Both plans call for UPA sanctioning of "regular season events." These events may be run by independent event organizers and would require UPA sanctioning. In addition, these events would be required to provide minimum event standards in order to continue to be considered a "regular season event" in future seasons. Any team may participate in these events but only results of games played between teams that have submitted a valid roster to the UPA by the set deadline would have a "meaningful" impact on post-season play.
In the Super-Regional Plan, only pre-registered teams (Tier 1) that participate in these events could be awarded selection committee bids to the "Super-Regional" events, and the selection committee would base their decision off of these results. In the Conference Plan, results of games between pre-registered teams (Tier 1 & 2) at these events would directly impact the allocation of championship bids to regions and qualify individual teams to participate at regional events.
What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns about this element of both plans? Would this help to "formalize" the college regular season? Should only "pre-registered" teams be able to participate in these events? If you are a Tournament Director, would you be interested in hosting a sanctioned "regular season" college event? What should the UPA's standards for these events look like? How much should a team be expected to pay for an event to have these event standards?
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Just to make it a bit clearer with respect to the conference plan:
ReplyDeleteThe primary difference between a "tier 1" and a "tier 2" event in the conference plan is its exclusivity.
A "tier 1" event will only have teams from the roughly 40 teams that:
1) qualified for tier 1 play, either by their finish at the previous year's nationals, or by their performance in the early-season kickoff event, and
2) preregistered with the UPA with a tentative fall roster.
A "tier 2" event, by contrast, is potentially open to any team, just like non-series events are now. However, any game between two teams that preregistered with the UPA and had their tournament roster checked will be an official game for the purposes of nationals bids and bids to the D1 regional tournaments.
So, in the conference plan, whether only pre-registered teams can compete is not an either/or question.
Okay, after reading Tarr's comment, I think there's some nomenclature mixing between the two proposals on the website. The description of the Super-Regional plan refers to "UPA-affiliated Tier 1 events" (Competition Structure section) and "a Tier 1 regular season" (Qualification for Post-Season). Neither of these terms are defined anywhere else in the document, so I think they're spillover from the Conference proposal.
ReplyDeleteAs to the fundamental question of this section, I think it would be important to standardize certain aspects of any UPA-affiliated event that is going to count towards the post-season. I'd love to see lined fields, but that may be a pipe dream at this point - full size fields should be a requirement, though. If you're going to use tourney results, then the seeding and format should be standardized as well, although my recommendation would be not to worry about tourney results, just individual game results.
Speaking as a former TD, I wouldn't mind running this sort of event, but I'd want to be sure that the UPA is doing most of the gruntwork in collecting and checking rosters - the UPA, by virtue of doing this hundreds of times a year, has the infrastructure in place much better than an individual TD.
Finally, as a bow to the realities that, sometimes, college teams aren't as organized as we'd all like, the UPA might provide a provisional eligibility, where a team can essentially 'purchase' Tier 1 status sometime after the deadline, by going through the entire roster submission process, only with a substantial additional fee. Call it provisional eligibility, or a late fee, or whatever, but organization is difficult sometimes, and allowing teams to get involved even if they blow a deadline would probably be good for both competition and the teams themselves.
I'm concerned that this is going to kill off some playing opportunities for lower level teams. I played my first four years at a Metro East college that likely would have qualified for DIII for my first two years as we were plausibly still a developmental team. We would have been forced to move up a division by the time I was in the middle of my college career.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't get significantly better, though. We still went to the same cheap tournaments (bid prices under $200 were common, and this was only a couple years ago) with sparse amenities. Huck of the Irish and High Tide were our biggest deals each year, and we generally wound up in the basement in both. The rest of the year, we went to cheap, local tournaments hosted by other colleges (and hosted one of our own usually). These tournaments had few if any of the amenities listed in the plan.
Lined fields: probably not
buffer between fields: probably not
certified observers: never
Medical plan in place: maybe a pre med student who would tape your sprained ankle, as long as you brought your own tape
Score reporting: maybe by individual teams
I'm not criticizing these teams. They gave the community something it needed: an opportunity to play ultimate cheaply and locally. The requirements for UPA tournament certification would be impossible for many schools to meet if they wanted to host. They don't have the expertise or facilities.
