All-Star D1 / D2 Debate

[BlueCat]

I am in favor of a two-tiered system where the (roughly) upper half of the competitive programs are in one and the lesser-competitive (or newer, or smaller) programs are in the other. I think the self-select idea is the least bad of the options (enrollment is easily manipulated and hard to track). To make that work, you need to have pros and cons for each side. Gyms decision locks the entire gym for the entire season, period.

D2: Wider age ranges, D2 Summit (with L5 divisions). Max enrollment of 200? Multi-location brands eligible but cannot share even a single athlete, 3-team max crossover

D1: Narrower age ranges, Worlds bid eligible, 2-team max crossover, no team can share more than 50 percent of it's team with another team.

Maybe multi-brand declare date is earlier in season than free-standing gyms? Maybe institute same need-release rules for Summit that you have for Worlds? Maybe include that somehow moving TO a multi-location D2 gym mid-season you need a release for any level (like current Worlds rule)

Review the method splits every other year to try to get roughly 50/50 split among teams on each side. Yes, I think if you are competing for a world championship, you belong on the more competitive side of the bracket. Maybe D1 gyms membership fee is higher?

The splits would happen at any event where each side would have at least 2 competitors in the resulting bracket. This split happens FIRST among all division splits.

 

[tumbleyoda]

I can go with a max enrollment on D2 of 200. I was thinking about the micro gyms sizes competing with that but in my mind that number would still work if capped.

Perhaps Multi Brand declare Aug 1. Free Standing Oct 1. One basically before choreography season and one afterward.

I have no issue with if competing wih Worlds, being in D1. That is why L5 at D2, even if just small all girl and small coed would work to allow small gyms to at least have an opportunity to have a competitive option for those athletes.

 

[BlueCat]

I can go with a max enrollment on D2 of 200. I was thinking about the micro gyms sizes competing with that but in my mind that number would still work if capped.

Perhaps Multi Brand declare Aug 1. Free Standing Oct 1. One basically before choreography season and one afterward.

I have no issue with if competing wih Worlds, being in D1. That is why L5 at D2, even if just small all girl and small coed would work to allow small gyms to at least have an opportunity to have a competitive option for those athletes.

I think people got bent out of shape with the original idea thinking that it was trying to keep D2 gyms out of Worlds. It was really encourage them to go D1 to even out the classifications (you need a carrot to make the self-select work, as there is no current benefit to being D1 rules-wise.)

 

[tumbleyoda]

I think people got bent out of shape with the original idea thinking that it was trying to keep D2 gyms out of Worlds. It was really encourage them to go D1 to even out the classifications (you need a carrot to make the self-select work, as there is no current benefit to being D1 rules-wise.)

Perhaps. But it seems they are never great at explaining themselves and the decision making process until well after it blows up in their faces.

That is why I also like the mandate idea. You win, you move up. IMO D2 should not have 3 time Summit Champions in any division sandbagging just to win more titles. That also makes room for someone else to shine as well. Now that rule would hurt a gym like mine short term but be better for the industry long term.

 

[BlueCat]

Perhaps. But it seems they are never great at explaining themselves and the decision making process until well after it blows up in their faces.

That is why I also like the mandate idea. You win, you move up. IMO D2 should not have 3 time Summit Champions in any division sandbagging just to win more titles. That also makes room for someone else to shine as well. Now that rule would hurt a gym like mine short term but be better for the industry long term.

One of my biggest issues with the current system is that from a rules and options perspective, there are multiple incentives to stay below 125. I know that that won't stop every single gym from growing, but puts some downward pressure on growth. That is the exact opposite of the intent. (Same could be said for the current purely-ratio scoring and new XS division). I get that you want to foster growth among the smaller teams and gyms, but you don't want to tilt things so far that direction that you incentivize staying small.

I'm not opposed to a promotion/relegation idea, but I don't know how to make that work in practice. Gyms could just change divisions and/or team names to avoid it I think.

 

[BlueCat]

Note: I would change the name something like "World League" and "National League" instead of D1/D2

 

[quitthedrama]

My opinion from a parent perspective:
- There is absolutely a bias towards large or "mega" gyms and think there is a huge advantage to franchised gyms being allowed to go D2. As far as what should be the athlete number for D2 - how many gyms are more than 200? I can't imagine there are that many. I'm thinking there is one in my region.
- -I have no problem with D2, but that is exactly what it should be called, and there should be no special allowances for any teams at Worlds, which is what the XS division has done. I like the idea of D2 gyms competing level 5 at D2 Summit. Scores in the XS division have consistently been far lower than the other divisions (well, the few scores we get to actually see), and although this may sound harsh, those teams that are scoring 10 points below teams in the middle or lower end of the true worlds divisions do not deserve a World Champion title. If they want the "Worlds experience", they can compete in the Worlds divisions as there is no penalty (and on paper an actual advantage) for competing with less than the maximum the division allows (which is another ridiculous rule but I'll keep to the topic at hand).
- I completely agree with @tumbleyoda on everything he said about the topic of judging and scores, however I am fine with industry professionals (i.e. choreographers/coaches) judging. If we had a better scoring system, published scores and more judge accountability, the perceived and/or real bias could be drastically reduced.
- Varsity does not view this industry as a sport, and one of there employees stated so on twitter when commenting on a tweet from UCA. I don't expect to see any changes for several years.
- Snacks in the Grass.....

 

[tumbleyoda]

@quitthedrama here is where I have issues on the choreographers also judging issue and have seen this happen multiple times over the years to several gyms.

