BlueCat
Roses are red, cats are blue
- Dec 14, 2009
- 4,503
- 19,507
(Pulled from Facebook post)
I have tried to come up with a way to at least partially understand or explain the varying opinions on the latest D1/D2 proposals. I would love to give an impassioned, moving, emotional plea for “our” side, but that certainly isn’t my style or strength. My goal isn’t to change anyone’s mind here, but rather frame the debate in a way that is less polarizing or “us vs them” and help the dialogue a little bit.
I will borrow a concept from economics called the “law of diminishing returns”. I’m paraphrasing, but the idea is that if you add a small dose of something and you get a benefit, continuously adding more of it doesn’t necessarily keep adding benefit. Continue past a point and you may start to have negative results.
I will spare you the graph/charts, but give a quick example that we see in our business every day: The volume setting on your sound system. If you push play and the music is too low for anyone to hear, turning up the volume creates an obvious overall benefit and allows you to run routines. If you crank it all the way up (and have a powerful system), it can even reach painful levels that hurt everyone’s ears and be worse than no music at all. In between is where you want to land.
If you are coaching that team, you may want the volume fairly loud so the athletes can "feel" the music. If you are coaching a class (or another team) on the next floor over, you probably want that volume lower. If you are working the front desk in the next room or the business next door, you may have a different opinion about the volume. There can be legitimate disagreement about where the volume knob is set, but it doesn’t have to turn into an argument where one side hates the concept of music and the other wants blood flowing out of the athletes’ ears.
This will be oversimplifying these issues greatly, but here are just a few of the “volume settings” in our industry that I see playing into the D1/D2 issue.
1. Number of overall divisions
2. Scoring adjustments for teams without “full” rosters
3. Exclusivity/prestige of the World Championship
4. Limiting athlete movement from one gym to another
5. Shielding small gyms from competition with larger gyms
6. How satellite/expansion/franchises of large locations are tied to their main locations within the rules
I don’t think any of these issues have quick, easy, obvious answers. Some of the “settings” on one affect how you would want the others to be set. Your own preferred setting for each will vary wildly depending on a number of factors, not least of which is how it benefits you or people in your particular special interest group. Hardly anyone would believe that either extreme end of each setting is best, but we likely disagree about where in the middle you think we should be. Ideally, we can try to find the “sweet spot” for each that maximizes the overall benefit for the industry and doesn’t overly harm any particular group.
I am hoping to keep this thread talking more about how to frame the debate, rather than hash out each individual point. Do you feel differently? Are there other issues that fall into this line of thinking? Am I way off?
I have tried to come up with a way to at least partially understand or explain the varying opinions on the latest D1/D2 proposals. I would love to give an impassioned, moving, emotional plea for “our” side, but that certainly isn’t my style or strength. My goal isn’t to change anyone’s mind here, but rather frame the debate in a way that is less polarizing or “us vs them” and help the dialogue a little bit.
I will borrow a concept from economics called the “law of diminishing returns”. I’m paraphrasing, but the idea is that if you add a small dose of something and you get a benefit, continuously adding more of it doesn’t necessarily keep adding benefit. Continue past a point and you may start to have negative results.
I will spare you the graph/charts, but give a quick example that we see in our business every day: The volume setting on your sound system. If you push play and the music is too low for anyone to hear, turning up the volume creates an obvious overall benefit and allows you to run routines. If you crank it all the way up (and have a powerful system), it can even reach painful levels that hurt everyone’s ears and be worse than no music at all. In between is where you want to land.
If you are coaching that team, you may want the volume fairly loud so the athletes can "feel" the music. If you are coaching a class (or another team) on the next floor over, you probably want that volume lower. If you are working the front desk in the next room or the business next door, you may have a different opinion about the volume. There can be legitimate disagreement about where the volume knob is set, but it doesn’t have to turn into an argument where one side hates the concept of music and the other wants blood flowing out of the athletes’ ears.
This will be oversimplifying these issues greatly, but here are just a few of the “volume settings” in our industry that I see playing into the D1/D2 issue.
1. Number of overall divisions
2. Scoring adjustments for teams without “full” rosters
3. Exclusivity/prestige of the World Championship
4. Limiting athlete movement from one gym to another
5. Shielding small gyms from competition with larger gyms
6. How satellite/expansion/franchises of large locations are tied to their main locations within the rules
I don’t think any of these issues have quick, easy, obvious answers. Some of the “settings” on one affect how you would want the others to be set. Your own preferred setting for each will vary wildly depending on a number of factors, not least of which is how it benefits you or people in your particular special interest group. Hardly anyone would believe that either extreme end of each setting is best, but we likely disagree about where in the middle you think we should be. Ideally, we can try to find the “sweet spot” for each that maximizes the overall benefit for the industry and doesn’t overly harm any particular group.
I am hoping to keep this thread talking more about how to frame the debate, rather than hash out each individual point. Do you feel differently? Are there other issues that fall into this line of thinking? Am I way off?