| 11 March 2010
The guys at Big City Tourney have a big task ahead of themselves, run perhaps the biggest grass-roots tournament of 2010. The Big City Bowl is scheduled for Saturday at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
More than 100 players are scheduled to take part in the tournament, including some of the game's best of all time. The winner will get a share of $3,000 in cash; prior to this tournament, the Big City Tourney had never given out a prize pool of more than $1,000 in an event.
The champ will also receive some recognition by the Pro Football Hall of Fame; at the moment; at the moment, the organization will dedicate part of their Web site to the champion.
Paul Spencer, the founder of Big City Tourney, said it didn't take long for an idea -- run a tournament at the hallowed halls of Canton -- to materialize. Bobby Demyan aka Bobby Digital came up with the idea, and then Spencer went to work.
"I would say about 2 weeks," Spencer said. "With the Hall of Fame, everything is detailed. All I's dotted and T's crossed. They wanted every detail. Then after that, they had a board meeting about it, and we were in."
The tournament will be run a lot like most grass-roots Madden tournaments, with four-player divisions followed by bracket play. Because of time constraints, buybacks will probably not happen, which would be a first for a major Madden tournament in nearly four years.
The last two Madden Challenge champions, Problem (2009) and Dynasty (2008) are both scheduled to attend the event. Other contenders include former Big City Tourney winners Detree, Krill and Kornstar.
Spencer said he's hoping for a Dynasty vs. Problem matchup at some point in the tournament; it would be a rematch of the Final Four contest of the Finals Tournament last month in Miami; Problem won that contest 10-3.
The hype for the tournament has been going on since the announcement was made a couple months ago. Even as players were focused on the Finals Tournament, the Big City Tourney organizers let the community know something else was coming up.
The announcement was made on the The Madden Voice talk show. And almost instantly, players that had no more stake in the Madden Challenge began preparing for the Big City Bowl.
"I loved it (the reception) because it showed me that the Madden community had the same excitement that we did when we came up with the idea," Spencer said. "I really felt honored."
As for plans after the tournament?
"Oh yeah, I'm already working on it," he said.
