What does the winner of worlds get?

[bigkat]

@JuanHubero

@PlasticWhip

@Studio42

If Curling is televised, then why the heck can’t a yoyo contest? It’s certainly less boring and keeps moving.

Because ANYONE can play curling. For yoyoing, you actually need skill.

Anyone can play curling? Are you sure about that? Believe it or not, curling is actually a pretty expensive sport to get involved in. New curling stones cost about $450 each, and used ones will set you back $200-$300 easy. Oh, and you need 16 stones in order to play a game. So no, not just anyone can play.

Also, because curling doesn’t make sense to you, that doesn’t mean that there is no skill involved in the sport. There is a definite strategy to the game, and if you have ever sat down and watched it, it’s actually pretty entertaining.

I’ve never participated in curling, and I yoyo every day. But I would much rather watch Olympic curling than a World Yoyo contest. The way yoyo contests work right now really isn’t all that interesting to watch. It’s entertaining and fun to watch, but it doesn’t have the tension or drama of something like curling. I appreciate the difficulty of the tricks and especially the speed that they do them at…but I don’t find that style that entertaining.

@JuanHubero

If we want to see competitive yo-yoing on TV, then contest organizers need to stop using the same old played out format that they’ve been stuck on for years. Doing 1 minute prelims and 2-3 minute finals doesn’t make this sport more appealing to non-players. There is nothing about it that truly connects with the audience. Heck, even some yo-yo players find yo-yo contests to be boring.

Once contests are run under a more entertaining format, and are packaged in a way that will carry over well to a TV audience, acquiring big name non-industry sponsors will be a whole lot easier. We just need to make our sport more marketable before any of them will take a chance on it.

Here’s my idea for a more entertaining format. For the preliminaries, it’s kind of like a trick ladder. You have to do a set of tricks (maybe 10). But instead of them being from a defined list, you submit your own list ahead of time and they’re rated with a degree of difficulty. You do each trick one at a time and are given a score for how well you did the trick (or maybe you just have to land the trick to make judging easier) that is multiplied by the degree of difficulty. Add up the 10 scores and that’s your score for the preliminary round. If this was on tv, it would be interesting because they could actually describe the trick to the tv audience before the player did it, so that non-yoyoers could get a sense of what’s going on and how difficult the trick is to pull off. Kind of like when you watch ice skating and they let you know the difference between a triple axle and a triple lutz.

For the finals, if you wanted to keep the yoyo-ing-to-music-performance type competition, I would put the finalists into a bracket and have the players matched up head to head. If there was a 16 person bracket, then have one minute performances for the first 2 rounds, but then longer performances for the semis and finals. And to make it more entertaining, I would emphasize points for things other than speed and difficulty. For the preliminaries, speed and difficulty is all that matters. But for the finals, you need something extra.

I don’t know if this would work or not, but I think it would also be great if all the various styles were represented in a single competition, and if diversity were rewarded. For example, maybe in the preliminaries, you get bonus points if the tricks you submit tricks from 1A, 2A, 3A, etc., but no bonus points if all you have is 1A tricks. And maybe in the finals, the person with the higher seed gets to specify what style their head to head battle is going to be in.

Anyhow, just some ideas off the top of my head. I don’t know how hard they’d be to pull off in real life, but I’m pretty sure I would watch this over curling!

[Rika-chan]

@bigkat

@JuanHubero

@PlasticWhip

@Studio42

If Curling is televised, then why the heck can’t a yoyo contest? It’s certainly less boring and keeps moving.

Because ANYONE can play curling. For yoyoing, you actually need skill.

Anyone can play curling? Are you sure about that? Believe it or not, curling is actually a pretty expensive sport to get involved in. New curling stones cost about $450 each, and used ones will set you back $200-$300 easy. Oh, and you need 16 stones in order to play a game. So no, not just anyone can play.

Also, because curling doesn’t make sense to you, that doesn’t mean that there is no skill involved in the sport. There is a definite strategy to the game, and if you have ever sat down and watched it, it’s actually pretty entertaining.

I’ve never participated in curling, and I yoyo every day. But I would much rather watch Olympic curling than a World Yoyo contest. The way yoyo contests work right now really isn’t all that interesting to watch. It’s entertaining and fun to watch, but it doesn’t have the tension or drama of something like curling. I appreciate the difficulty of the tricks and especially the speed that they do them at…but I don’t find that style that entertaining.

@JuanHubero

If we want to see competitive yo-yoing on TV, then contest organizers need to stop using the same old played out format that they’ve been stuck on for years. Doing 1 minute prelims and 2-3 minute finals doesn’t make this sport more appealing to non-players. There is nothing about it that truly connects with the audience. Heck, even some yo-yo players find yo-yo contests to be boring.

Once contests are run under a more entertaining format, and are packaged in a way that will carry over well to a TV audience, acquiring big name non-industry sponsors will be a whole lot easier. We just need to make our sport more marketable before any of them will take a chance on it.

