BlueCat -
In the past years on other boards I have jokingly said that since so many "fans" complain they dont want to see anyone but the teams at Worlds who in their minds truly has a chance to win, a concept with an Invitational format where only those teams came would be to their liking. IMO the Majors is a step towards that direction. Piggybacking the event onto Jamfest Indy is a brilliant move. Low risk, guaranteed appeal with the programs invited.
My question is do you think it would work if it was opened up to one or two more divisions even if you use a similar format of the the top 4-5 place finishers at Worlds?
Worlds started with essentially the same two divisions, then started adding them for many of the same reasons that people would (understandably) want to add divisions like small senior, medium coed, etc. The only issue I have with that is that once you start adding divisions, it becomes increasingly easier to add a couple more the next year, 1-2 the following year, etc. Then you end up with an event that resembles nearly every other one and it loses some of its charm.
For better or worse, Large (or large-ish) Senior and Large Coed tend to be the most popular for spectators. Even in years when there are teams in other divisions that are stronger than any LS or LC, much of the focus remains there. I'm not sure exactly what causes that, but my guess would be the history of those divisions and the fact that there are 3-5 teams that consistently battle for the top spots, without any one of them dominating the division for more than a year to two at a time. The parity there provides more drama than most divisions. It has that "any given Sunday" feeling that doesn't necessarily exist in every division.
IOC5 is probably even MORE evenly matched with the technically strongest teams, typically, but it doesn't yet have the deep history that LS or LC have.
NOTE: I am NOT saying that those teams are necessarily always the best overall all star teams. I have seen days where Orange, SOT, T&S, etc. could destroy all of the teams in those divisions. Fair or not, LS and LC just tend to get the most attention (and therefore draw the biggest crowd.)
Having a team in each of those divisions makes me a bit biased, of course, but I would like to see it take a different path from Worlds to see if the format could flourish as is.