Under the proposed structure, teams have to go to a certain number of tier 1 tournaments to qualify for postseason play. Every team out there is going to want to get into the postseason. So, when it comes to a cheap local tournament or a big Tier 1 tournament, tier 1 wins every time. The demand for small, local tournaments dries up, along with a major source of income for low-level teams- who, despite not being real vocal, still compose more of the UPA's constituency then those at the top.
Costs will also increase for teams to play. The cost of running a tournament goes up, bid prices go up. That's logical, and it will be only a 100-200, which is manageable. A team of 20 only pays 5-10 more. But with fewer venues that can host tier 1 events, and fewer TDs with the ability to pull it off, these events are going to be rare and widely spaced. Travel costs will skyrocket.
Solution: Allow teams to self-select their division with floors for admission, but no ceiling. Have less rigorous requirements for hosting a DIII tournament than a DI tournament. Elite teams want elite tournaments- this is understandable and even deserved. But the lower levels aren't being showcased, and don't want these kinds of amenities. Talk to a captain at a college of 1000 people who's trying to get 10 people (even 7 people) who have never done anything but pickup to show up at sectionals. That team couldn't tell you what an observer does, but they do know that ultimate is more fun when they're paying less.
Teams may select outside of their division, but with floors and no ceilings I think that's rare. If you have a floor, this means that high level teams have no worry about having to play 3 15-0 games at sectionals. However, no team is going to take pride in crushing DII or DIII if they know that they could've played in the division above. The ultimate community generally is pretty quick to smell a rat and heckle if a team sandbags, and it's still small enough and personal enough that peer pressure will be effective for a long time to come.
The whole "Tier 1" and "Tier II" idea is great, like DI and DII schools, however both structures seem a bit more complicated and effectively put a heavy burden on teams who want to play "Tier 1" teams and don't want to have to register teams/force its less active members to pay registration fees/pay for UPA sanctioning for their event. Here is my explanation:
ReplyDeleteIf you want to have Tier 1 and Tier 2 divisions (T1 & T2), just have open registration for both and simply have T1 & T2 sectionals and regionals, and let teams know that "T1" means facing tougher competition come tournament time. The team I was on in college was and is still a "T2" team, however if they decided they wanted to register for T1 they would do so knowing they'd get skunked at sectionals and not have a chance at regionals, whereas if they had just registered as T2 in the first place, they would probably go to regionals. And if a team like Wisconsin or Florida decided to register T2 in this scenario just to screw over the less-talented teams and prove me wrong, well that would just not be in the spirit of the game...
What worries me more, however, is the emphasis on "meaningful games" during the regular season. By this I mean that if Wisconsin (for example) WINS Trouble in Vegas, goes 7-0 (or whatever they went), and beats numerous good teams on the way, they get no credit for it because the organizers of TIV didn't want to register their event w/ the UPA, which would mean forcing all participants (no matter their budgets, no matter their newness) to register with the UPA, pay the UPA registration fee (or at least the 1-time fee), and (as a team) register their roster with the UPA (which, having been there before, is a huge hassle because of the red tape surrounding proof of enrollment...at least where I went to school). In addition, if (for example) Wisconsin took a a legitimate A-line to a non-registered event and lost a game to a T1 team it doesn't count toward the T1 team's record either, so there is no incentive for a T1 to even go to a non-sanctioned event (not to mention risk of injury, tournament fee, they can get the exercise elsewhere, etc.). So if a team wanted to host a tournament and didn't want to register their tournament for whatever reason (cost, hassle, etc.), there is little or no chance of competitive play, which makes it VERY difficult for a T2 team to break into T1 without registering any tournament they decide to host with the UPA, and, since T2 games don't count against your record as a T1 team, there is no incentive for a T1 team to play a T2 team and actually try hard (once again, risk of injury, they can get the exercise elsewhere, etc.): if a T1 team is losing, say, 10-7, game to 13 to a T2 team in a tournament where their next game is against a rival and closely competitive T1 team, it would be better for the T1 team to just sandbag it and not have to face the T1 team on weak legs. In varsity sports, if a DII team beats a DI team, it still means the DI team lost and the DII team won (App. St. game comes to mind) and it counts agains BOTH of their records. If a committee is going to decide even so much as seeding for a tournament, they have to look at every game played.
