Districts vs. Traditional Debate 8/16 830pm EST

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by avanboekel

How is this different from teams qualifying for CMP at week 6 regionals?

In 2016, 6 regionals were held in week 6. This included 348 teams in total*.

For districts, there were 3 DCMP in week 6, and 5 in week 7. With 451 teams attending, representing 1169 teams.

There's a difference in expectations, too - regional teams signing up for a week 6 event know MONTHS in advance that they're competing at that event and the hassles involved. Teams in districts may know the hassles involved, but they find out the week before if they are competing in the event, and then more than half of them have 1 week less to plan for champs than the regionals should they earn a spot.

The end result is a significantly larger pool of teams making last minute plans for Champs than we had in 2008 (even when you account for program growth), before districts started.

I'd be interested in hearing views on how this shift over the past 8 years towards late-qualifying events has impacted teams, and how the guest speakers view District's impact in this shift.


* In all fairness, 123 of those teams came from 2 MN regionals... MN events have unfortunately always (for the past 9 years) had a significant impact with some late-qualifying events.