New Rules for American Royal Invitational Qualification

[Jorge]

Originally Posted by dmprantz

This thing is a mess with hidden agendas and subtext all over it. Unfortunately, it appears that the ones who are going to miss out are the organizers and the teams involved with those that have proclamations: The ones who care the most. I think the requirement for a state proclamation is silly, and I would not be upset if it went away, but I don't think that the KCBS trying to manipulate and force that to happen is the best approach.

Flame on....

dmp

Speaking solely for myself, and not representing KCBS or the board....

Have you done any analysis of what would happen if the proclamations were removed from the equation? Not just for KCBS events, but for IBCA, FBA, LSBS, etc.? The Jack and the AR have their criteria in place. 50 teams, 25 w/proclamation 2nd year plus, 15 w/proclamation first year. If you remove the proclamation requirement, how many qualifiers do you think you add?

How much real estate is available around Kemper, where every qualifier is invited and offered a free 20x20 space? What do you do to the Jack odds in the draw? Texas is already a difficult state for the draw. With few proclamations the 50 team limit is the biggest discriminating factor and there are still 70 plus qualifiers almost every year. If the door is open to 25 team contests I'd expect it to go well over 100+ annually.

Removing the requirement has a potential impact. I can't tell you if it would be good, or bad.

[dmprantz]

Gary, I think the point that was being made is that some IT solutions, such as the Sam's Club series registration app which didn't include season in the PK, were created by MMA.

dmp

[dmprantz]

Originally Posted by Jorge

Have you done any analysis of what would happen if the proclamations were removed from the equation?

I have not done that. I don't think it would affect The Jack too much because a barrel can hold a lot of bungs. As to the AR, you may be right, or not. Have you done that by chance? How many annual competitions do you think there are with >=25 teams and no proclamation? How many teams that win them would attend the ARI, considering that it obviously isn't a priority to them now?

My personal opinion (again) is that the proclamation serves little purpose. It is extra work and expense that organizers must incur to make things better for their teams. Maybe my position has flaws and I could be convinced otherwise. Speaking to you as a friend and a reasonable person though (not as a board member), even if the KCBS agrees with me, I don't think it's very appropriate for them to try to strong arm those two organizations to do what they want. and I'm siding against the KCBS for now out of principal.

dmp

[Jorge]

Speaking solely for myself, not representing KCBS or the board...

As I stated earlier, I can virtually guarantee the number of qualifiers in Texas would increase by 50%. Few contests here have a proclamation, so the 50 team cutoff is the determining factor. If you include 25-49 team contests the # of qualifiers will increase dramatically. Virtually every first year event would be added to the list as well. It's not hard to pull 15 teams the first year here.

I also disagree with your assessment of the Jack. While they may be able to handle adding teams to the draw the potential impact is to dramatically decrease the odds for qualifiers from multiple states. In states that have few contests, that all have proclamations there would be no change. I guess that would be one way for the Jack to become even more exclusive. It does improve the odds of winning 7 in a year though.

Cause and effect; bbq does not exist in a vacuum.

Originally Posted by dmprantz

I have not done that. I don't think it would affect The Jack too much because a barrel can hold a lot of bungs. As to the AR, you may be right, or not. Have you done that by chance? How many annual competitions do you think there are with >=25 teams and no proclamation? How many teams that win them would attend the ARI, considering that it obviously isn't a priority to them now?

My personal opinion (again) is that the proclamation serves little purpose. It is extra work and expense that organizers must incur to make things better for their teams. Maybe my position has flaws and I could be convinced otherwise. Speaking to you as a friend and a reasonable person though (not as a board member), even if the KCBS agrees with me, I don't think it's very appropriate for them to try to strong arm those two organizations to do what they want. and I'm siding against the KCBS for now out of principal.

dmp

[musicmanryann]

Originally Posted by Jorge

bbq does not exist in a vacuum.

Unless you sous vide your chicken.

[dmprantz]

As usual, you bring up very good points which revolve around Texas. Life would be easier if it was still a seperate country :) The other part of my argument though was that if teams cook non-state champ comps now, they likely don't care about the Jack or the Royal, or they already compete in other comps which are qualifiers too. In that case, while it might increase the candidate pool, by how much would it increase the attendee count?

dmp

[Jorge]

Originally Posted by dmprantz

As usual, you bring up very good points which revolve around Texas. Life would be easier if it was still a seperate country :) The other part of my argument though was that if teams cook non-state champ comps now, they likely don't care about the Jack or the Royal, or they already compete in other comps which are qualifiers too. In that case, while it might increase the candidate pool, by how much would it increase the attendee count?

dmp

Speaking solely for myself, not representing KCBS or the board....

facts not in evidence? I'm not going to speculate about motivation.

It's not just Texas. There would be a similar impact, in my opinion, in some other states that have a large # of contests.

