Crazy ideas for improving the all-star industry

[BlueCat]

Let's throw out some crazy ideas that you think might be good for the industry. Kind of like "brainstorming", you don't have to automatically think that they should be implimented right away - just some "food for thought" type stuff. They may even end up being terrible ideas, but maybe they get the thought process going.

I'll start:

1. No more "small gym" or "large gym" divisions. Let gyms declare before the season whether they are Division I or Division II. (roughly like NCAA). This is based on your OWN assessment of your experience/talent level. ALL your teams have to compete in that "division" or category for that season - no switching around competition to competition. ONLY Division I programs are eligible for Worlds. If there are enough teams in a competition division, the event producer splits the teams into D1 and D2.

2. Standardized scoresheet/score system While you are at it, make scores more closely reflect what the athletes want to work on and what the audience wants to see. Option: Let each event producer put their own "multiplier" in front of each category score to "weight" them however they feel is appropriate.

3. Event producers MUST share ALL scores from ALL teams. We want to know why Team A beat Team B so we can all make our routines better. Let the teams keep their own judge comments, but we should be able to see the actual scores.

4. Event producers should only have 1 "Nationals" per year. (multi-brand type events not included.)

5. Fewer divisions at Worlds. If there aren't 15 D1 teams registered nationally in any division, it gets combined with it's closest match. (Example: only 11 Large Seniors around this year? - throw 'em in with the smalls.)

6. Deductions are proportional to the number of skills being thrown. If you only put up 5 stunts, dropping 1 should penalize you even more than if you drop 2 out of 11 (do the math.)

7. Fewer, but larger events. Event producers would even be on board with this. Good luck coming up with a way to make that work, though.

8. Worlds rotates between Cali and Fl. (or even more locations.) Why should the same teams have to travel further each season?

9. Split Dance Worlds and Cheer Worlds into separate events Many people want to do both - why not let them? Different weekends.

 

[cheerinfo]

:hug: :clapping:

 

[tumbleyoda]

I gotta start work but I would love to comment on these BlueCat. Great ideas.

 

[King]

This might be turn into a really good thread.

1. No more "small gym" or "large gym" divisions. Let gyms declare before the season whether they are Division I or Division II. (roughly like NCAA). This is based on your OWN assessment of your experience/talent level. ALL your teams have to compete in that "division" or category for that season - no switching around competition to competition. ONLY Division I programs are eligible for Worlds. If there are enough teams in a competition division, the event producer splits the teams into D1 and D2.

Hrmm... I like But you have to meet certain requirements too. 500 people gyms cant be DII

2. Standardized scoresheet/score system While you are at it, make scores more closely reflect what the athletes want to work on and what the audience wants to see. Option: Let each event producer put their own "multiplier" in front of each category score to "weight" them however they feel is appropriate.

DEFINITELY!

3. Event producers MUST share ALL scores from ALL teams. We want to know why Team A beat Team B so we can all make our routines better. Let the teams keep their own judge comments, but we should be able to see the actual scores.

I still dont like this. Without starting another huge whole thread on this, can we all just remember my earlier answers?

4. Event producers should only have 1 "Nationals" per year. (multi-brand type events not included.)

Agreed. Cut down on the nationals, but still keep competitive 'classics' or regionals or whatever they call them. I also think the USASF should pick a certain number of nationals per thousands of cheerleaders and cap the number. Let's say there are 20,000 competitive cheerleaders in America... so lets just have 20 Nationals (instead of 400-ish or whatever there are)

5. Fewer divisions at Worlds. If there aren't 15 D1 teams registered nationally in any division, it gets combined with it's closest match. (Example: only 11 Large Seniors around this year? - throw 'em in with the smalls.)

Why? How about you need 15 D1 teams registered nationally to have a division at worlds? Small Small and Medium had thriving divisions for years before there were worlds divisions. Gotta have enough competition to have a worlds division. No combining.

6. Deductions are proportional to the number of skills being thrown. If you only put up 5 stunts, dropping 1 should penalize you even more than if you drop 2 out of 11 (do the math.)

That is fine, but you also have to reward that way. 3 standing handspring doubles on a small senior team are worth way more than 3 handspring doubles on a large senior team.

7. Fewer, but larger events. Event producers would even be on board with this. Good luck coming up with a way to make that work, though.

See answer earlier about capping nationals to number of cheerleaders. The rest are regionals or what not.

8. Worlds rotates between Cali and Fl. (or even more locations.) Why should the same teams have to travel further each season?

No offense to cali people but I think the majority of cheerleading lives on the east coast. You will have less participation if you move the event farther from where the heart of cheerleading is.

9. Split Dance Worlds and Cheer Worlds into separate events Many people want to do both - why not let them? Different weekends.