A.) Choreographer does routines for Gym A. Later in that season he/she judges a competition where Gym A is competing against Gym B, C, and D who also happen to be in the same demographic and compete for the same athletes. It is hard choreographer to say their choreo is not as good so Gym A gets some tenths nudged in their favor. And all it takes is a tenth or two sometimes to swing a score or snag a bid. I am not suggesting at all that Gym A requested this nudge (that would be a whole different issue) but choreographer knows they have a better chance at returning to Gym A the following season for choreo if their routines win.

B.) Choreographer judges routines as assigned and takes good scripts on to who does what. Programs that did not use their services receive a message after the event talking about the performance and how the judge can now flip to choreographer and help them clean up routines. Even to the point of talking negatively about who ever did the choreography in the first place.

C.) Choreographer for Gym A judges a competition where Gyms B, C, and D are. Choreographer then calls coaches or owners at Gym A to give them details on Gym B, C, and D and may even suggest new sequences so that Gym A stays at a competitive advantage.

Is this all judges? No, of course not. But as is often said, the bad ones make it bad for everyone. But what process do we really have of dealing with this? Not a thing. If there was an independent judging board, they could be reported if occurrences like these happened. They could be reprimanded, suspended or even not allowed to judge events. Because the judge would be required to answer to somebody who was also responsible to ensure that the judging was fair and had no vested interest in the results. This along with the transparency that you and I talked about earlier would make major strides in making sure these types of things never happened again.

 

[BlueCat]

I think we need to save money in our industry in a bunch of ways. That being said, good judges should be paid more. Bad judges should not be judges any more.

 

[alpaca]

I think we need to save money in our industry in a bunch of ways. That being said, good judges should be paid more. Bad judges should not be judges any more.

I have no idea how much money judges are paid. How much do they make per event? I assume the bigger/more prestigious the event, the more $ they make?

 

[5-6-7-8]

From a pure "sport" perspective, I would love to see XS, S, M, L team sizes go away, and just have divisions (I, II, III.) Divisions are based on enrollment (or whatever metrics should be used to determine "talent pool.") Something that is a bit closer to a HS / College scenario. Duke could probably field 2 competitive basketball teams; one DI team and one DII team, but that isn't the intent in having multiple divisions.

My assumption is that the XS, S, M, L team sizes were established to help smaller gyms that couldn't necessarily field a full team of 36 athletes. The (un?)intended consequence is that the large gyms took that as a way to field more teams. (Not wrong at all, in fact, great for business.)

Just my thoughts as a retired parent. I haven't really thought in too much detail about this, just offering my thoughts as someone who isn't intimately involved on either side. I'll add I don't think cheer is necessarily alone in the "money grab" that is youth sports, but that opens up another can of worms. Many seem to scoff the idea of the "participation trophy" or in this case, "We are D2 Small Youth 1B" champions, but pretty sure some rely on that to make $$. I am not against making money, but here is where the "sport" vs. "industry" comes in.

 

[tumbleyoda]

My personal preferences aside, I can go with any system (small/large, D1, D2, D3, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc) IF it is fairly enforced across the board. There seems to be a big difference on both sides however that it has in the past, or will be in the future. But as we all have said if the issues of cost are not addressed it would be to my financial advantage NOT to do USASF cheer at all because my demographic just does not support the insane pricing.

 

[Keep_Believing]

In the past, we were part of a true D2 gym and at one point we were part of a gym that technically could have met the numbers for a D2 gym, but was a branch from a D1 gym. I can't put into words all of the advantages that the D2 gym with the big cheer gym name/connection had.

 

[quitthedrama]

@quitthedrama here is where I have issues on the choreographers also judging issue and have seen this happen multiple times over the years to several gyms.

A.) Choreographer does routines for Gym A. Later in that season he/she judges a competition where Gym A is competing against Gym B, C, and D who also happen to be in the same demographic and compete for the same athletes. It is hard choreographer to say their choreo is not as good so Gym A gets some tenths nudged in their favor. And all it takes is a tenth or two sometimes to swing a score or snag a bid. I am not suggesting at all that Gym A requested this nudge (that would be a whole different issue) but choreographer knows they have a better chance at returning to Gym A the following season for choreo if their routines win.

B.) Choreographer judges routines as assigned and takes good scripts on to who does what. Programs that did not use their services receive a message after the event talking about the performance and how the judge can not flip to choreographer hat and help them clean up routines. Even to the point of talking negatively about who ever did the choreographer in the first place.

C.) Choreograper for Gym A judges a competition where Gyms B, C, and D are. Choreographer then calls coaches or owners at Gym A to give them details on Gym B, C, and D and may even suggest new sequences so that Gym A stays at a competitive advantage.

Is this all judges? No, of course not. But as is often said, the bad ones make it bad for everyone. But what process do we really have of dealing with this? Not a thing. If there was an independent judging board, they could be reported if occurrences like these happened. They could be reprimanded, suspended or even not allowed to judge events. Because the judge would be required to answer to somebody who was also responsible to ensure that the judging was fair and had no vested interest in the results. This along with the transparency that you and I talked about earlier would make major strides in making sure these types of things never happened again.

Yes on the independent judging board which was what I was getting at and didn’t do a good job of communicating. I have been involved in horse showing most of my life so I am very accustomed to subjective sports/activities. The judging pool is limited to mostly trainers within the breed. Chances are there will be a horse they bred, trained, and/or sold in front of them, but they are credentialed by the governing body and there is a formal challenge and review process. It’s not perfect but overall the system works.

 

[Keep_Believing]

What are the proposed new rules for D1 & D2?