Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Competttive Structuring

There are several different ways of structuring competition within most recreational sports programs. Three of the most common are leagues. tournaments, and meets. These modes of structuring take many forms, with league play popular in the domain of team sports, elimination tournaments used to a great extent after culmination of league play, and meets held to recognize the closure of a season or year of sports activity.

Various types of tournament competition have been employed extensively in recreational sports; descriptions of some competitive tournament structures will be included here.

The round robin tournament is probably one of the most widely used and one of the best types of competitive structures, because it allows for maximal play. It is frequently used in leagues, where it works best with no more than eight teams. Each team plays every other team at least once during the tournament Each team continues to play to the completion of the tournament, and the winner is the one who has the highest percentage, based on wins and losses at the end of scheduled play (Figure 4-2, A).

The single or straight elimination tournament is set up so that one defeat eliminates a player or team (Figure 4-2, B and C) This structure does not allow for maximal play the winners continue to play, but the losers drop out. A team or individual is automatically out when it or he or she loses. However, this is the most economical form of organization from the standpoint of time in determining the winning player or team. Usually a drawing for positions takes place, with provisions for seeding the better players or teams on the basis of past performance. Such seeding provides more intense competition as the tournament moves toward the finals. Under such a structure, byes are awarded in the first round of play whenever the number of entrants does not fall into units to the power of two (i.e., 2, 4, 8, 16. 32, 64, etc.). The number of byes is determined by subtracting the number of entrants from the next higher power of two. Figure 4-2, B has 13 entrants (16-13 = 3 byes). Although such a tournament is a time saver, it possesses a flaw because it does not adequately select the second and third-place winners. The second or third best player may meet the best player, and eventual winner, in the first round of play, which often dampens the enthusiasm for the remaining games or matches in the tournament. An-other weakness is that the majority of participants play only once or twice in the tournament.

The double elimination tournament does not have some of the weaknesses of the single elimination, because it is necessary for a team or individual to lose twice before being eliminated. This is also characteristic of various types of consolation elimination tournaments that permit the player or team to play more than once.

In some consolation tournaments all players who lose in the first round and those who, because they received a bye, did not lose until the second round get to play again to determine a consolation winner. In other similar tournaments any player or team who loses once, regardless of the round in which the loss occurs, is allowed to play again. There are also other tournaments, such as the Mueller-Anderson Playback, in which the competitors continue to play until all places of finish have been determined in the tournament (see Figure 4-3, C) and the Bagnall-Wild Elimination Tournament (Figure 4-3, D), which is a form of single elimination tournament that focuses on more accurately selecting the second- and third-place finishers. The theory is that it is possible for the second or third best player to be eliminated in an early round by the eventual winner. In the Bagnall-Wild, the players eliminated by each finalist participate in separate consolation tournaments.

The ladder tournament (Figure 4-3, E) adapts well to individual competition. Here the contestants arc arranged in ladder, or vertical, formation, with rankings established arbitrarily or on the basis of previous performance. Each contestant may challenge the one directly above or in some cases two above, and if he or she wins, the names change place on the ladder. When a contestant loses to a challenger from below, he or she may not immediately re challenge the winner, but must accept another challenge from below. This is a continuous type of tournament that does not eliminate any participants. However, it is not ideal, because it may drag and interest may wane.

The pyramid tournament is similar to the ladder variety (Figure 4-4). Here, instead of having one name on a rung or step, several names arc on the lower steps, gradually pyramiding to the top-ranking individual. A player may challenge anyone in the same horizontal row, and then the winner may challenge anyone in the row above.

The spider web tournament takes its name from the bracket design, which is the shape of a spider's web (Figure 4-5). The championship position is at the center of the web. The bracket consists of five (or any other selected number) lines drawn radially from the center, and the participants' names arc placed on concentric lines crossing these radial lines. Challenges may be made by persons on any concerntric line to any person on the next line closer to the center. A player must defeat someone on his or her own level after losing a challenge in the immediate inner tier of the web. This tournament provides more opportunity for competitive activity.

The type of tournament structure adopted should be the one deemed best for the unit, group, activity, or local interests. The goal should be maximal participation within facility and time constraints. Tournaments encourage participant interest and enthusiasm and are an important part of the recreational sport experience.

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