WAKA Pricing

There's some weird shit going on with WAKA's pricing this season. As many of you know, we diligently track the cost of all "social style" kickball leagues in Tampa (which means we exclude TBCS). Let's revisit a bullet point in a previous blog post, and expand on it:

WAKA's Bayshore (Thursday) registration has been open since October 25th, one day earlier than posted on their website. In seven weeks they've managed to sign up six groups, which by their definition have less than 14 people and/or less than 4 females. Some of you might have received a mass email from WAKA the other day stating that leagues are filling up fast. At least here in Tampa, such a claim is complete bullshit.

Our attempt at an "unbiased" analysis says their painfully slow registration is due to two things: 1) charging $74 for an eight game season and 2) opening registration 3 days after the previous season ended! The "thanks for playing, now immediately send us more money" mentality doesn't really light a fire in the pants of players who typically cherish their off-season. It also caused GKB to open registration earlier than planned in order to lure teams away if needed.

But what is really strange is the pricing difference between Bayshore and Breaker (Tuesday). Breaker opened registration on December 1st for $72 (one group has signed up after a week and a half). Two whole dollars cheaper! In the previous season, Bayshore and Breaker had 14 and 10 teams respectively. So the price difference isn't demand oriented since both divisions can handle 16 teams. Is Thursday considered 2.78% more premium than Tuesday? Who's even going to notice the discount (besides an anally retentive internet donkey blog)?

Would anyone ever say to themselves: "Hmmm... I really want to play Thursday nights... but Tuesday is $2 cheaper!"?

Both WAKA divisions are run by the same rep, and presumably he manually sets the price for each. Perhaps he has a rational explanation for the differences. But there can't possibly be an explanation for this:

Sometime over the past few days... well after teams had begun registering to play in the Bayshore division... the price was lowered from $74 to $73.

1.37% discount?!? Getthefuckout!

What the Hell is going on over there? If you told us GKB's website was possessed and had a mind of its own, we'd totally believe you. But WAKA's is a well-oiled money grabbing machine. Someone had to manually drop that price one dollar, after teams had already signed up! Are the 50 or so people previously registered going to get a $1 refund? Does Ticketmaster run the Bayshore division now? Or perhaps Kohn Sports Paintball Park is to blame?

To be fair, the cost to play in Bayshore last season was $73 so maybe they decided not to have their typical rate increase. But to make that decision after teams had already signed up seems... Keystone Kop-ish.

And to make such a determination AFTER we blogged about it (on December 5th) just seems... sad. If you want DPT to do your job for you, please send us some of that $2,000+ you make per season, per division. We'll gladly use it to purchase beer, which we won't share with MLoop or Keggers.

If and when the price changes again, we'll be sure to blow it out of proportion right here on this blog. Stay tuned.

DPT blowing shit out of proportion?!? Getthefuckout!