If your kid is now on a team that is competing on fri/sat or sun/mon, you have to miss at least one day of work and school whereas if you were previously competing Sat/Sun you could have made it work if you chose to. Not everyone has infinite days off from work. And not everyone lives in DFW like you and can drive home after the event. If your team competes late on Monday, now you're there until Tuesday for another weekday missed from school/work.
And a significant number of families across the board have at least two kids in the sport. STP was already pricing families out with their price-gauging of hotel costs. So let's add even more nights. yay.
I see what you are saying but I think it is the same either way. You have a day before you compete and a travel day after. So either way everyone is missing 2 weekdays.
Compete Fri/Sat - Missing Thursday, Friday
Compete Sat/Sun - Missing Friday, Monday
Compete Sun/Mon - Missing Monday, Tuesday
NCA doesn't allow crossovers outside of level so the only group this will effect is cross overs from 4.2 to Level 2. Those athletes will be competing 3 days.
We travel to NCA from out of state. It's an expensive competition for us (airfare, hotel, food, etc) but we do love the "bigness" of it. Part of what made the cost of going to NCA worthwhile, was that it's exciting to see so many great teams compete and fun to be able to support all the teams from our gym too! But moving the tiny and mini teams to another place and time will leave them out of getting any gym-family support. Which doesn't apply to my family, but I'm sympathetic to that situation. And for us to support our level five teams will now require extending our stay (if we choose to even do that) and it will then increase days missed from school and work and costs for the additional overnights. I feel like with these changes to NCA, they're being inconsiderate of our time and careless in regards to our budget. The only benefit I've seen discussed is less halls and more opportunity for level 4 to compete in the arena. Both of which seem unnecessary to me. NCA is big and crowded and a long day. And that's just the way it is and in my opinion, is just fine. And let the arena remain level 5 only - they've earned that.
NCA made this decision with the mini teams because most teams outside of TX, OK, AR and LA already don't bring their tiny/mini.
L1 Small Mini - 12/15 teams from TX, OK, LA
L1 Small Mini D2 - 13/14 teams from TX
L1 Large Mini - 2/2 teams from TX
L1 Tiny - 8/10 teams from TX, AR
L2 Small Mini - 8/12 teams from TX, OK
L2 Large Mini - 1/2 teams from TX
The Tiny and Mini divisions are already largely regional. I understand having gym family support but I think for the most part they will still have that. They are moving the Tiny/Mini division during NCA All Star Prep Nationals. These gyms will probably have their All Star Prep programs there to support the Tinys/Minis.
I also love the return of non-Level 5 teams to the arena. It used to be that everyone who made finals got to compete in the arena. About 8 years ago my Jr 2 team competed in the arena. It is only recently that they have gone to Level 5 only.
If NCA thought they would lose a large portion of their client base by making this change then they wouldn't have done it. I can almost guarantee this was ran by some people (gym owners) before being released. Hooray for shorter days at the convention center!