As a competitor, Dan Green has been to a lot of meets — from regional meets to national meets, from the United States to Russia to Australia. He's also been to meets as a coach, a judge, and as a meet promoter. Through this, he's seen the best of the best at meets and the worst of the worst. For today's Table Talk video, Dave and Dan talk about the challenge of running a good powerlifting meet and what led to Dan's interest in organizing competitions.
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Dan begins by saying that the main component of putting on a successful meet, for him, has been paying attention to all of the meets in which he has competed and coached. By simply remembering all of the things that he has loved about certain meets and hated about others, he was able to determine what the base-level requirements are for putting on a good meet. These are the qualities that every meet should possess, such as consistent judging, quality equipment, and safe spotters. These are necessary traits but will not set you apart amongst the top meets. Once he had these things covered, however, Dan says he was able to focus on his own personal touch of new things he thinks will be good for the sport and athletes will enjoy. Dave points out that, as Dan gives this explanation of his process, he uses the word "meaningful" to describe the experience of the lifters. This has been achieved by Dan's meets in a relatively short timeframe, as evidenced by the fact that Boss of Bosses is one of very few meets that is branded by a well-known name and carries a certain reputation simply in the name.
Dan then points out several of his favorite things he has added to his meets. First, he mentions the live-streaming of Boss of Bosses that enables spectators to watch the meet online. Though Boss of Bosses was far from the first meet to do this, Dan has added component to the live-stream that other meets do not have. To explain this, he uses the analogy of a powerlifting live-stream as similar to baseball: you have to know the stories of the competitors involved or it isn't interesting. In baseball there is commentary, and for Dan's meets in powerlifting there is added information on the competitors via screen overlays so that those watching have more information about the significance of what's happening.
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A second thing they've done that Dan really likes is focusing on attracting top lifters in the sport. He says that many meet promoters try to cut costs to earn a profit, which directly hurts the experience of the competitors. Conversely, in Dan's mind the proprietary component a good meet has over a bad one is the lifters who compete in it. What's unique about a good meet is that the best lifters in the world choose to compete there. What attracts those lifters is the opportunity to compete against other world-class talent. This is what Dan wanted to invest in for his meets, so he asked important questions: How can we attract top lifters? How can we reward them for lifting at the meets? This is at the forefront of Dan's mind when making decisions about how to build a better meet. It all comes down to the lifters and making the experience better for them.
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