PS - I agree wholeheartedly with everything BadPlayer says (a fellow ME'er), especially about money and the regulations:
Lined fields: never (our club sports director is a jerk)
buffer between fields: minimal; see *
certified observers: never
Medical plan in place: maybe a pre med student who would tape your sprained ankle, as long as you brought your own tape
Score reporting: maybe by individual teams (exactly, because 1 TD can't handle 24 teams, especially when forced to be the shadow of our DB club sports director)
Mandatory full-sized fields: (this is the *) where possible; we will forgo 5-10 yds if there simply is not enough room, and will forgoe yardage before we forgo at least a few feet between fields...not every team has a park within walking distance with sod-fields that go out to the horizon.
Just to clarify: in neither plan do you have to register for or participate in the sanctioned regular season events to participate in the post-season.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the majority of concern from Mike and Bad Player is rooted in this misunderstanding.
@Kyle:
ReplyDeleteThat's true, and I did misread those elements of the plan. However, am I correct in reading that only sanctioned events count for postseason seeding? If that's the case, I think the same logic applies, as I don't think teams are going to be too eager to go to a lot of "practice tournaments."
Badplayer, seeding will still be based on all available information. The differences in these plans from the current structure is:
ReplyDelete- For the super-regional plan only teams that participate in the sanctioned events (and are pre-rostered) can be selected by the selection committee (all teams can still qualify through the sectional structure regardless of whether or not they participate in the sanctioned regular season.
- For the conference plan, games played at sanctioned regular season events between teams in Tier 1 count towards the awarding of bids to Regions.
In both plans, non-sanctioned "regular season" games will probably still be counted towards seeding at post-season events (sectionals, regionals, conference championships).
The difference is that we are making some games increasingly meaningful. The remainder of the games will be as meaningful as they currently are. Or, using the way that you are putting it, all there are currently are "practice tournaments" and then the series and teams still go to "practice tournaments."
If teams don't want to participate in just "practice tournaments" there will be a demand for additional sanctioned events that can be provided by anyone who meets the minimum standard for these events.
I read through the proposals and I am, well, just confused. Both plans just seem so complicated and administratively intensive that I wonder if they can be effective. We are tackling multiple problems and attempting to make everyone happy, but I wonder if we are sacrificing the long term good of the sport for our short term feelings. I wonder if it isn't best for the sport in the long haul to split divisions based on persormance the previous year(s). It is simpler, conforms to establish college sporting norms and rewards teams that develop a self-sustaining program of excellence year after year.
ReplyDeleteObviously there are many issues, but let me brink up a couple. The first is the concept of "B" teams. Unlike many other sports, we have developmental teams that compete in regular tournament competition. Some schools offer "club" options to students that want to play a sport but could not make the varsity team and there are occassions where this results in a student eventually earning a place on the top team. Perhaps we should treat the 100+ b-teams as the developmental (or recreational) teams that they are and remove them from the series competition. By their very nature, they tend to be weaker teams and removing them from the series would increase the level of compeition in there tournaments. Perhaps these types of teams could have their own championship...D3 or D4 or whatever you want to call it.
Second is the issues of small schools that do well enough to consistantly win against "big" schools. Let's call it the Carleton situation. I think people get way too hung up on size of school. Even the NCAA doesn't always use size as the criteria for assigning teams to a division. In lacrosse, Johns Hopkins is a national DI power and yet is a very small school. I really don't see this as an issue. If you are good enough, campus size makes no difference.
The third issue (and perhaps most sticky) is the smaller school that has an exceptionally talented group of players that gel for a year and do exceptionally well though they have been placed in a non-D1 division. Shouldn't these players have the right to play their way up to the top of the top division? Maybe, but with time, DII and DIII championships will develop their own importance. Tell the DIA and DII football players that their national championship doesn't mean anything and see what response you get. In reality, the number of small schools that even make nationals is very small and the number that do well is even less.
