A victim of its own success the Wendover Nugget’s softball tournament format had to be altered so as not to compete with another run by the Recreation District.
“We were forced to change are tournament for May 31-June 1st being that the rec board is thinking we will compete with their June 7th coed tournament. I did explain are situation to Gary Corona from the rec board that we had almost 30 register to play and that half of those teams where also planning to play in there tournament also but he did not believe me. His concerns are that we give players discounted room special and that we raffle out prices something the rec can’t do but I offered them are room specials and are prices to help them also I even told him I will promote their tournaments on all are websites to try to make wendover a big softball destination but he doesn’t believe softball players will come just to play in a tournament back to back weekends.” Nugget Tournament Director Luciano Munoz wrote in an e-mail. “Me as a tournament director for the Wendover nugget I have to find ways to make this work but this is a bad situation since I had to refund all the teams their money in all its a $10,000 loss and built a bad reputation for us.”
When contacted Wednesday Recreation District Manager Sean Gregory did not deny Munoz’ assertions but added that the district had not been notified of the Nugget’s tournament until he saw the flier.
“The softball situation in Utah is very well regulated,” Gregory said. “Tournaments are planned months sometimes a year in advance. We don’t want to saturate the market is all. All we changed is that instead of a co-ed tournament where men and women play on the same team, the Nugget host a tournament for men’s teams and women’s teams.”
“I figured the rec board would be with us and join us since are last tournament we had over 450 people to watch and play softball and these tournaments benefits the whole community from smith pizza hut to burger king as well as are gas station like pilot. So I’m trying to help are community as well it will benefit all these casinos since these softball players do still sleep and gamble.” Munoz added. “But I have built a real good friendship with my other Salt lake tournament director Angelina Holguin who will help with this new format are next tournament will be a guys and girls tournament since the new rules where applied we cannot do any tournament of the same kind for 1 month from the parks tournaments so if they do a coed we can’t do a coed for 1 month before or after their tournament really? I believe its a bad idea but they make the rules and for now i will have to follow. This will be a bad idea since the wendover nugget was going to plan tournaments every two weeks next year. The good thing that I think the softball community will follow us in this change and will still come out since no one can offered the room special we do and also are free raffles. The other thing that should concern the Wendover residents is that the rec will raise their taxes but yet we are trying to bring something that helps bring income to the park but yet the rec board refuses to rent the park out for fear of competition.”