The sports programme, Miami 2017

01What was listed

The event website listed these sports: badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, bodybuilding and physique, dance sport, disc golf, diving, field hockey, golf, indoor volleyball, marathon and half marathon, 5K and 10K races, soccer, softball, swimming, synchronised swimming, table tennis, tennis, track and field, triathlon and water polo. Each sport had its own page with dates, venues and rules.

02A longer list on paper

The menu was not the whole story. In January 2017 the fees page priced more sports than the menu showed, among them bridge, cycling, darts, dominoes, rowing and rugby. Wikipedia puts the planned total at more than 35 sports and adds billiards, cheerleading, chess, flag football, martial arts, netball, poker and wrestling. Entry fees per player ranged from $50 for table tennis to $275 for golf, on top of the general registration fee.

As at earlier editions, there were no qualifying standards. Wikipedia notes that the World Outgames were open to anyone regardless of sexual orientation, with competitions arranged by skill level.

03What the fees covered

The same fees page explained the structure. The $250 general registration fee, due to rise after 30 April 2017, covered the opening and closing ceremonies and the parties after them, a transport pass, a participation medal, the souvenir programme book, an official shirt, entry to open sport and culture events and unlimited access to the Festival Village.

It did not cover the sport itself. Every athlete also paid the entry fee for their discipline, and the conference and ticketed cultural events were charged separately. When the sport was cancelled, PinkNews reported that much of the anger came from athletes who had paid their fees in advance.

04One sport in detail: basketball

The basketball page shows how much planning went into each sport. Games were to run at Miami Beach Senior High School from 29 May to 2 June, with preliminary rounds on the first three days, a single-elimination tournament on 1 June and finals on 2 June. Ten divisions were offered: open A, B and C, masters 35+ and veterans 50+, each in a men’s/mixed and a women’s category, with the veterans playing three-on-three on a half court.

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Rosters needed seven to ten players. The rules followed FIBA, modified by the NCAA and the National Gay Basketball Association, with two 20-minute halves on a running clock and no shot clock. Medals were to go to the top three in each division.

The small print allowed for a thin field. A division with fewer than five teams could be merged into another, and the organisers kept the right to move a team to a different division after pool play. Players could enter one open team and also a masters or veterans team, with ages counted at 31 December 2017.

05The three exceptions

When the organisers cancelled the sports programme on 26 May 2017, they exempted aquatics, country-western dance and soccer. According to Wikipedia, aquatics and soccer survived because the International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics Association and the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association ran them as their own annual championships and kept the Miami organisers at arm’s length. The soccer tournament, the IGLFA Unity Cup, has its own page.

PinkNews spoke to a Canadian water polo player who was still due to compete. He said he was shocked, because people had paid registration fees.

06What happened to the rest

Basketball was among the sports that went ahead in some form. Wikipedia records that athletes organised their own competitions in track and field, basketball, tennis, volleyball and bodybuilding, helped by the local LGBTQ community and the City of Miami Beach but without support from the organisers or GLISA. The road races, marathon, cycling and triathlon were cancelled; Wikipedia attributes this to non-payment of the production companies hired to run them.

07Context

The earlier editions ran full sports programmes. Montréal in 2006 staged 35 sports at more than 50 venues, built around the Claude Robillard Sports Complex, the Olympic Park and Jean Drapeau Park, and used most of the facilities from the 1976 Summer Olympics. It also showed the cost of the split with the Gay Games, held in Chicago a week earlier: Wikipedia notes that 100 wrestlers competed in Chicago but only 22 in Montréal. Copenhagen in 2009 had 31 of its 34 disciplines sanctioned by national or international sports bodies, according to Wikipedia. VRT News counted about 5,000 athletes in 32 disciplines at Antwerp in 2013. The series is summarised on the series overview, and the Miami cancellation and investigation are covered on the Miami 2017 page.

08Frequently asked questions