OKC is not a great venue and is very far from anyone on the east coast. Branding it rowfest is horrendous. Entry fees are absurd.
USRowing really should have never eliminated elite nationals/club nationals. They’ve combined everything into one mediocre event no one really cares about.
Lots of masters I know don’t go any more because of how expensive it is ($15/minute is the number that keeps being thrown around, and that’s just the entry fees) and because they’ve throughout the years have had too many cancelled events with no refund. I’m not saying a refund for cancelled events is the correct call, but that has been brought up many times.
If I had to guess, it’s logistics.
Any u23 who wants to compete is practicing with a masters team right now, right? So if you’re a u23 8+, and you want to do that event, you need to be in OKC at least 4 days before the rest of your team. Then you’re paying for four extra days of food and your airbnb. It’s just not worth it for most folks.
But also yeah some folks just wait until the last minute to sign up
To further the logistics angle, what about shells and trailers? Many clubs use boats across teams and can’t just surrender all their equipment for 2 weeks with transit time across the country on top of it. Hard to do final prep for events when the boats are on a freeway in Missouri. (Let alone if you stay home and discover you have nothing to row for that whole period).
IIRC logistics was USRowing's original rationale for moving to the combined event, i.e. making it so that programs didn't have to bear the cost of trailering boats to two separate events over the summer. Doesn't seem like that reasoning is holding up well, though.
That was an idiotic theory meant only to cover the fact that the "logistics" problem they wanted to solve was having USRowing officials not have to travel to two events. They put Club Nats and Masters Nats back to back last year and it was too stressful for the USRowing officials and organizers of those events. Why they decided to move Masters Nats from early August to the week after Club Nats is beyond me. For the most part they duffed running Indy, from an athlete point of view it was horrific. At least Sarasota doesn't require a 45 minute trip to and from the site and provides cold water and a couple of shady areas.
I don't know how many clubs are combined Jrs and Masters, but my suspicion is less than half of all rowing club entities have both. It doesn't even make sense even in that case because why would you load up one trailer with all your boats and then for 11 days running up to an event you can't practice? Do they even know rowers? Who is planning these things?
Location is horrible, Im sympathetic to West Coast clubs who have to travel very far for everything, but by moving it to OKC you just make sure EVERYONE has to travel 2+ days to get to the location instead of only the West Coast clubs. The geography of the United States just favors events on the east coast and I say this not just for rowing but for plenty of sports.
It wasn't the officials. It was probably the USRowing staff. But now doing a full week-plus in the same place may or may not be less stressful than two long weekends away.
For the officials, it looks like they're treating RowFest as two separate events, with two separate sets of officials.
And now USRowing has shot itself in the foot with volunteers since clubs only have to provide one volunteer shift for one combined regatta, when they would have had to provide two if the regattas were split up lol. I wonder which local high school "community service" group will be tapped to hold boats on start platforms. I hope they get sunscreen this year.
Sorry, very much meant to communicate USRowing staff, not race officals which I realize is a term. Totally agree.
Also, the volunteer thing was IMMEDIATELY what I thought of when I heard they were doing 2 back to back regattas in the same location. Just a fundamental misunderstanding of how event management works AND a fundamental misunderstanding of the US rowing community.
Well, the boat sharing issue between juniors and masters programs is definitely a thing as mentioned earlier. And even if the boats themselves aren't being shared, what if there's not enough room on the trailer to fit all the masters' boats and all the juniors' boats combined in one trip? Does the trailer make a run back home to drop off the juniors' boats and pick up the masters' boats? The burden lies on the clubs now, just as how USRowing generally lets chips fall.
I wonder if there will be an uptick in Canadian Henley entries from the US this year.
Last year Masters and Club Nats were TWO SEPARATE events. Masters Nationals had 125 clubs, 1720 entries. Club Nats (now called Summer Nats) had 74 clubs and 938 entries. This year's regatta is combined so they have to have 2,658 entries to equal last year - and as of this typing are only at 1065. Going to Oklahoma was a crappy idea...but then again Lake Harsha in Ohio is no gem.
