The word is that NSDA Campus is working well this weekend. Single flights are definitely a help at a big tournament. But we’ve been saying that from the beginning. They’re the logical thing to do, as Mr. Spock would put it.
Needless to say, the tournament I’m doing the most work on at the moment is Rather Large Bronx. The numbers say it all. In an average year, counting all the divisions, maybe we total about 900 entries. That’s not humongous compared to some of the Ivies I work, but it ain’t hay. This year, we have well over twice that registered, pretty much hitting all our caps, plus another 1200 or so on the waitlists. Parsing out who gets in has been real work.
The first step was establishing two things: caps, if any, and setting the entry bar. Caps was easy enough: down-2s break. Since RLB has a history of 7 rounds in VLD and VPF, easy enough, just following tradition. 6 rounds in CX, also traditional, also easy. Then adding JV divisions, all with 6 rounds (because there is no tradition—the Fiddler on the Roof stuff only goes so far), again getting all down-2s to break. The JV rounds were meant to take some of the pressure off the V for the participating teams. Folks get their allotted handful of Varsity, and let’s face it, that allotted handful should be the only ones deemed by their coaches of a chance of breaking. If you have 20 PF teams, well, friend, you probably don’t have 20 teams at bid level. And you probably have some seniors and some juniors and maybe even some sophomores. JV gives you a place for those younger students. Needless to say, we’re pushing JV at all the colleges I work this year. And maybe some other places, like Bigle X. The numbers will no doubt support it. As for the entry bar, official high school entries only. (This doesn’t stop obvious independents from giving it a shot, but the obviousness is preclusive.) Then we set what the community in general was considering a reasonable split of rewarding regulars and bringing in newcomers, 80/20. And with those newcomers, a further eye on various levels of diversity—geographic, economic, etc. This may be the one year that folks who are unable to travel get the chance to participate at some exciting national events. On the other hand, if you’re a hearty perennial, that should be acknowledged. My old saw about tournament management being a brand of customer service holds here. You can’t give everyone what they want, perhaps, but you can do your best job of trying in such a way that customer satisfaction is as high as possible.
The process has been straightforward. First, I assembled a list of all the participant schools of the last few years. You do this by porting the data from tabroom into Excel and de-duping. Let’s say we’re talking LD, with a 240 cap. That means that 80/20 is about 200/40. (Yeah, I know, but let's stick to round numbers.) When it was time for my first shot at the waitlist, I gave 1 slot to each of the repeater schools. (I didn’t have a list of just repeating LD or any other division’s schools, so I had to let tabroom do the tallying for me.) Let’s say there were 50 of them when I had gotten through the list. When I see that, it’s easy to figure that each repeat school would get 4. (BTW, I’m making up these example numbers so the math will be clear. Offhand I don’t recall the exact numbers, but these are close enough for explanatory purposes.) That got us to about 200. Then, pulling numbers out of the air on seeing maybe 200 more entrants, I decided 2 each for new schools, based on our diversity priorities. When I reached 240-ish, I stopped, leaving a little skoosh room for whatever.
Rinse. Repeat for the other divisions. Speech caps were set at 160.
Since then, I’ve been able to move a few people off the W/Ls in a few situations. Repeat schools that signed up late (because 2020, hence the skoosh), or divisions that were not at cap (like Duo).
By the way, all of this information—at least the numbers—is readily available for any interested party on tabroom. Caps are published, as are lists of entrants. You can see who got what, and to some extent figure out why. Obviously, if you sign up today for something like VPF (waitlist 345, or as I like to put it, THREE HUNDRED FREAKIN’ FORTY-FIVE!!!), your odds of getting in are about the same as Hillary winning the 2020 election as a write-in candidate. For that matter, the odds of any of the 345 getting off are pretty dismal.
It’s interesting to see what happens when you remove travel expenses from the equation. When all you’re paying for is a share of the rooms and the trophies, and maybe a reasonable small profit for the host of a professionally run tournament, it’s a lot cheaper than hotels, motels, B&Bs (air or otherwise), flop houses, airplanes, buses, pedicabs, phaetons, troikas, etc. You can’t blame people for trying. But then again, where are those people at the non-bid tournaments? We’ve got Byram Hills in a couple of weeks, and while the entry numbers are respectable, they’re not crazy. If all people are looking for is rounds, there are probably plenty out there. On the other hand, if people are looking for glamour on the cheap, it’s not going to come easy. In other words, there are some people out there who need to get their priorities straight. For that matter, there are some tournaments out there that also need to get their priorities straight, but that’s another matter.
Two rules of thumb, one for teams, another for tournaments. For teams, seek tournaments that make sense for your students at their levels: Your juniors who have never debated at the national level aren’t going to somehow turn into circuit powerhouses because there's a coronavirus afoot. For tournaments, run tournaments that make sense competitively and financially: There’s a pandemic this year and it’s hitting schools in the pocketbook harder than just about anyone, so act like it.
Or maybe just one rule of thumb for everyone, everywhere: Get Real.
Anyhow, that’s the story of RLB. Which is smaller than some of the others I’ll be attacking soon enough. It will be keeping me off the streets, but then again, so is covid-19. Somehow it will all work out.
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