Rochester Sports
Board of Directors Meeting
Wednesday, April 20th, 2022; 7:30am
Hyatt House
MINUTES
Present: Nelson, Davidson, Macken, Lester, Tesch, Miksch, Gaskell, Groettum, Kauffman, Behrens, Cothern, Weiss, Nance, Muellner
Excused: McElroy, Aagard,
Unexcused: Kappes, Widman, Wills
Staff Present: Funk, Esau, Gibson, Curran
Guest: Ihrke
- Call to order
Gaskell called the meeting to order at 7:30am.
- Approval of Minutes:
Motion to approve the March minutes was made by Miksch, seconded by Macken and passed.
- Financials
- Behrens:
- General P&L: Sponsorship increased over $10,000 from hotels and restaurants. Accounting went up from the annual QuickBooks subscription. Sales conventions is up from staff registering for sales conventions that are coming up. Eric and Matt are going to Sports ETA and Linsy and Kaleigh are going to Connect Sports. Fees and Dues went up from MN Sports and Sports ETA memberships for the year.
- Event P&L: Hotel rebate, merch and ticket sales are all up from events happing. With that event expenses have increasing as well – officials, staff, venue cost, etc. Governing Body Royalty got paid out to RYVA for both weekends of Frostbite I and II.
Motion to pass the financials was made by Macken, seconded by Groettum and passed.
- Event and Organization Report:
- Matt: March event summary report – from Q1 in 2021 to 2022 we have doubled our room nights for rooms reported which was great to see. That increase is even with losing the Clash Wrestling and Northern Plains which are usually two of the highest room night events. Jessica who is our Hotel Communications Coordinator has done a good job with working with the hotels on pickups. We are looking at hosting right around 100 events for the year and things have been staying very busy. Girls Basketball is down – team numbers have been down every year for that event. For USA Folkstyle they changed the format which is the factor effecting the rooms.
- Kauffman: asked what leverage we have for room nights. Matt mentioned we don’t really have much leverage but that’s why its very helpful when we have a dedicated staff who is working directly with the hotels to keep communications strong. One thing we can do is let the event owner know which hotels have not been participating.
- Linsy: We have three more volleyball events until the season is over. First being Midwest Fiesta, which is a new event this year – using only 6-8 courts but hoping this will grow in the future. Rochester Cup I is at 54 of 56 teams, Rochester Cup II at 69 or 72 teams. Still looking for workers for these events. Working on things for USA Softball 16A first week in August, currently have 6 teams. Last time we hosted 16A was in 2017 with 46 teams – which is the most we have had in one age division before. Also been working on a new Sales Lead system where we as a staff enter our leads at the same time – 6 times a year, every other month. Hoping this will help will hotels reporting when they know when to expect the leads instead of them coming all year at random times.
- Gibson: MYSA Soccer – was working on Summer State and from talking with them we found out they will no longer be hosting their State Tournaments here. There has been a new league called SL that has grown and taken most of MYSA’s teams – we are working with Cam with the new organization to see if there is anyway, we can work with them in the future. In June will be hosting MAYB Basketball which is usually a smaller event in Rochester at NVC. Working on Firecracker and Rundown baseball.
- Curran: Working on 9 baseball tournaments that Eric and I are sharing this summer. NSIC Softball is coming up at the RYFSA Complex in May - this event will host 10 teams. Firecracker is down on registration – we are currently sitting at 9 of 16 teams. Also hosting two MBT tournaments this summer which both will have 36 teams.
- Ihrke mentioned the event is a week sooner than it used to be and is wondering if that’s what is affecting the numbers. Matt mentioned when Covid hit we lost teams that used to come annually – teams mentioning they aren’t interested in traveling that far anymore. Club baseball has also grown over the years so the legion and VFW leagues and team numbers are down.
- Matt: March event summary report – from Q1 in 2021 to 2022 we have doubled our room nights for rooms reported which was great to see. That increase is even with losing the Clash Wrestling and Northern Plains which are usually two of the highest room night events. Jessica who is our Hotel Communications Coordinator has done a good job with working with the hotels on pickups. We are looking at hosting right around 100 events for the year and things have been staying very busy. Girls Basketball is down – team numbers have been down every year for that event. For USA Folkstyle they changed the format which is the factor effecting the rooms.
- Old Business:
- Public Relations Committee: Working on the Rochester Sports night during RochesterFest.
- Sports Banquet Title Sponsor: found out that Home Federal who has been our title sponsor since the beginning, will no longer be sponsoring the event. The amount the sponsorship has been the last few years has been $7,500 – we have been talking with ONB Bank who is interesting in taking the sponsorship.
- New Business
- Rochester Sports Foundation Board: Kauffman will be stepping down from the Rochester Foundation Board. We are looking for a replacement from our board to serve on that and be a liaison for us.
- Announcements:
- Ihrke: The City Council is trying to make the new facility be a community center – even though it states it must be a Sports Center with a regional focus. We are trying to work on the advocacy side of things to let the City Council know what is needed for the city.
- Adjournment- A motion to adjourn the meeting was made by Macken, seconded by Nelson and passed. Gaskell adjourned the meeting at 8:40am.