The True Cost of The NAFA World Record

Occasionally, I receive a request from someone who has an opinion and wants to write on a topic. I will allow this as a "guest" blogger. Publishing this article does not mean I endorse this view. It means that I believe that everyone has the right to express themselves and they are welcome to use this blog as a platform.

"When you try to determine the cost of something, there are several things to consider.  I‘m going to discuss two of them, the monetary cost and the opportunity cost, as they relate to the new NAFA regular record.  It doesn’t matter which sanctioning body sanctioned the tournament, it’s not a world record, because it’s not the fastest time ever run in competition, but that can be argued in another forum.

There’s no disputing the accomplishment of setting the NAFA record.  It takes a lot of hard work and practice.  It’s what one does in trying to achieve that accomplishment that teaches us about character. 

The monetary costs for attending a tournament are pretty easy to come up with:  gas, lodging, meals, entry fees.  Then there are the monetary costs to the organization because of one team’s behavior.   It’s a monetary cost for one, and an opportunity cost for the other.  It can be argued that the team used it’s member’s positions within NAFA for their own benefit.  If you’re 1,000 miles away, you may not think so, but if you had to race against it at every tournament in your region, you may think differently.  

Liberties were taken with regards to dogs that clearly weren’t ready to compete.  Steps were taken to try and keep them from crossing into the opposing team’s runback area.  Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t.  That leads to the next opportunity cost.  The team attempted to gain an advantage by claiming that a member of another team tried to injure one of the dogs that crossed over into the opposing runback area.  Much to their surprise, the disciplinary committee ruled in favor of the accused, but threw the complaining team a bone, by issuing a reprimand for an ‘inappropriate correction’, whatever that is.  The attempt to run-off one of the strongest flyball competitors in region 1 failed.  Coincidentally, a member of the record holding team resigned from the NAFA Bod.  Also around the same time, the complaining team decided to remove itself from a ’hostile environment’, and relocate to an adjoining region. As someone once said, ’if you can’t beat ’em, leave ’em’. 

Now, let’s look at the monetary cost of those opportunity costs.  Region 1 is now an also-ran when it comes to NAFA regions.  It was once one of the strongest, along with Region 2. There has been a decrease in tournaments, from 12 each in 2009 and 2010 to 6 in 2011.  The team’s opportunity cost had a monetary cost for NAFA. By my calculations, there were 213 fewer fees paid to NAFA.  At $25/team, that’s $5325.  I wonder if they’ll be asked to pay it back? 

Congratulations on your NAFA record.  I hope it was worth it."

-Russ Helganz