I think dance would suffer from the split. Cheerleading would probably be indifferent.

 

[Cinderellie]

I LOVEEEEEEE almost every thing. You're simply a genius. I just don't agree with number 5. I know and it is obvious that small teams can score just as high if not higher than large teams on any given day so it should not matter. HOWEVER, hypothetically speaking, if everyone hit and was equal in difficulty, i just always feel a different wow factor from large teams. IDK might just be me.

But, could we specify only 20 teams can make it in in a set number of worlds divisions? Once a division is full, the bids move on to another division at these qualifiers...lol...That would be scary...

 

[ohkcheery]

I'm at work too, but I really like #s 3, 4, and 6.. especially #6. That'd make things SO interesting.
The whole DI/DII thing could work, though the NCAA is based on population.. so it would still be using a "small vs. large" standard in that sense.. I've got more to elaborate on this too, but don't have the time! Great spark for conversation..

 

[BlueCat]

The whole DI/DII thing could work, though the NCAA is based on population.. so it would still be using a "small vs. large" standard in that sense..

NCAA divisions are actually based on a number of factors like scholarships, not just population. That is why Notre Dame is D1 with 7,500 undergrad, but California Polytechical College is D2 with an enrollment of 21,000. (Just an example)

 

[5-6-7-8]

I do like the idea of alternating Worlds. And maybe not even just CA / FL. I have to believe that having Worlds in FL negatively affects participation in cheer on the West Coast.

 

[BlueCat]

That is fine, but you also have to reward that way. 3 standing handspring doubles on a small senior team are worth way more than 3 handspring doubles on a large senior team.

They already are rewarded that way.

Nearly every rubric uses "majority" or other proportions to define their scores. I'm still not convinced that even that is fair, though. Do you think World Cup could increase their percentage of kids throwing doubles if you made them go small? There is no doubt. It is harder to keep that same percentage going as you add people to the team. With all due respect to the great small teams out there, it is dramatically more difficult as a gym to come up with 32 double fulls for your large team than it is to come up with 18 for a small team, even though theoretically the small team gets higher difficulty scores for their 18. (Stingrays, however, could probably come up with 75 if they needed to.)

I would think that somewhere in the middle between going by totals and going by proportions would probably be fair. It only really matters, though, when you are trying to compete large and small teams against each other.

 

[twobytwo]

NCAA divisions are actually based on a number of factors like scholarships, not just population. That is why Notre Dame is D1 with 7,500 undergrad, but California Polytechical College is D2 with an enrollment of 21,000. (Just an example)

Dude! you used Cal Poly!!!! hahaha go Mustangs!! and really cant disagree with anything you have proposed.

 

[BlueCat]

5. Fewer divisions at Worlds. If there aren't 15 D1 teams registered nationally in any division, it gets combined with it's closest match. (Example: only 11 Large Seniors around this year? - throw 'em in with the smalls.)

Why? How about you need 15 D1 teams registered nationally to have a division at worlds? Small Small and Medium had thriving divisions for years before there were worlds divisions. Gotta have enough competition to have a worlds division. No combining.

I'm fine with that. I think those are two different paths to the same result. I think about 6ish divisions at Worlds would be ideal.

 

[King]

5. Fewer divisions at Worlds. If there aren't 15 D1 teams registered nationally in any division, it gets combined with it's closest match. (Example: only 11 Large Seniors around this year? - throw 'em in with the smalls.)

Why? How about you need 15 D1 teams registered nationally to have a division at worlds? Small Small and Medium had thriving divisions for years before there were worlds divisions. Gotta have enough competition to have a worlds division. No combining.

I'm fine with that. I think those are two different paths to the same result. I think about 6ish divisions at Worlds would be ideal.

Now that I can get behind. As well, I know the point of the international divisions, but I am not sure its original intention is what is happening now. Between International divisions and worlds divisions there is a LOT of divisions. It some how needs to be consolidated.

 

[BlueCat]

moving into the likely much less popular ideas:

2 L5 coed divisions: Limited Coed 1-6 males. Coed 7-15 males. That is right. Limiting the max number of males on any 1 team will, in the long run, increase the # of total males competing in the sport overall (insert long dissertation on the economics of large coed teams here . . .)

 

[BlueCat]

Note: Some of those ideas are NOT in my own gym's best short term interest (notably #3 and #5). However, what is best for the industry overall is what we need to focus on at this point.

 

[Ceacoach]

Amen to the 2 coed divisions...still scratching my head over this summer.. Especially after it's all
played out exactly as expected this season. Anyone know why we have 4 senior coed divisions at worlds and only two senior all girl? Love these ideas btw.. Looking forward to this thread


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk