It has been reported that the total costs for the Air Cap are around $11,000 (including payouts). With a breakeven on payouts and entry fees, that leaves $4,500 that is paid by WDA members. It's more if the entries fall short of the payouts. $4,500 works out to about $50 per year for every regular WDA player. That's about $1.25 per league night for every darter.There is generally a good turnout of WDA members for the Friday night blind draws. After that, the participation of WDA members drops significantly. Historically, there is a core group of about 20 WDA players who enter and compete in Air Cap events other than blind draws. There is a smaller group that enters events to support the tournament. That smaller group is generally not competetive in Air Cap events.
The majority of payouts from the Air Cap usually goes to out-of-town darters. This year a significant amount of money paid to local darters will go to darters who do not support the WDA and do not contribute to the money, personnel or resources required to produce the Air Cap. .
There are advantages to bringing out-of-town darters into Wichita. It is interesting to see how the WDA's better players do against the better dart players in the region. For some WDA participants it's an opportunity to get beat by an unfamiliar face. For the group of players who spend the weekend at the hotel, it's almost a mini-vacation and for some it's one heck of a party.
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That's about the only real advantages there are for the WDA spending around $4,000 a year to produce the event. That works out to about $200 per WDA member that actually participates in the Air Cap (excluding the blind draws).
At some point the question must be asked: "Is the Air Cap a good use of that many of the WDA's resources"?
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