Things in the quizzo world are getting more and more corporate, as this article in the New Jersey News shows. Andrew Weilgus (who was our go to guy in Chicago, Baltimore, and several other cities when we did our big city vs. city) has made a big business out of the National Trivia Association.
Today, there are more than 2,500 teams registered through NTA, comparing their records against other competitors spread out across 715 venues in nearly 20 states. More than 40 of these venues offering weekly trivia contests are to be found in New Jersey; other participating venues are from as far away as Hawaii. As the map has expanded, so has NTA’s business model, with revenues projected to top $500,000 in the next year or two.
More power to him, and I wish him the best in his venture (As you may remember, Quizmaster Chris is not such a big fan). But that kind of thing is just not for me. People sometimes ask me why I’ve never franchised. I’ve looked into it a couple of times, and each time decided I had no desire to. It’s just that the thought of going corporate…seems really lame. Half of the fun of quizzo is it’s organic nature, where people in the city who are into quizzo debate who has a better quiz, me or Irish John or (before he moved) Pat Hines, and where the guy who runs the business is the guy who hands you the score sheets and asks the questions. I understand that there is big money to be made in franchising, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t have any desire to take a phone call at midnight from Chauncey in Chicago because his speaker is busted or have to go to a business meeting with Dwight at Buffalo Billiards in Allentown because sales are down. Maybe that makes me lazy. I don’t know. One time I was talking to someone about franchising and they said that the ultimate goal in franchising “is to eventually sell the business to some big chain like Friday’s or something for a million bucks.” If I ever walked by a Friday’s and saw “Johnny Goodtimes Quizzo Tonight”, I wouldn’t care how much money I had in the bank. I’d want to blow my freaking brains out.