Proposal for the 2 Championship format

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by alopex_rex

Our team works about an hour from Detroit, and I can assure you we would be VERY frustrated if one year we had to go to the Houston Championship, whether it was the more or less prestigious championship. Obviously the venues weren't picked solely on the basis of minimizing travel costs, but that doesn't mean you can say that that wasn't a real consideration: given the large number of teams in Michigan, and particularly the large number of Michigan teams that qualify for Champs, holding a championship in Detroit makes a lot of sense.

In general I think the geographic factor is the fatal flaw in any plan like this to differentiate the championships. For many teams in the Midwest/East one of the two championships is significantly closer than the other one, and forcing a team to go to the further one seems almost cruel.

It would be interesting to see a poll of the teams in Michigan/Ontario and Texas about their preferences--different levels of championships vs. geographic distribution. I honestly don't know the answer to that. However the poll would need to be weighted by the likelihood that a particular team would get to a championship event.

As for teams in the East, Detroit is still 12 hours from Washington and further from NYC and Boston (I went to Michigan). At that driving distance teams are more likely to fly, in which case distance doesn't really matter any more and air fares are driven as much by traffic volume as distance, particularly after a certain point.