I'm not saying a change would be good or bad, but I'd like to know what the potential impact was before trying to form an opinion.

Work calls, thanks for the brain candy!

[Jorge]

Originally Posted by musicmanryann

Unless you sous vide your chicken.

Reveo.....just saying;)

[Texana]

Originally Posted by The Giggler

....

The good news is once you have it, you have it. :)

No so in Texas. The promoter has to repetition every year to get the proclamation.

[dmprantz]

Originally Posted by Jorge

Speaking solely for myself, not representing KCBS or the board....

facts not in evidence? I'm not going to speculate about motivation.

Speaking to a friend, not a board member....

No facts, just my attempt at connecting the dots. On the thread I started regarding proclamations not too long ago, one of the things said was that the proclamations help people decide which competitions to attend. Those who are concerned about entry into the ARI or Jack will choose to attend competitions with proclamations over those without on the same, or even close weekends. That makes some sense to me as I tend to favour those comps which are qualifiers through both attendance and proclamations.

The logical converse to that is to say that those who currently attend competitions without proclamations are not (as) concerned with those events. Does it mean that no one who wins such an event would attend the invitationals if that requirement went away? No. On the other hand though, I seriously doubt that all, or even most, such winners would choose to attend the invitationals if the didn't care enough before to seek out invitational qualifiers. Just my guess though...

Yet another option is that the number of unique GCs would go down. If those who attend comps for invites compete in more to increase their odds, it might hurt those who don't care and already get grands. Just another consequence I hadn't previously considered.

dmp

[bover]

Originally Posted by Smoke Ring

KCBS HAS a proper contest tracking system. I know because we implemented it. They have all the tools they need to track qualifying contests and the GCs and generate the necessary reports. They have been doing it until now. We ARE an IT consulting service. MMA has nothing to do with the software that the office uses to manage membership, contests, CBJs, reps, classes, etc. MMA is responsible for kcbs.us. We have spent the past 8 years implementing and enhancing the software. We did the same for MBN. That's not an excuse.

My apologies. It was my understanding that MMA had a much bigger role in the software being used today.

[Funtimebbq]

Originally Posted by dmprantz

Apparently, the issue has been made even worse. Some competitions in California are unable to obtain these proclamations. This hurts the GCs of those competitions, and KCBS wants to do something about it to help them. Who says the KCBS doesn't look out for the West coast?

dmp

Hi,

About a year ago, CA had a huge budget crisis (still does) and Gov. Brown was not signing any proclaimations (of any kind) until the state assembly passed a balanced budget. It was one way for him to hold legislator's feet to the fire as many things were not getting signed.
Someone in the Gov's. office contacted Dawn at KCBS to ask what all these requests for proclaimations were for. When told about the requirements of the AR and JD, Gov. Brown signed a blanket proclaimation. This helped all the organizers in the state and all sanctioning bodies as it is not exclusive to KCBS.
My opinion is, this will also make the Sam's contest in San Diego a qualifier as the proclaimation is good for all BBQ contests in CA, as long as it is sanctioned (in this case by KCBS). Although, getting the organizer to sign a form to that effect may be difficult if they are working directly for KCBS/MMA.

Benny

[SirPorkaLot]

From my (very) limited point of view. This is another case of the KCBS working to streamline their internal organization with little regards to teams

When I first started competing I immediately joined the KCBS and have kept my membership alive until this year.
This year I allowed it to expire and at this point I cannot come up with one single reason why I need to renew it

* I can still compete in KCBS contests (except Sams Club)
* I never even read the bullsheet when I did get it, but it worked well in the charcoal chimney.
* I will never compete enough to worry about the TOY.
* The politics have become a driving force, and instead of an organization dedicated to BBQ, it has become a wannabe Large sanctioning body (NASCAR comes to mind).

Yea. I wish everyone associated with the KCBS a lot of luck, and if things every go back to the original mission and the focus goes back to the teams I may rejoin.
I always try to support causes I believe in.

unfortunately, I no longer believe in the unwritten mission that seems to be driving the KCBS.

[Rich Parker]

I sent an email to the president asking for a national proclamation, so we can get rid of this rule. :beer:

[gmholler]

Originally Posted by Texana

No so in Texas. The promoter has to repetition every year to get the proclamation.

As I understand it, that's true everywhere, but there are two types of proclamations that can be issued. A concurrent proclamation can be issued, by the governor or state legislature, for a contest that is held on the same weekend every year, usually in conjunction with a yearly festival - you see a lot of this in TX. A Governor or state legislature can also issue a "regular" proclamation - this is intended for an event that happens only once, like a one-time fundraiser. The "whereas...therefore..." language of proclamations seems a bit stuffy to me, but I guess it's there to lend an air of credibility and legitimacy to the notion of BBQ competition.

Lynn H.