"The Gods of Baseball" and rainouts.

[jchamp]

Originally Posted by Eastshire

That's tricky though. There may not be money to give back. After all, the tournament has to pay it's costs, which aren't that much less for rainouts than it is for games played. Depending on the deal with the umpires, they likely only save game fees on the umpires.

Add to that the fact that they lose concession sales and they make less money when the cancel games than when they play them.

Finally, that's the chance you take when you're playing a game that can't be played in heavy rain. If you don't come into the tournament understanding that you can't play if it rains hard, you might need to find another sport to participate in.

I've been working at a chemical plant for the last two years and we hire contractors by the boatload to work throughout our facilities. The contracts are almost always "Time and materials", which means we pay for each person's hours on-site, plus costs for supplies they need to do their job. As for the hours, any time that is lost due to weather is always billed to us, the company that owns the plant. If that means that thunderstorms keep a hundred people in hotels for an entire shift, then we just paid for them to stay in the hotel.

The point is, the fact that weather can affect the ability of the tournament director to deliver his product, and this is common enough that it shouldn't be a surprise, means that the agreements when teams sign on should have stipulate the what happens if a rainout occurs. Otherwise, the tournament director can be considered on the hook for failing to deliver the product. These are still businesses, and can be treated as such. Some sort of insurance isn't out of the question, nor is agreements with venues. If the same person hosts several tournaments, then they can charge a higher rate and keep the extra income as a reserve on hand in case they have to pay out (but make sure that they make that attractive condition of a potential refund known when marketing their event).