NCUSS thoughts

So I started doing some research on this NCUS thing and I thought I would share my opinion concerning the newest addition to the cultimate contribution to our sport.

CCS is the Collegiate Chapionship Series. It combines results from the 4 Cultimate tournaments, Warm Up, Trouble in Vegas (TiV), Stanford Invite and Centex by granting point totals to teams that do well. After completing all 4 tournament events, the team with the most points earns a purse of $5000. A great idea, right? I had some thoughts about it and that i thought I would share

First off I want to say that I think this is a good idea. If you go back to the complaints concerning college ultimate, the main issue has been parity. The best teams didn't get to see each other until nationals and some match ups that everyone wanted to see, just never happened. Cultimate has worked very hard to change this. In starting with Centex, this company has begun to establish a gold standard for ultimate tournaments. When I first started playing ultimate, teams would sometimes go to Southerns, or Spring Collegiates, or Ultimax, etc... Every year the BIG tournament would change and it was tough to get all the best teams on one field. Centex changed that. Now every elite team shows up in Texas and we get to see the best teams beat the crap out of each other. Next, cultimate saw oppurunity in UCSD's misfortune and started Trouble in Vegas. Another great tournament that pits the best teams against one another. Recently Stanford has been added to the cultimate list and this year the Florida Warm Up made the cut. So the bottom line is that in establishing a company that puts on, promotes, and runs these tournaments, you establish better uniformity and competition across the college ultimate scene. It also seems that in undertaking this challenge, Cultimate is also in the process of turning our sport from a tournament based game to a season based game. I like the idea of having results matter across tournaments as opposed to single events with no continuity.

One major controversial issues associated with this CCS idea is the prize money. There is some amateur issues and NCAA arguments associated with this idea and I think these are all pretty weak arguments. First off, Cultimate is not the first organization to offer prize money for its winners. Mardi Gras has been offering $2000-2500 to winning teams for many years now as has the Live Logic Texas Shootout, albeit a club tournament but college teams do attend. What I also think is interesting is the dollar amount. Alex Peters on RSD said, "While having prize money is obviously better than not having prize money, I think it's kind of amusing that if you win the whole damn thing, your prize (5k, minus ~1000 in entry fees, divided by ~20 players) is approximately enough to pay for only one of the four flights you had to buy in order to play the series in the first place. Not that playing such a series isn't a reward in itself." I think that the $5000 is a nice dollar amount and I will agree it isn't much, but it also isn't static. It is $5000 in the inaugural year. Who's to say that Cultimate won't be able to up the ante in the future and potentially offer $10,000 or perhaps more to finishers 4th through whatever. This is also relevant with the women's division discussion. The women's division is only offered $2000, but that is just in the first year. With more teams and more time, offering more money to more teams might be possible.

Another thing that I think is important is that this system will put pressure on the best teams to really show it. One of the things that really impressed me about Wisconsin last year was that they attended Easterns in Wilmington, NC. This was not a tournament that they had to attend. There were only 2 other teams at Easterns that were also at Nationals (Pitt and UNC). The fact that they sacked up and traveled again and put their one loss record on the line really showed that they were the best and they were not afraid to show it. Another team that really put themselves out there was Florida. They didn't have to go to Stanford in 2006, but they wanted to prove that they were the best by going to the best tournaments. I can remember getting an email from one of the Florida captains last year asking about Yale Cup. Now, I don't want to knock my own tourney, but I didn't think it would show up on the Florida radar. However, the captains told me that they wanted to play in the best tournaments in the country. I really respect this and I think having a company like Cultimate set the bar concerning the best tournaments is a good idea and I think it will give teams the guidance and the incentive to travel.

Two teams that might come around right away are Stanford and Colorado. Now, I am not criticizing either team. Stanford goes to Kaimana instead of TiV and this February I will probably see why. Colorado doesn't go to Stanford, probably because its another tournament they have to fly to. However, with infrastructure like this, I think the captains of these teams will begin to question why they are passing up these tournaments. If they want to really test their rookies, or improve their program, or realize their weaknesses, they might want to consider rolling the dice and signing up for TiV or Stanford Invite. Both programs are already two of the best, however, and would be above criticism if they decided to maintain their existing tournament schedule.

