All-Star Division I And Division Ii At Worlds - Big Gym Separation

[yojaehs]

But that's the thing...Worlds really isn't that exclusive. Pretty much every team can get a bid if they plan correctly.

I think "exclusive" feeling comes because you have to work to become level 5 to attend (and NCA is open to all)

I do have a question about bids... Does the EP get something (more than the feeling that they picked the right team) if a team they sponsor wins? Is there a monetary reward or ability to give more bids or ???

Does simply attending Worlds have the same appeal it once did? No. Does being top 10 mean something? Yes.
Gyms spin "national champion" 8000 different ways already. Do we need to spin "top 10" now too?


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[yojaehs]

Also, for the record many EPs have small gym divs and I'm yet to hear a gym say "We are NCA small gym national champions". I'm not knockin it at all events OTHER than Worlds. I'm just stating that at WORLDS this should not happen


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[TheUltimateFan]

I don't think that's a fair comparison... In gymnastics, it depends on your individual talent. You could be the best in the world, and you don't have to rely on your team. They can stink-it doesn't matter to your individual outcome. The same is not true in cheer. You can be the best in the world, but you need at least 19 others also at your level to get you to the top.


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Exactly. And not every parent is willing to move their family across the country or ship their child to live with someone else for those last precious years you have them close. Being a small gym may mean you don't have a full quota of top notch Level 5 athletes. But maybe you have 10 who want to compete against others like themselves. And none of them wants to leave their home or their family for the sake of a short time in the Worlds spotlight which - if we are all honest - very rarely means a thing when it comes time to get on with your real life - that next 60 years or so that you have to support yourself, raise a family, all those relatively boring and mundane things.

Unless, of course, you are one of those that decide you want to open the next 'Craptastic' small gym of your own...

 

[cupieqt]

True but an extra $25k laying around?? In what gym owner world does that happen, because I clearly don't live there...


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And you don't want to live in that world unless your cool with the FBI. I'll pm you.


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[p.o.k.]

This may be a stupid question, but can anyone explain this to me? I know Cheersport had division 1 & 2 for small senior and small senior coed this past season. I understand worlds is supposed to be "exclusive", but how is this any different? I don't remember anyone making a big deal about how team XXX that won in D2 didn't deserve a jacket any less than the team that won in D1.


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The split is not based on anything supposedly like gym size. However there was the situation where one team say was third in one division but would have been twelfth in the other. So clearly this situation is ripe for discrepancy.

 

[Ashley]

I think for me, right now if you win Worlds, you call yourself a "World Champion". Split the divisions and you become a "Worlds (registered TM) champion".

If you're going to make that argument, then couldn't you really say "well you're not THE World Champion, you're the Small Coed World Champion." Couldn't you argue that having 6 senior divisions already diminishes the value of a Worlds title?

I guess I just don't really see the difference or the big deal.

ETA: I cheer at a gym where an NCA DIII Collegiate National Champion banner hangs. You bet your butts that those girls don't view their win as anything less prestigious because it isn't DI. They don't qualify their win by saying they're national champions - but only in D3.

 

[CheerBank]

If you're going to make that argument, then couldn't you really say "well you're not THE World Champion, you're the Small Coed World Champion." Couldn't you argue that having 6 senior divisions already diminishes the value of a Worlds title?

I guess I just don't really see the difference or the big deal.

ETA: I cheer at a gym where an NCA DIII Collegiate National Champion banner hangs. You bet your butts that those girls don't view their win as anything less prestigious because it isn't DI. They don't qualify their win by saying they're national champions - but only in D3.

I think once this is implemented, if it is done the right way, after a few years having the divisions will not matter as much as they seem to do right now, especially to the gyms who may feel they are being told they are allowed to play with the big kids anymore. We are so used to thinking about Worlds as we know it be the be-all, end-all that any change is scary especially for those who will be D2. If D2 proves to be just as competitive and respected in it's own way as D1 then there should not be any issue.

 

[Boo21]

I think once this is implemented, if it is done the right way, after a few years having the divisions will not matter as much as they seem to do right now, especially to the gyms who may feel they are being told they are allowed to play with the big kids anymore. We are so used to thinking about Worlds as we know it be the be-all, end-all that any change is scary especially for those who will be D2. If D2 proves to be just as competitive and respected in it's own way as D1 then there should not be any issue.

this is not going to happen. If the whole reason behind doing it is to give everyone a chance per se because the world is not a fair place and we have to have as many winners as possible because handling adversity is just not ok anymore i.e. I have seen some of these coaches who would be in division 2 stating things like they have only 10 good athletes of the 20. In that case it would never be AS good or AS wanted as the normal worlds win it's a lesser win any way you cut it. World's needs to be left as it is and if they do a division split I sincerely hope the really good programs stop going. It will not mean as much how could it???

 

[Ashley]

this is not going to happen. If the whole reason behind doing it is to give everyone a chance per se because the world is not a fair place and we have to have as many winners as possible because handling adversity is just not ok anymore i.e. I have seen some of these coaches who would be in division 2 stating things like they have only 10 good athletes of the 20. In that case it would never be AS good or AS wanted as the normal worlds win it's a lesser win any way you cut it. World's needs to be left as it is and if they do a division split I sincerely hope the really good programs stop going. It will not mean as much how could it???

And you think that those teams have any more of a chance of winning in D2 than they did before? If you're not a real level 5 team, you're not going to win Worlds, regardless of how many divisions they add.

