Eastern Regionals Capsule Recaps

I think this perspective is important for us to keep in mind. Are we hosting tournaments for league development, or do we want to be a sport that reaches outside of our derby clique? Serious question, and one that would probably garner 100 different answers.

If we're happy with low-res, slightly glitchy video coverage plus boutcasts, and we contribute enough to support that, then we're already there (and the idea that the derby community can be self-supporting on that level is already impressive to me). But if network broadcast is a goal, a weekend where the closest score was ~60 points until the final two bouts is a hard sell. Those of us who know the game--and who often personally know many of the players--can appreciate moments of amazing skating independent of the score, but that's a difficult way to hook new fans.

1) Tournaments should be designed to decide the best team or teams. Period. If you start having random teams play random teams, you're going to end up with random teams advancing to nationals. What if Gotham and Philly played in the first round? Do you really want a nationals without Gotham?

It's something that is a reality in all sports except for sports with playoffs with very few teams. There are blowouts in the first round of the NCAA tournament all the time. It's a fact of life if you're going to have 40 teams in the playoffs. There's too much disparity. The big mistake this year was the structure of the second round. The WFTDA said it would set up better matchups but in my opinion (and definitely what happened in the East), it just insured 3 blowouts and 1 good game instead of 2 blowouts and 2 good games. As it is, it's #6 vs #1, #7/#10 vs #2, #8/#9 vs #3. It should be #8/#9 vs #1, #7/#10 vs #2, and #6 vs #3. That 6/3 matchup has the potential of being a really good game whereas the current setup doesn't really allow for any good games until the semifinals except #4/#5.

2) This would only be possible by changing the number of teams in the tournament or the number of days the tournament is played on. You can't have North Star play their first game at night because they have to play in the first round game in the morning so if they win, they can play their second round game at night. If you changed the number of teams in the regionals to 8, you could do this, no problem. It would also mean less blowouts as you're taking out the 2 lowest ranked teams.

In my opinion, there's just too many games to expect an average roller derby fan to sit through. Nobody is going to go all day unless they're REALLY into derby. I think, for now, you just have to promote when the home team plays and promote the last 2 games of Saturday and Sunday nights. Those are the games that could get the interest of an average fan and they're the games that are most likely to be good non-blowouts.

I hope nobody takes this the wrong way (even I know many will). No disrespect to Dominion but they didn't win a game this year. There is no other sport on the planet where you can lose every game you play and be able to play in the postseason. It's something you should earn and you just don't earn it in roller derby as it is now.

I don't think most fans can tell a foregone conclusion from the best, most-even matchup available. They know their league's travel team and maybe one or two others. All of our web sites are fairly focused just on OUR team(s). Fans don't tend to come to sites like this. They're either into their team win (or do a good time losing) or they're just plain into watching any group of girls knock the daylights out of each other. The latter group won't know or care anything about the other teams anyways.

What I think is changing for the better in this regard is that leagues will be sticking closer to home. At least those outside top ranks, who are vying for higher regional rankings as opposed to finding high level opponents to prep for Nationals. In theory, this gets the fans used to who else is in the area, which may make them more willing to come out and see other teams play each other in their town.

And these brackets were set up to avoid blowouts. It's not the bracket's fault that WFTDA has vast variances in experience, skill and strategy. It's not the bracket's fault that a few qualifying teams opted out. Honestly, I think we'll see blowouts (but perhaps fewer and less gratuitous) in North Central and South Central, whereas in the West we may see closer yet less-predictable bouts.

Just because MNRG hasn't done so doesn't mean that they couldn't do so. Not that I'd really know. They'd have to get it past Games.

HERE'S THE GOTCHA THOUGH. Changing one little detail of when the team plays means needing to change when NEXT they'd play (if in the same day). The schedules are set up such that a team playing in the bottom level prelims has so many bouts worth of rest to recover before they play again. What if doing what you ask would have one team bouting two hours after their last while another gets a nice five hour wait? The order that the bouts fall into probably is more of a key detail than you might realize from a cursory glance.