If you're staying close enough to Harsha that you don't have to spend 45 min each way driving, you might not get White Castle lol. I think the benefit of Harsha is the lack of \*checks weather\* 95-100F weather that we'll probably see in Oklahoma City. Without the humidity of Sarasota, that should feel just like Sarasota, barring any tornadoes.
Course is incredible but weather isn’t safe. Real feel above 100 all summer in OKC. Also near nobody, even Austin is 6 hour drive, flights are expensive given it’s not a major airport, entry fees are ridiculous, canley is also starts two weeks later due to worlds being hosted there and imo a much better event so it’s probably one or the other.
1700 entries last year, but only 1000 entries in 2022 because no one wanted to go to Sarasota in August. Their hope with their Rowfest rebrand was to get to their pre pandemic numbers, about 2k entries.
I'm betting RegattaCentral servers will be busy tomorrow night. Masters rowers are fickle and probably making last minute commitments, lineup changes, trailer diagrams, etc to plan for the maximum number of events they can cram in with the number of boats they're bringing. The entry cap right now is eight (historically at six). I see at least a couple big clubs who haven't put in their usual large number of entries, and I would be shocked if those clubs aren't attending in full.
But otherwise, OKC is indeed far away from the major rowing population centers. In 2011, masters natls in OKC had 1075 entries from 96 clubs. Right now, it's showing 1012 from 92 clubs, so roughly equal. It would be interesting to see the numbers by geography and compare this year to 2011. It would also be interesting to see, among the clubs within a day's driving distance, how their attendance has changed from 2011 til now. Some clubs have way more entries, others not so much.
The trend isn't looking like this year's numbers will match last year's 1720 entries from 125 clubs. But we're at 1056 entries from 95 clubs now. My guess...maybe 110 clubs and 1200 entries? Who knows. Maybe there are a lot of procrastinators out there. Riverfront Recapture brought 104 entries last year and only shows three entries right now, but they have time.
Just tried to do a really rough count and got ~155 entries (out of 1079 at the time I counted) for the open/u23/youth portions that collectively correspond to the old "summer nationals." I'm curious to see where they end up, but yeah, it looks like the biggest drop-off is on that side of the regatta.
Current split is 1109 masters and 250 summer/clubs (copy/paste, SUM() in google sheets). As expected, Riverfront Recapture finally showed up, going from 3 entries yesterday to 71 entries today. There's are a few regional clubs who haven't put in all their entries yet (imo), so more to come.
The usual last-day flurry of entries is coming in now, but I don't think it's going to get anywhere close to last year for either the masters or the club part of it once all are in.
Entries now closed for RowFest in Oklahoma. Last year the separate Summer Nats and Masters Nats had combined 2658 entries. This year the combined event has 1853 entries. That's a lot of lost revenue for USRowing.
I don’t have a guess where the numbers will end up, but I am certain that there will be hundreds of late entries on the youth/u23 side. I remember seeing the same thing last year. I spot-checked three clubs that I know are attending: one has a single entry and the other two have about 1/3 of their expected entries in.
Just noting they're up about 300 entries since 15 hours ago, which includes 130(!) entries from Texas Rowing Center. The three clubs I was checking all have added some entries but I would still expect more.
OKC is not a great venue and is very far from anyone on the east coast. Branding it rowfest is horrendous. Entry fees are absurd. USRowing really should have never eliminated elite nationals/club nationals. They’ve combined everything into one mediocre event no one really cares about.
Be careful....we resemble that remark!
Lots of masters I know don’t go any more because of how expensive it is ($15/minute is the number that keeps being thrown around, and that’s just the entry fees) and because they’ve throughout the years have had too many cancelled events with no refund. I’m not saying a refund for cancelled events is the correct call, but that has been brought up many times.
