Someone brought this up in another topic. But I think it deserves its own thread. Without bashing on any team, do you think bids for Worlds should be handed down?
Me, I think its ok. But I think maybe there should be a cutoff point in score. Like if the 1st place winner had a 98.8 and the 2nd place winner had a 78.3, I don't think the 2nd place team should get it. But, if they state ahead of time, you will need at least a 90 to collect the bid, I think something like that would be fair. At some competitions there will be a huge gap between 1st and 2nd, but at others, it could be as little as a tenth of a point. Clearly, in that case, the 2nd place team deserves to go.
Guru wrote: Someone brought this up in another topic. But I think it deserves its own thread. Without bashing on any team, do you think bids for Worlds should be handed down?
Me, I think its ok. But I think maybe there should be a cutoff point in score. Like if the 1st place winner had a 98.8 and the 2nd place winner had a 78.3, I don't think the 2nd place team should get it. But, if they state ahead of time, you will need at least a 90 to collect the bid, I think something like that would be fair. At some competitions there will be a huge gap between 1st and 2nd, but at others, it could be as little as a tenth of a point. Clearly, in that case, the 2nd place team deserves to go.
I am glad you liked my question. I agree with you that the score should be in the 9's and above to have the bid passed or at least within a certain amount of points (tenths of a point)
You will see "passing down" of bids even more this year with all of the bids being handed out. I don't mind the passing down of paid bids as much as the "At Large" bids. I would like to see those go away all together. Of course, we had multiple teams with At Large bids last year that were in the top 5 finals at Worlds. But since the number of Paid Bids have increased dramatically this year I think more teams that had At Large bids would receive Paid Bids.
About the scoring requirement...if you require a specific minimum score like 90.00 you could get a team with 89.99 that wouldn't get the bid. Can you just hear the disputes over that?
So, I say get rid of At Large bids and prelims at Worlds and give out Paid Bids and pass them down as necessary.
Worlds Watcher wrote: About the scoring requirement...if you require a specific minimum score like 90.00 you could get a team with 89.99 that wouldn't get the bid. Can you just hear the disputes over that?
I would still be of the opinion, "Sorry, better luck next time" Being within tenths of the 1st place team and being within tenths of the "bare minimum score" are 2 different things. JMO
Well, the whole minimum score thing still doesn't work for me.
If a company has 2 paid bids to give out and the top scores at that competition are 89.99 and 89.95, the company doesn't give out the bids. I can see these companies "making sure" the scores are high enough to meet the minimum requirements. A good example of this is happening with companies that have Regionals to "Qualify" for their "Nationals" competition. That whole concept has turned into a joke. Almost every team that goes to a regional is qualifying for Nationals.
I do agree that something has to be done to keep Worlds from becoming just another Nationals competition, which is where it seems to be heading. Just don't agree with Guru about the minimum score.
Help clarify where all of this money is going by having more teams go to Worlds. I think it is going to the local cheer companies, not USASF. I say that because if you have bids to give, you draw more teams, more entry fees = more money for that company.
But isn't USASF non-profit? And the $25,000 is for transportation and room. So they aren't getting more money that way. And if they did, they can't pocket the money since they are non-profit. So, am I missing something? Or is it just the local cheer companies that raking in the money?
I think bids should be based on a curve. No I am not a fan of giving a bid to someone that scores below a 90, but at the same time, if the highest score is an 89 and you've advertised bids then as a competition company you have to give one out. I do think that from that point, if the bid is going to be passed down, the next score would have to either be above 90 or be within a certain point spread from the first place team, say 3 points. So if the first place team scores an 87 and elects to pass their bid down, the next team would only get it if they scored at least an 84. Anything lower than that would make them ineligible. But if both score are over 90 then it doesn't matter what the point spread is. This way you could avoid the inflation of scores by competition companies and still make sure that lower scoring teams don't attend worlds.
nelson wrote: god forbid a business (aka, a competition company) wants to make a lot of money. what the heck are they thinking? the nerve.
Nothing wrong with making money. I guess the question is:
Was Worlds created to provide a venue to really find out what 4 teams are THE BEST or was it created for cheer companies to make more money? Us nieve folks would like to think it was the first. But doesn't sound like it or USASF wouldn't be allowing 118 teams to be in Finals to figure out the top 4 teams.
I'm guessing it's the competition companies making money and pushing for giving out as many bids as possible. Let's face it, without the bids, why on earth would gyms go to competitions like USA Nationals??
Haven't been to Worlds, but how much do they charge for admission to get in? Just wonderin... Other businesses that surround the venue stand to profit too, right? However you look at it, the more teams that attend, there is money to be made somewhere. It would be nice to see some specifics though.
I don't think that it is in an "either-or" type of deal. They can make money, have a large number of teams and STILL determine the best teams in the world. If you had 500 teams in each division, the winners are still going to be the best teams in the world. If anything, having more teams in each division makes winning a title MORE prestigious.
It is like the NCAA Basketball Tournament. If they only invited 8 teams instead of 65 to "the dance," it wouldn't make it any more exciting or "valid."
I think one of the prestigious things that has been taken away from Worlds with all the bids is saying that you "received" a bid. That in itself was a huge statement. But now, with so many teams that will get bids it will loose its status. Just like "qualifying" for a Nationals is not a big deal anymore. Just about anyone can go to a Nationals event. Yes, the same top teams will win, but it won't been the same when you say you received a bid to Worlds. So what, so did 500 other teams.
Worlds Watcher wrote: I think one of the prestigious things that has been taken away from Worlds with all the bids is saying that you "received" a bid. That in itself was a huge statement. But now, with so many teams that will get bids it will loose its status. Just like "qualifying" for a Nationals is not a big deal anymore. Just about anyone can go to a Nationals event. Yes, the same top teams will win, but it won't been the same when you say you received a bid to Worlds. So what, so did 500 other teams.
Compare the amount of bids handed out to the number competitions, competition companies and teams there are. There are many more handed out this year, but you still must be in the top 2, sometimes the top 5 of your division to even be considered. USA and a few other comps are smaller, but still most of the teams going are serious contenders in their area. Worlds is the new big thing in all star cheer, so everyone wants a piece. Bottom line, the amount of teams in all stars versus how many go is a SLIM percentage.
Compare wrote: Compare the amount of bids handed out to the number competitions, competition companies and teams there are. There are many more handed out this year, but you still must be in the top 2, sometimes the top 5 of your division to even be considered. USA and a few other comps are smaller, but still most of the teams going are serious contenders in their area. Worlds is the new big thing in all star cheer, so everyone wants a piece. Bottom line, the amount of teams in all stars versus how many go is a SLIM percentage.
Not necessarily. By the time you get to the end of the season, most of the great teams have bids. So those bids are being passed down MULTIPLE times.
Compare wrote: Compare the amount of bids handed out to the number competitions, competition companies and teams there are. There are many more handed out this year, but you still must be in the top 2, sometimes the top 5 of your division to even be considered. USA and a few other comps are smaller, but still most of the teams going are serious contenders in their area. Worlds is the new big thing in all star cheer, so everyone wants a piece. Bottom line, the amount of teams in all stars versus how many go is a SLIM percentage.
If you take this back to the original topic of "passing down bids" you no longer have the top 5 from each competition company if those top 5 already have their bids.
And at Cheersport they are giving out 25 bids, not 5. The number of bids will keep growing if they base it on attendance. More teams will attend, the next year the company will get more bids, and then you have the top 25 teams from each company going to worlds. And if they pass some of those 25 bids down...well...bottom line...I just don't like the current system and think they may need to rethink where all of this is going.
