is WUDI's thoughts on adding players to teams that need them later in the season? Does WUDI typically turn away many late comers who miss the registration deadline?

Good questions Evan. Worth considering.

I played on a team with a core although I was not a core member.

I've played Open since its inception. Last year open had terrible attendance problems. The core concept was instituted primarily to attempt to address that.

The Cores did not have as great an impact this season as they might have. This year was a tremendous improvement over last but I think that was mostly due to open just being fortunate to have a large influx of guys committed to making games this year. We had relatively good attendance this year. Additionally parity was very good.

Having said that, the core concept is a great idea and provided that it is not watered down or eviscerated by wudi decision makers in years to come, it will greatly benefit open.

This year there was little promotion or advertising of open and in particular the core idea leading up to registration. So relatively few players knew what was available to them. It is up to open players to rectify these shortcomings in the future. But if the core idea had been well publicized, every team would have run a core and the cores would have been larger. That would/will be excellent for open.

The fix for making open better is twofold. First wudi has to communicate to new prospective players the difficulty of making games and encouraging only serious committed individuals to register. Second is the continuation of the core scheme. The combination of these two will improve attendance. 90 percent of the difficulty that open (and summer league in general) faces is attendance. The cores were good for helping that this year and should only help more in years to come.

I echo my comments on adding wait listed players to lightly attended teams. Captains should send a final email plea to those that have not attended on a team (5 or more of these on white). If none reply they will come, then draft additional wait list players.

Even 2 additional players would have had a big impact for white and red.

In my case I broke my hand at the start of the season and did tell my captain. I could not make it back in until the last few weeks.

I realize some are concerned of a team ending up with 20 players a week and not playing time, but I would take the chance.

WUDI in addition to the current registrants how many were to late? could you set up a 2nd half of the season option where players could join a team later. Perhaps some of these people have commitments the first half of the summer and at the same time could help a team in need.

With all that said white basically forfeited 3 (or more) of their last 5 games based on attendance including finals.

Understand that Open has been plagued by poor attendance over the last few seasons.

I dropped out of CoEd to be a captain in the Open division specifically to help Jim Martorano in that area.

You can ask players for a commitment at the beginning of the season, but the truth of it is that everyone sees themselves making 100% of the games they don't already have scheduling conflicts with at that time. It's up to the captains to create an environment that fosters continued attendance, especially from the younger guys who might feel a bit intimidated.

Adding players mid-season isn't going to solve the problem. We don't typically get too many that aren't playing because they missed the deadline.

I also have to chime in on the CORE issue. My CORE allowed me to create the culture I wanted on and off the field therefore ensuring that guys wanted to come to games injured or not. My CORE actually got cut by three because I needed to spare a couple of guys to form their own CORE because Jim Breez was still short 1 captain.

You get experienced captains willing to show up and put in the time to get to know the players, talk to them, encourage them and help them develop their skills and I guarantee it changes the face of the division. The CORE concept made it easier for me to do that and I had a great time. So, incidentally did my players as I never had attendance problems.

my .02
-Canadian Rob

As we discuss this, keep in mind that the Coed Draft "veteran status" will be gone next year and the make-up of the Open division is going to shift. In fact, be prepared for the Open division to take a hit in size next year. I feel that the change in the WSL registration policy will cause the Open div to initially shrink, but it will eventually make the Open div stronger, as the CORE idea grows and more "veteran" players get their act together.

Yeah C Rob, good or veteran captaining is helpful but it isn't a panacea. Just ask myself, Linwood Lewis, David Goldemberg and other veterans that have captained or played in open and seen bad attendance. David, Linwood and myself all captained last year and all had terrible attendance. I put a tremendous amount of energy into captaining last year, missed work to make games, drove from PA. and back a bunch times, wrote regular emails and made phone calls. Guys still never came. On the other hand one of my players who had the best attendance drove from Staten Island every time. He flat wanted to play. Incidentally, he's not playing wudi anymore. He stopped coming last year towards the end of the season after driving all the way up for nothing a bunch of times. You could make the case that I don't foster a welcoming environment, but I think Linwood, David and others did. Aside from that I had good attendance from my teams in the two previous years I captained. In my opinion attendance was good not so much because of anything I did or didn't do, but simply because I was fortunate to draft guys that signed up serious about playing and committed to making games. And it wasn't even about how well we did. The first year my team was one of the worst in the league and still had good attendance, plenty of guys at playoffs.

So yes good captaining is very beneficial, but not a cure-all by any means. I have no doubt that your captaining was a primary factor in the good things that happened with your team this year. But I'm skeptical that your captaining alone made or broke your attendance.

The core is very much needed to keep open viable. A combination of good captaining and good core activity should make open better. As it is this year was a big improvement over last, believe me.

As for open shrinking due to changes in veteran status rules, I don't think it's a problem. If a bunch of cores form, open could grow in spite of the rule change. But even if open does shrink it's ok. Less teams, better attended is preferable to more teams poorly attended.

But here is one thing that could kill open next year. If open gets saturated with too many guys that wanted to play coed but signed up late or got bumped or whatever, the division may be very badly diluted with guys that are likely to have poor attendance. This has been a major problem for open in the past. Marty I wonder if anyone is thinking about this as plans are made for new registration protocols? I would rather see players sign up for one or the other, without the option to switch to open if they signed up for coed, and vice versa. Sign up for the division you want to play in, you get in or you don't, period. The league can't afford to accommodate too many half interested participants. Poor attendance is truly cancerous because once someone shows up to play a couple of times and gets burned because there is no game because of low numbers, then they are likely also to not show up the next time and the downward spiral accelerates.

Jody

Hi,

I firmly agree with Jody, our team and captain were motivated and went into this with the best intentions to play every week. Then many weeks our team played savage and the last 2 weeks we forfeited a few games. A few players that could not make it earlier in the season due to injury were up for finals, but then a few able bodies were discouraged to show up for finals. Just like Jody said, they got frustrated.

Granted our team had about 5 guys injured by the end, which is unusual, but we also had a bunch of roster'd players that never showed once.

Our team and I guess others had 18 players on our roster. All I can suggest is more players per team and perhaps less teams. Playing 6 teams with a good game every week would be better than 8. Granted some weeks your team might show with 15 players and playing time would be scare, but I feel this would be the exception more than the rule.

The previous post said there are not enough wait list players to add players to the low attending teams later. 4 players (2 for each of Red and White) would have made the difference at finals. Perhaps there were not really an wait listed players, but I would suggest posting something on WUDI half way through the season and offering more spots to play for half a season for later comers.

My thought is the main goal here is to have fun 7 on 7 games. I would take the risk of the another team adding a few ringers in exchange for playing some good games. I'm sure some teams did not like showing some weeks to discover the other team only had 3 players.

-mike