All-Star Competition Order Affecting Scores?

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crazycheermom

Cheer Parent
Jan 19, 2011
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Opinions on whether competing first or last affects scores? How about going before/after a much better team? I know technically each team should be judged on their own merits, but do you think that judges hold off on high scores .. reserving them for a team that might be great??
 
I know judges from Spirit Cheer, Varsity and other companies and I don't think they do. I think they are fair and a lot of the time are familiar with the team or gyms program but judge the routine by how they are executed and now on how they compare to others.
 
Sure. And I don't necessarily mean on purpose. Like they know Super Dooper Team Cheer is coming up and they are usually awesome. I mean, just naturally, do you think they may hold back on scores early in divisions.
 
I don't think a team will be judged differently based upon what big name may be coming up, though I guess it is possible the big name would be judged differently themselves.

My thought is that time of day will have a bigger effect on judging a team. Teams performing early in the day will be judged differently later in the day.
 
With any subjective sport there is always this possibility. I think, however, there is a greater possibility that if ABC Superstar All-Stars is in the lineup late and performs badly that all scores could be low. For example, the judge is reserving the high scores for the Superstar Gym and so he/she holds back a bit on the other scores (consciously or not). If, when they perform, they are not so great then all the scores remain lower. If they perform early and are not great then it could subconsiously bump the other scores because other teams perform better than Superstar (whose great after all). Of course, this is all hypothetical. I imagine that with professional judges this happens very little. I suspect they are less effected by these gyms than many of us are.
 
I believe no matter how much anybody wants to deny it, it's in some way, shape or form true... And I also believe that if a certain "underdog" team does something to wow the judges then they improve the judge's opinions of the underdogs and allows a better and more fair judging... Meaning if the underdog team performs a same old same old routine, the judges eyes aren't going to be sparked... But if they surprised them, the judges would think "Wow they've stepped it up! Let's give them a better chance" you know?
 
Yep going first at college nationals in a division of 25. I am super terrified they are going to hold back scores.
 
Judges are often instructed to judge based off of all things Cheerleading and not just who is at that event that day. So they may be judging a team based on Superstar All Stars because they are always an almost perfect execution, even if Superstar All Stars isn't there. Somedays no one will score high, not because scores are being held onto waiting for better to show up, but because no one meets that criteria. More than one team can share the high score in any category, even if it's only 30% of the range.
 
I have a question that kind of falls under this thread. At Worlds finals, they have top 10. They compete backwards in placing (10 th, 9th..). Am I right so far? If I am, do you think that the judge subconsciously scores the lower place teams lower cause they know the higher place teams are coming up? I hope I explained it the way I mean.
 
Event producers are highly reluctant to give enough information about scores to even begin to judge the judging this way.

My gut feeling is that SCORES are highly affected by this, but I think that RANKINGS are affected less. I think if a very strong team goes early, that essentially forces ALL of that divisions' scores lower. (The judges have to "leave room" in the scores for better teams and not give an early team too high a score.) This is part of the reason that reading too much into scores between divisions is difficult.

Nothing would thrill me more than being able to do some actual math on scoring data. Being a part of a large program gives us much more information than any normal program could ever hope to have, but we still crave more. I would be happy to lose a massive competitive advantage that we have for the benefits that open scoring would give to the industry as a whole.

The easiest conclusion to draw from EP's reluctance to give useful information away is that it would expose the flaws in their system. (Math errors, blatant judging mistakes, bias, etc.) If they sit on all of that information, then people can assume all of those things happen, but they can't really prove it. If an EP is confident in their judging and scoring, then they would want all of that public. If they are not, then I can understand their desire to keep everything secretive and hidden.

Again, for the record, I want every number written down by every judge to be available to every coach in every division. Comments could be made private, but everything else should be open to observation by the competitors. It still amazes me that other coaches don't want to see this. As it is, you rarely know why you won or lost. How can we improve our routines without this? Being left in the dark forces teams to simply copy all of the elements of winning routines, without really knowing what it was about that routine that scored high.
 
BlueCat, our last gym always wanted scores but sadly did not always get to see them. You are right it is a huge learning tool for a gym whether they won or not.

Taking away gym name, and thinking of a comp like NCA, Cheersport or Worlds where you could have 20+ teams in one division, do you think teams are judged stricter in the morning than in the afternoon when the judges are more tired.
 
Sure. And I don't necessarily mean on purpose. Like they know Super Dooper Team Cheer is coming up and they are usually awesome. I mean, just naturally, do you think they may hold back on scores early in divisions.
No. At least I don't and I have never been instructed to do so. Normally their is a range that you score specific skills and execution so its pretty clear what scores they should be getting. =).
 
You also have to remember that once the judges get to your senior 3 routine, for example, they have usually watched all of level 1, all of level 2, youth 3, and junior 3 first. At some point all the divisions must just blend together and they are just watching a level 3 routine.
 
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