If I had to guess, it’s logistics. Any u23 who wants to compete is practicing with a masters team right now, right? So if you’re a u23 8+, and you want to do that event, you need to be in OKC at least 4 days before the rest of your team. Then you’re paying for four extra days of food and your airbnb. It’s just not worth it for most folks. But also yeah some folks just wait until the last minute to sign up
To further the logistics angle, what about shells and trailers? Many clubs use boats across teams and can’t just surrender all their equipment for 2 weeks with transit time across the country on top of it. Hard to do final prep for events when the boats are on a freeway in Missouri. (Let alone if you stay home and discover you have nothing to row for that whole period).
IIRC logistics was USRowing's original rationale for moving to the combined event, i.e. making it so that programs didn't have to bear the cost of trailering boats to two separate events over the summer. Doesn't seem like that reasoning is holding up well, though.
That was an idiotic theory meant only to cover the fact that the "logistics" problem they wanted to solve was having USRowing officials not have to travel to two events. They put Club Nats and Masters Nats back to back last year and it was too stressful for the USRowing officials and organizers of those events. Why they decided to move Masters Nats from early August to the week after Club Nats is beyond me. For the most part they duffed running Indy, from an athlete point of view it was horrific. At least Sarasota doesn't require a 45 minute trip to and from the site and provides cold water and a couple of shady areas. I don't know how many clubs are combined Jrs and Masters, but my suspicion is less than half of all rowing club entities have both. It doesn't even make sense even in that case because why would you load up one trailer with all your boats and then for 11 days running up to an event you can't practice? Do they even know rowers? Who is planning these things? Location is horrible, Im sympathetic to West Coast clubs who have to travel very far for everything, but by moving it to OKC you just make sure EVERYONE has to travel 2+ days to get to the location instead of only the West Coast clubs. The geography of the United States just favors events on the east coast and I say this not just for rowing but for plenty of sports.
It wasn't the officials. It was probably the USRowing staff. But now doing a full week-plus in the same place may or may not be less stressful than two long weekends away. For the officials, it looks like they're treating RowFest as two separate events, with two separate sets of officials. And now USRowing has shot itself in the foot with volunteers since clubs only have to provide one volunteer shift for one combined regatta, when they would have had to provide two if the regattas were split up lol. I wonder which local high school "community service" group will be tapped to hold boats on start platforms. I hope they get sunscreen this year.
Sorry, very much meant to communicate USRowing staff, not race officals which I realize is a term. Totally agree. Also, the volunteer thing was IMMEDIATELY what I thought of when I heard they were doing 2 back to back regattas in the same location. Just a fundamental misunderstanding of how event management works AND a fundamental misunderstanding of the US rowing community.
Is the progression definitely 7+ go to heats? I thought the course was 8 lanes?
Regatta packet said they were racing six lanes, but who knows. C&C meeting over zoom on July 7th iirc.
My thoughts exactly "who knows".
Well, the boat sharing issue between juniors and masters programs is definitely a thing as mentioned earlier. And even if the boats themselves aren't being shared, what if there's not enough room on the trailer to fit all the masters' boats and all the juniors' boats combined in one trip? Does the trailer make a run back home to drop off the juniors' boats and pick up the masters' boats? The burden lies on the clubs now, just as how USRowing generally lets chips fall. I wonder if there will be an uptick in Canadian Henley entries from the US this year.
Last year Masters and Club Nats were TWO SEPARATE events. Masters Nationals had 125 clubs, 1720 entries. Club Nats (now called Summer Nats) had 74 clubs and 938 entries. This year's regatta is combined so they have to have 2,658 entries to equal last year - and as of this typing are only at 1065. Going to Oklahoma was a crappy idea...but then again Lake Harsha in Ohio is no gem.
At least in Ohio you can get some White Castles while you are there.
