do you have pros and cons to that concept?
I think nearly everyone would be in favor of improvement and more transparency in judging. I firmly believe that the pace and density of routines has outpaced improvements in the judging system. It is nearly impossible to watch some teams and catch everything. I don't know what the answer is, but judging and score systems need more attention and effort.
I do believe that the majority of the time, the biggest "bias" is in the coaches/fans watching the teams. I am more than guilty of this myself, but you tend to see the great in your own team and the bad in your competitors. You complain about a judge seeing things differently if they are "fans" of a particular program, but no one on the planet is a bigger fan of a program than the coaches of those teams. You also know the routine backwards and forwards. It is impossible to watch one of your own teams, your "favorite" teams, and the teams you "sports-hate" with a clear eye. You believe that when the scores don't match what you saw, it must be the judges that are wrong, when in most (not all) cases, it is your own opinion that is off. Again, I freely admit that this happens to me as well.
Again, if you think that "liking" a program affects a judge's ability to objectively watch a routine, realize that this applies at least as much to coaches as well. Coaches tend to have far more bias than judges. I am not suggesting that judges never make mistakes, simply that MOST of the time there is less bias than is claimed.
Now to improvement suggestions:
I have always been a fan of scripting routine skills ahead of time. The judges still watch to make sure the skills are performed, but they don't have to actually try to count every single item. There should be the opportunity to make last-minute adjustments by the coach, but a team should be lightly penalized for going off-script and heavily penalized if a coach was obviously trying to be deceptive on their script.
I don't think subjectivity goes away or even diminishes, but there are parts of the sport that are theoretically objective. We should be more accurate on those parts.
I have also always been a fan of (semi) public scoring. I think coaches should have access to all scores for all divisions. I think judge comments are OK to be seen by only the teams, but the actual scores should be seen by every coach. I don't necessarily think that every Suzy Cheer Parent needs to see all of this because they will often take things out of context and cause issues with the teams. However, if your team gets beat, you should be able to clearly see why they lost. You shouldn't have to rely on a judge telling you to in their comments, you should see the scores. If there is bias or flat-out mistakes, these will be in the open.
Don't get me wrong, I have been angry about results more than a few times over the years. Generally (not always) seeing the score breakdowns allows me to better see things from the judges' perspective. I am usually less upset after seeing every score.
About your team-count idea - I do like that it would create an incentive to have larger teams. One of the biggest negatives of our current setup (grid, bid-chasing, and score sheet combined) is that it encourages small, skill-maxed rosters. There is nothing wrong with small teams necessarily - there are some amazing small teams out there, but shrinking team sizes generally raise the sport's cost per athlete significantly.
I don't know that I would be in favor of the idea as a whole, but I do like that you would probably see some larger teams because of it.
