I'm just a lowly, humble undergrad on the periphery of college-level quiz bowl, so feel free to disregard my opinion. If you consider Monopoly to be a reasonable comparison to quiz bowl, then there's no reason for you to consider a central unified organization. Now if you've ever spent most of a weekend travelling to another state to compete in a Monopoly tournament, maybe it's a reasonable comparison, but I doubt you have. Once you consider the way we organize competition, I think it's clear that we're more comparable to sports, and particularly the financial loss-leader sports of the NCAA. Yeah no one wants to watch us and we play for the fun of the game, but the same is about as true for sports like rugby, lacrosse, and curling. Clearly some people prefer the status quo, and I can't blame them for that. But I don't think the status quo is good for the long term health of the game. There's no central body to lobby for us, no central liason for the schools, no reliable means of conflict resolution and enforcement of rules, and no organized help for growing programs. Others have argued those points about as well as I can, so I won't waste time on most of them. I can't prove to you that we'll get more money or respect by having a central voice, but I believe it's true. Instead of having a central voice now, we have 2 private for-profit mooching off of the "lower levels" while the "elites" of ACF often don't seem to care about the rest of the game. When people don't agree, they just go their separate ways. The truth is that we have serious issues facing the promotion of the game when it comes to CBI and NAQT. Die-hard ACFers may think it doesn't affect them, but it will. CBI and NAQT now serve as primary feeders to ACF, and a central unified organization would allow ACF-style play to tap a wider player base by fixing problems with the way CBI and NAQT are organized. One problem with CBI and NAQT is inherent in selling questions for profit: it's hard to motivate players to write for themselves when their school gives them $1000 a year to play somebody else's questions. Without writing, they learn less. Without the extra knowledge, ACF is too obscure for them to try to reach. The second problem is PR. Because of the decentralization, we don't command the respect that would make colleges more willing to help us recruit players. We also don't have organized help in finding the proper ways to promote and fund our programs. Would a central organization solve these problems? Not necessarily, but it could. There are other problems it could address as well. It doesn't have to endorse a particular format and open that can of worms. It could work within the existing framework or adopt a dual format approach (ACF and an NAQT-esque packet-shared format). The more I follow quiz bowl happenings, the more I view it as chaotic oligarchy. I think it's time for something democratic to promote the greater good. We can lazily stick with our current system, enjoy ourselves, and have few people to come after us, or we can centralize and promote our game for more people to enjoy. I say we promote it. Roger Whitehead Clemson Quiz Bowl co-chairman, speaking only for myself
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