Those teams can get a bid now, and they'll get a bid if there are two divisions. It doesn't mean they'll make it out of prelims in either case.

 

[The Sixth]

They are trying to figure a way to restructure to get that push/drive back into going for Worlds again for the small and not as famous type gyms. The more that chase the dream of going to Words the more $$$ is made. So they need to draw back into the mix the gyms that can't afford to scholarship the entire Level 5 team. The gyms that can't send out a twitter announcement seeking people and get boatloads of replies from athletes across the country whose dream is to cheer at _________ gym. It is about money people, not the sport of cheer. Every sporting analogy, every David vs Goliath type challenge is great and laudable except that is NOT WHAT IS DRIVING this potential decision. It is money. If they do nothing, with the way gyms are merging, closing, looking for other competitive options, after awhile Worlds won't exist because there won't be money to pay for it or make it profitable enough to be held.

This was exactly my point early on. Who is this really benefitting the USASF/Varsity, or the industry? Even if there are several small gym owners who elect not to participate at Worlds, there is still enough support (IMO) that it won't just dry up from those losses. IF however it does cease to exist, it will be because they put out a poor product for ANY size gym.

 

[kristenthegreat]

Is there any reliable resource that has all the numbers for every worlds- particularly for small senior and small coed (which seems to be where this is in consideration)? Teams attended, score, who made finals, etc? I know we have some, but I'm not sure how comprehensive it is.

 

[RockstarCheer]

Alright, I don't know if this has been documented yet, so if it has, I apologize

Out of the 6 Senior (Non-International) Divisions at worlds this year there were a total of 18 teams that medaled. Out of those 18 teams, 18 of them.......let me put this another way EVERY SINGLE ONE of them we're a multi-location/ "large" gym. There is clearly a problem here that needs to be addressed. I absolutely love this idea, and I really like giving small gyms the option of competing up if they chose to. Where and how should it be split? By size? So the top 35% of gyms by enrollment have to compete in the DI division, and the lower 65% have the option of competing DI or DII.

p.s. Also, I just noticed, each of these 18 gyms had multiple teams at worlds this year as well.

p.p.s. in 2012, 14 of the 18 teams were multi-location / "large" gyms

Not entirely true. We only have had one location for the last 2 seasons


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[AndrewSky]

Is there any reliable resource that has all the numbers for every worlds- particularly for small senior and small coed (which seems to be where this is in consideration)? Teams attended, score, who made finals, etc? I know we have some, but I'm not sure how comprehensive it is.

It's ironic because in small coed especially small gyms beat big name programs this year.

 

[newcheerdad]

And you think that those teams have any more of a chance of winning in D2 than they did before? If you're not a real level 5 team, you're not going to win Worlds, regardless of how many divisions they add.

Those teams can get a bid now, and they'll get a bid if there are two divisions. It doesn't mean they'll make it out of prelims in either case.

This is the point.

I've listened to this discussion for a while now, and haven't really weighed in because I wasn't sure how to put my thoughts together. But basically, the issue at hand here isn't small gym vs. big gym - it's elite gym vs. everyone else.

The argument I made right from the get-go is that there are probably 50-75 gyms that can legitimately compete for major championships (i.e., Worlds, NCA, CheerSport, etc.). And then there's everyone else. As long as this stratification exists, you're going to constantly have issues where the elite gyms get stronger and the rest of the pack suffers because they simply cannot compete at that level.

And this isn't necessarily a business issue. There's a reason some colleges have FCS football teams instead of FBS, why their athletics will be Division 2 instead of Division 1. And it's not always that the Division 2 school is bad, or poorly run - it's that they simply don't have the resources and talent base to compete at the higher level.

Like it or not, that's the reality of cheer right now.

So guess what? Rather than just telling these programs to just "try harder" or "do a better job with their business", maybe it's time we realize that we need to have like competing against like.

Does that mean I like the Division 1/2 structure being proposed? Not really. In a perfect world, I'd still have Worlds but limit participation to "qualified gyms". Because Ashley hit on it - at some point, the talent pool thins out dramatically. A bad level 5 team isn't going to be do appreciably better in Division 2 the way this is structured. Perhaps that team shouldn't be competing level 5 at all, and somebody needs to save that gym from themselves.

Just like you can't have your local community college schedule a football game against the University of Texas, maybe we need to admit that Craptastic All-Stars can't compete against Senior Elite.* And that the real answer is to have a viable, year-end competition for everyone else rather than trying to jam everyone - regardless of ability level - into Worlds.

*Eh, who am I kidding? CAS forever.

 

[kristenthegreat]

It's ironic because in small coed especially small gyms beat big name programs this year.

I looked over medals for history of worlds, and it's Small/Medium Coed (in their various incarnations) where there is the MOST variance in team placements. The Silver/Bronze champion has been (more often than not) someone who I wouldn't consider a large gym: Macs, Rockstar, ICE (they now have multiple locations but I wouldn't consider them mega), CAS, South Elite, heck even Brandon at some point wasn't the biggest gym but they're still a powerhouse. The least amount of movement has been in Small Senior, where top 3 is typically been some version of Orange, SSX, and Cali. With an occasional appearance from another team (Basics, Woodlands, etc). It's hard to really consider the other divisions as they are mostly large-gym heavy anyway (although South Jersey Storm made an appearance here and there).

Whatever happened to I hope you lose?