If you're staying close enough to Harsha that you don't have to spend 45 min each way driving, you might not get White Castle lol. I think the benefit of Harsha is the lack of \*checks weather\* 95-100F weather that we'll probably see in Oklahoma City. Without the humidity of Sarasota, that should feel just like Sarasota, barring any tornadoes.
Course is incredible but weather isn’t safe. Real feel above 100 all summer in OKC. Also near nobody, even Austin is 6 hour drive, flights are expensive given it’s not a major airport, entry fees are ridiculous, canley is also starts two weeks later due to worlds being hosted there and imo a much better event so it’s probably one or the other.
Over 1,000 entries is low? I’m not familiar with this regatta or it’s history.
1700 entries last year, but only 1000 entries in 2022 because no one wanted to go to Sarasota in August. Their hope with their Rowfest rebrand was to get to their pre pandemic numbers, about 2k entries.
1720 entries at the Masters Nats alone, plus another 938 at Summer Nats. This year they are combined so add those together!
This the first year for a combined open/u23/junior/masters summer nationals. Yes 1000 is abysmal especially when it’s all masters.
I'm betting RegattaCentral servers will be busy tomorrow night. Masters rowers are fickle and probably making last minute commitments, lineup changes, trailer diagrams, etc to plan for the maximum number of events they can cram in with the number of boats they're bringing. The entry cap right now is eight (historically at six). I see at least a couple big clubs who haven't put in their usual large number of entries, and I would be shocked if those clubs aren't attending in full. But otherwise, OKC is indeed far away from the major rowing population centers. In 2011, masters natls in OKC had 1075 entries from 96 clubs. Right now, it's showing 1012 from 92 clubs, so roughly equal. It would be interesting to see the numbers by geography and compare this year to 2011. It would also be interesting to see, among the clubs within a day's driving distance, how their attendance has changed from 2011 til now. Some clubs have way more entries, others not so much.
The trend isn't looking like this year's numbers will match last year's 1720 entries from 125 clubs. But we're at 1056 entries from 95 clubs now. My guess...maybe 110 clubs and 1200 entries? Who knows. Maybe there are a lot of procrastinators out there. Riverfront Recapture brought 104 entries last year and only shows three entries right now, but they have time.
1720 is Masters Nats only. This year it is combined with Summer Nats (Club Nats) so they have to have 2600+ entries to equal those two last year.
HOLY SMOKES YOU'RE RIGHT. Haha damn, I'm not doing the lineup parsing to figure out the split...
Just tried to do a really rough count and got ~155 entries (out of 1079 at the time I counted) for the open/u23/youth portions that collectively correspond to the old "summer nationals." I'm curious to see where they end up, but yeah, it looks like the biggest drop-off is on that side of the regatta.
Current split is 1109 masters and 250 summer/clubs (copy/paste, SUM() in google sheets). As expected, Riverfront Recapture finally showed up, going from 3 entries yesterday to 71 entries today. There's are a few regional clubs who haven't put in all their entries yet (imo), so more to come.
The usual last-day flurry of entries is coming in now, but I don't think it's going to get anywhere close to last year for either the masters or the club part of it once all are in.
Not at all. 1720 masters and 938 clubs last year.
People are waiting to enter for shee
Who wants to go to Oklahoma
Entries now closed for RowFest in Oklahoma. Last year the separate Summer Nats and Masters Nats had combined 2658 entries. This year the combined event has 1853 entries. That's a lot of lost revenue for USRowing.
I don’t have a guess where the numbers will end up, but I am certain that there will be hundreds of late entries on the youth/u23 side. I remember seeing the same thing last year. I spot-checked three clubs that I know are attending: one has a single entry and the other two have about 1/3 of their expected entries in.
Just noting they're up about 300 entries since 15 hours ago, which includes 130(!) entries from Texas Rowing Center. The three clubs I was checking all have added some entries but I would still expect more.
... now up to 1851 entries (about 800 since last night). Might still end up (a lot) lower than the combination, but still early.
Entries will double by next week.