- Dec 4, 2009
- 14,108
- 19,303
The issue with different teams of different sizes competing (and with boys and girls competing against each other) is giving accurate difficulty scores. While watching live it is fair to compare execution and creativity because no matter the team/age/division there is no advantage to the number on the floor when it comes to being clean and executing well and performing.
BUT
With so many different sizes and numbers on the floor how is it possible for a judge to determine, on the fly, that the team with 21 on the floor just put up 6 stunts and that is maxing out their ratio while the team with 32 on the floor put up 7 and is doing something way under ratio with front spots? It is a natural bias (so in my eyes not the fault of the judges and no amount of training could correct it) to reward the team with more stuff in the air and more stuff flipping more difficulty points.
Fix the way difficulty is determined and you get rid of the large team advantage.
(If you think about it this is why we like so many subdivisions of sizes. If we know teams are about the same size it is very easy to compare how difficult they are. two teams of 20 putting up 4 stunts to 5 stunts each we can just see how much better the team putting up 5 is. But if one team had 19 on the floor putting up 4 stunts is ratio wise their best option for elites... no real way to know that on the fly)
BUT
With so many different sizes and numbers on the floor how is it possible for a judge to determine, on the fly, that the team with 21 on the floor just put up 6 stunts and that is maxing out their ratio while the team with 32 on the floor put up 7 and is doing something way under ratio with front spots? It is a natural bias (so in my eyes not the fault of the judges and no amount of training could correct it) to reward the team with more stuff in the air and more stuff flipping more difficulty points.
Fix the way difficulty is determined and you get rid of the large team advantage.
(If you think about it this is why we like so many subdivisions of sizes. If we know teams are about the same size it is very easy to compare how difficult they are. two teams of 20 putting up 4 stunts to 5 stunts each we can just see how much better the team putting up 5 is. But if one team had 19 on the floor putting up 4 stunts is ratio wise their best option for elites... no real way to know that on the fly)