English Chess Forum

Could someone with knowledge of the competitive Bridge world clarify how the EBU is financed?

This is my understanding.

The ECF's FD is claiming that the individual cost of membership is £ 27 a year, rising to £ 28. As indeed it is, but only for non-members of Bridge clubs. For Bridge clubs they pay an annual fee to the EBU, also £ 27, but this covers all their players and additional payments are made to the EBU for each session ("pay to play")

That's what it says in the document
https://www.mrbridge.co.uk/library/newebu.pdf

Direct comparisons with chess are not therefore valid as Bridge player contributions to the EBU are directly based on activity.

I did seem to remember something like that. I've been a direct member the past few years as hardly playing.

You've got to remember though that people playing bridge absolutely expect to pay up to ~5 pounds/session of duplicate bridge they play. That goes towards owning the clubs venue etc. So a small fee on top of that is basically invisible.

I just checked Manchester bridge club (a very big, strong club) and they're 50 pounds/annum membership then 7.50 per evening for the main sessions. 2 extra/evening if you're not a club member. Goodness knows how much of that goes to the EBU, but it won't be a big cut.
(I'd consider these charges quite decent value by the way. Nice venue which it owns, some cheese/biscuits etc.).

Also those sort of duplicate club evenings are the dominant form of activity so taking a small cut from each of them makes perfect financial sense, as does getting as many people in them feeling involved as members. Big entry fees for the congress equivalents. I'm not sure what happens in terms of the team competitions but they're not very big in terms of the percentage of activity.

The complexities of running a bridge grading scheme (which they have done recently) of course makes chess grading schemes look amusingly simple

I dealt with this years ago on the Atticus forum.

(I'd post the link. But unfortunately I appear to be 'banned' from my own forum Maybe Carl Hibbard has seized control of it. I'll need to check with the Webmaster)