And lastly, with increasing importance placed on the regular season, should there be a minimum number of games that a team should play for the top division? Should there be a maximum number of games that a team is allowed to play? After all, all these players are "student athletes" and travel to all those tournaments takes away from their school time. Also, placing a maximum of, say, 30 game before the series helps to level the playing field between teams that can play year round and those that can't start until late march or april because of weather.
Looking at the teams on the score reporter, there are currently 510 teams with scores reported. If you remove the -B and -C teams, you are down to 394. If you remove teams that played less than 10 games, you get down to 262.
OK....ideas, because I like to think out of the box.
Idea 1) Drop all the -B teams to their own division. Split the remaining teams by performance the previous year. Say 120 in DI and the remaining in DII. Every year, 10-12 teams from DI would move down and the same number from DiI would move up.
Idea 2) Divide teams into divisions based on their, for lack of a better way, NCAA basketball division....DI, DII or DIII. -B teams would play a division lower than the -A team. -C and -D teams would be two divisions lower. If a DIII school has a -B team, the -A team would move up a division. If they have a -B and -C team, the -A team would move up two division. I haven't worked this out for this year, but based on the results for last year, this would put between 150-200 teams in each division. It rewards teams for developing programs and getting more people out playing. It is also very straight forward. The downside is that it might make the DII and DIII championships seem less important as -B and -C teams would be competing for them.
OK...enough rambling. I guess I am just frustrated that these proposed plans are so complex and I believe there must be an easier way.
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ReplyDeleteMy biggest concern when reading through these plans is infrastructure -- does the UPA have the resources to manage the number of required events in order to pull the regular season aspects of these plans off? The required resources are not just financial and time for the folks at headquarters, but also access to fields distributed around the country in places that are accessible to poor/small college teams that are unable to travel to flying tournaments.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these plans are big on ideas for structure and formalism, but are there really the available resources to execute these "regular seasons" in a way that is universally accessible?
If the UPA does have the resources to coordinate and run regular season events across the country, is it worth considering the regular season in the context of the current championship series structure without modification?
I question the premise that we need to have meaningful regular season events.
ReplyDeleteFirst, as the coach of a team that rarely gets ready-made players from
juniors programs, we need all the time that we can to develop our talent so
that we're strong come regionals. For example, this year we effectively had
8 returning players from last year, so we had no interest in having a
meaningful regular season. While we're not always rebuilding as much as
we were this year, we've always used the early spring to develop talent.
Second, Cultimate has used this notion of a "regular season" to create
bastardized tournaments where a large number of teams play at a single
tournament but play wildly different schedules. In some cases, you have two
teams playing where one team is playing their 4th tough game in a row while
the other is playing their first tough game of the day. These formats are
fine if the goal is to simply play a lot of games, but they are unfair if
they will be used by a selection committee to compare these two teams at
the end of the year. (As a vehicle for developing players, this format
is also sub-optimal because you essentially lose the pressure that comes
with an elimination format on Sunday.)
Notice also that this new style of Cultimate tournament actually weakens the
regular season, since these tournaments are no longer self-contained events
where teams can say, "We made the semi's at Centex". It becomes more
difficult to follow and promote a tournament when (1) the format is so
strange that it can't even be posted on the Score Reporter and (2) there
is no elimination format. As a result, such tournaments in fact diminish
interest in the regular season. Moreover, with standard tournament
formats, there is the notion of "finishing better than another team at a
given tournament," and this notion is lost in this new style of tournament
because so much depends on the initial seeding and schedule.
Finally, the win or you're out nature of Sectionals and Regionals is
what makes it so exciting. The fact that Florida this year (and teams
like Stanford in 2003) were not able to deliver when it mattered make for
great drama.
@ badplayer - I think a meaningful regular season will actually see an increase in better teams at smaller tournaments, especially early in the year. For teams that are notoriously bad in the early season, they will want to test themselves at tournaments that don't count toward a regular season record. If you play in only 2 tier 1 tournaments all year, you might play only 10 games, it's important that you do well. Practicing against lesser teams, in a non-high stakes situation will definitely become a necessity
ReplyDelete