2023 was a great year for the Scottish Blood Bowl Community. There was growth in multiple areas and we finally became eligible to host our own NAF National in 2024, which has been one of the committees’ goals ever since their inception after COVID. So let’s have a look back at our community’s growth over the past few years as well as a quick look at the Scottish meta in 2023.
First up let’s take a look at the Scottish NAF data. Our active NAF membership rose to 168 members in 2023 from 132 in 2022 and 92 in 2021. This is categorized as members with an active “renewed” membership on the NAF. There has been some steady growth in this area over the past 2 years. This shows that more and more Scottish coaches are getting involved in the NAF tournament scene and this is great to see. With a wider pool of players this can only make us much more competitive as a nation over time.
This flows into our next area of growth which is that of the Scottish average tournament attendance. For the second year running our average attendance at a tournament rose up to our current high of 36.8 participants. This rose from 30 participants in 2022 and 28 participants in 2021. Again this helps to show that more and more Scottish coaches are finding themselves accessing tournaments and more specifically accessing tournaments within Scotland. This is fantastic to see. This piece of data gives a good indication to TO’s on what they should be looking to cater for attendance wise in 2024. It is also important to note that this average attendance number could have potentially been higher this year with many tournaments selling out their allocations in 2023. This shows that there is increasing demand for attendance at Scottish tournaments and events.
Looking at the attendance of Scottish tournaments in 2023 this further supports that there is an increasing demand for attendance at Scottish events. Five out of ten events had an attendance of over 40 participants. Out of these five events, four were at capacity. Of the five events that were under 40 participants, three were at the original capacity stated. Two of which have increased their capacity for 2024. Mulligan’s Open took the year high with 66 participants. Overall it was a very solid showing attendance wise throughout Scottish events in 2023.
Looking forward to 2024 it looks even brighter with Mulligan’s Open sold out at 90 participants, the addition of the Scottish Team Championship sold out with 80 participants and events such as the 5B’s and Granite Bowl already penciled in with expanded capacities now catering for 50 participants.
The tournament scene itself got a bit healthier in 2023 with 10 tournaments running. The addition of tournaments such as Megabowl, 5B’s and the Jingle Bell Bowl saw the tournaments scene rise to 10 tournaments in 2023 up from 7 in 2022. With almost a tournament per month there was a lot of choice for Scottish tournament participants in 2023. This will grow again in 2024 with the introduction of the Scottish Team Championship which will offer the Scottish Community something different with its first team tournament.
2023 also saw the introduction of 46 new rookie members to the Scottish tournaments series. This was categorized as players who had player less than 3 NAF events. This was down from 48 in 2022 but still shows great growth within the community over the two years. To think there have been a total of 94 new members participating within NAF events in Scotland over the past year is great to see for the growth of the community as a whole. The important thing for us within the Scottish Blood Bowl Community is to ensure that these members continue to engage and attend events.
Not only did 2023 see an increase in tournaments and attendance, however it also brought with it an increase in active Scottish Blood Bowl leagues. There were ten leagues in total active and engaging within the Scottish Community in 2023 which was an increase from six leagues in 2022. It is fantastic to see more gaming communities pop in areas playing blood bowl and this can only be good for the community moving forward. Hopefully this will bring with it more members engaging within Scottish tournaments and events in 2024. This is already the case with all ten of the leagues having at least one team submitted.
Next up we take a little look at the tournament results in 2023. Over the ten tournaments only one blood bowl race was victorious more than once and that was Undead. As such there was no real trend here within the community other than tier 1 teams (NAF 3 tier structure) winning events six out of the ten times.
Over the course of 2023 we can look at race selection to see what Scotland’s favourite races are. In 2023 it is good to see that all twenty-nine races were selected at some point throughout the year. However, poor Old World Alliance were only selected once over the course of the whole year. Which was of course by Gerdleah who took them to a third place finish at Jingle Bell Bowl showing that they aren’t as poor as everyone thinks they are… or at least that Gerdleah is just a OWA savant. Some surprises though that teams like Wood Elves and High elves were quite poorly represented throughout the year and that Humans were very highly represented. However, the later could have been due to a lot of rookies participating in 2023 and Humans being a starter friendly team. Lizardmen took the top spot for most picked race in 2023 closely followed by Orc’s and Skaven which are all very strong picks.
As previously stated, it has been a very good year for Scottish Blood Bowl in 2023 with growth in both the amount of tournaments run, attendance within these tournaments and within the amount of Scottish leagues running also. As such the future is very much looking bright and I am looking forward to seeing what 2024 brings for us as a community. With the first Scottish National taking place and our first Scottish Team Championship it is definitely an exciting time to be Scottish. I hope you have all enjoyed participating in the series and that we will see you again in 2024.
ChrisRaff88
Scottish Blood Bowl Community Chairperson
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