Another criticism to CCS that I saw was that teams are going to have to pay tournament fees for a monetary prize that is beyond their reach. This could not be farther from the truth. I can remember a day when Brown won nationals and Florida wasn't even in Corvalis. Who would think that now? Teams turnover all the time. Granted Stanford, Wisconsin, and Colorado are probably buying their Nationals plane tickets now, but new teams climb the ladder all the time. Georgia, Oregon, Carleton, Florida, UCSB, all these teams have had their time in the lime light as well as having to sit and watch nationals come and go without them. Who knows who will be the next big team to emerge and with a set schedule like this clear goals and plans for improvement can potentially result helping all teams out there.

I also like to think that this is just the beginning for CCS. There are a lot of big tournaments out there that have legit competition that might find themselves wanting to fall under the CCS umbrella. These could potentially be Santa Barbara Invite, Easterns, Fools Fest, Southerns, Ultimax, Yale Cup, etc... This doesn't necessarily mean that Cultimate will run these tournaments, just that they will participate in the point system and potentially put part of their tournament fees into the bigger pool. This could potentially alleviate concerns about teams having to travel too far to play in all of these tournaments and allow many teams to earn points. Another important aspect of this is that it could really take pressure of TDs to run tournaments. After running a few tournies I can say without hesitation that playing in a tournament that you are running is a losing battle. A company like Cultimate has the experience and the power to really put a great tournament together and team TDs can really begin to relax and potentially pass off responsibility to objective parties who's sole purpose is to run the tournament, not try and play in it.

Lastly, I think all of this will put pressure on the UPA to improve the competitive nature of college nationals. I am so tired of seeing teams that aren't at nationals make it into the top 16 after nationals. Teams like UCSB should have been at nationals in 2007. If you lose to Colorado 14-16 and they then go on to make the finals at nationals, what does that say about Black Tide? There is no disagreement that Centex is the best tournament of the year. Apparently that was not enough to get the UPA to change their approach to team selection for nationals. Maybe having this next step will get the powers that be to finally think about changing how many teams are at nationals. I have already written about this and I cannot believe that the UPA is trying so hard to expand the number of teams at the bottom without expanding the number of teams that get to prove who belongs at the top. I suppose it draws a parallel to college football and their lack of a play off system.

Now a few concerns. 1) I am a bit worried that Cultimate is going to take over. The BCS has taken over college football and I wonder if this is the beginnings of that. This is an inital concern, but I have talked with Skip Sewell personally and I have never come across someone with such a combination of ability and ambition to improve college ultimate. He is also someone with the experience and credibility as a player both at the club and college level and I think if any company could do this right, it would be Cultimate. 2) Money. I am really apprehensive about having money involved in sports. When money becomes an issue, priorities tend to change and I don't like that. I would like to think that the point total alone would really motivate teams outside of monetary gain, not unlike the NASCAR championship. I don't know if a CCS title would mean as much as a dollar amount or a UPA title, but it might, who knows? 3) Eligibility issues. I can remember a time when Texas A&M and Delhousie beat the crap out of folks because they were playing with ineligible players and having teams bring players with suspect roster status can potentially be a problem. However, I think the natural course of action will be to have teams report rosters for CCS tournies. This is good for everybody because they will have rosters solidified well before the series and issues concerning eligibility and suspensions will be a thing of the past. I only hope a club system like this will be implemented for the same reason.

I wanted to continue the Buzz associated with Cultimate and the CCS by posting this article followed by 3 more. Over the next 3 days, I will be posting college previews on Wisconsin, Carleton, and then Florida, all in prep for the Florida Warm Up this weekend. In addition, I also hope to round out my college preview with interviews with reps from Colorado, Stanford, Oregon, Georgia, UCSB, Cal, etc... and post these articles before Trouble in Vegas. Stay tuned.

just my thoughts

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