Here’s my idea for a more entertaining format. For the preliminaries, it’s kind of like a trick ladder. You have to do a set of tricks (maybe 10). But instead of them being from a defined list, you submit your own list ahead of time and they’re rated with a degree of difficulty. You do each trick one at a time and are given a score for how well you did the trick (or maybe you just have to land the trick to make judging easier) that is multiplied by the degree of difficulty. Add up the 10 scores and that’s your score for the preliminary round. If this was on tv, it would be interesting because they could actually describe the trick to the tv audience before the player did it, so that non-yoyoers could get a sense of what’s going on and how difficult the trick is to pull off. Kind of like when you watch ice skating and they let you know the difference between a triple axle and a triple lutz.

For the finals, if you wanted to keep the yoyo-ing-to-music-performance type competition, I would put the finalists into a bracket and have the players matched up head to head. If there was a 16 person bracket, then have one minute performances for the first 2 rounds, but then longer performances for the semis and finals. And to make it more entertaining, I would emphasize points for things other than speed and difficulty. For the preliminaries, speed and difficulty is all that matters. But for the finals, you need something extra.

I don’t know if this would work or not, but I think it would also be great if all the various styles were represented in a single competition, and if diversity were rewarded. For example, maybe in the preliminaries, you get bonus points if the tricks you submit tricks from 1A, 2A, 3A, etc., but no bonus points if all you have is 1A tricks. And maybe in the finals, the person with the higher seed gets to specify what style their head to head battle is going to be in.

Anyhow, just some ideas off the top of my head. I don’t know how hard they’d be to pull off in real life, but I’m pretty sure I would watch this over curling!

problem, trick ladder is already a devision. also, If you are going for 1a, WHY would you do 2a-5a tricks? or just "x"A??? I mean, seriously, that’s not very well thought out. Alsop, what you were describing was what is called open division, it happened at nationals, (i think) and from what i know, it failed. badly.

[bigkat]

@CarlG

problem, trick ladder is already a devision. also, If you are going for 1a, WHY would you do 2a-5a tricks? or just "x"A??? I mean, seriously, that’s not very well thought out. Alsop, what you were describing was what is called open division, it happened at nationals, (i think) and from what i know, it failed. badly.

Trick ladder division can still exist. It has a set of predefined tricks which differentiates it from the prelims that I described.

As for why you would do 2a-5a tricks? To reward diversity and create an all around champion. If I was watching a tv show about this, having an all around champion would be more appealing.

I’m guessing (just an assumption) that you like things how they are. The point I’m making is that if the Worlds Yoyo Contest in its current format isn’t that interesting to watch for me (someone who loves to yoyo), it’s certainly never going to beat out Olympic curling.

[Rika-chan]

@bigkat

@CarlG

problem, trick ladder is already a devision. also, If you are going for 1a, WHY would you do 2a-5a tricks? or just "x"A??? I mean, seriously, that’s not very well thought out. Alsop, what you were describing was what is called open division, it happened at nationals, (i think) and from what i know, it failed. badly.

Trick ladder division can still exist. It has a set of predefined tricks which differentiates it from the prelims that I described.

As for why you would do 2a-5a tricks? To reward diversity and create an all around champion. If I was watching a tv show about this, having an all around champion would be more appealing.

I’m guessing (just an assumption) that you like things how they are. The point I’m making is that if the Worlds Yoyo Contest in its current format isn’t that interesting to watch for me (someone who loves to yoyo), it’s certainly never going to beat out Olympic curling.

Well, I feel that an open division would be great, but 2a can have over 100 clicks a minute (or more, i know nothing bout 2a xD) So, how would you modify the points? some of us STINK at 2a. (meh)

[bigkat]

@CarlG

Well, I feel that an open division would be great, but 2a can have over 100 clicks a minute (or more, i know nothing bout 2a xD) So, how would you modify the points? some of us STINK at 2a. (meh)

For the preliminary rounds? My first guess is to have all tricks graded on a difficulty scale, say 0-10. Then you perform the trick and get graded on how well you did. Then this is multiplied by the degree of difficulty. Not sure how this would work out for 2A (I stink at it as well, so I’m not the most qualified to figure it out).

But maybe it wouldn’t be necessary to be skilled in each category. Maybe you can be rewarded for diversity, but if someone was completely dominant in one category, perhaps they would be able to overcome not getting any bonus points and still become champion. That might be interesting too.

[Rika-chan]

@bigkat

@CarlG

Well, I feel that an open division would be great, but 2a can have over 100 clicks a minute (or more, i know nothing bout 2a xD) So, how would you modify the points? some of us STINK at 2a. (meh)

For the preliminary rounds? My first guess is to have all tricks graded on a difficulty scale, say 0-10. Then you perform the trick and get graded on how well you did. Then this is multiplied by the degree of difficulty. Not sure how this would work out for 2A (I stink at it as well, so I’m not the most qualified to figure it out).

But maybe it wouldn’t be necessary to be skilled in each category. Maybe you can be rewarded for diversity, but if someone was completely dominant in one category, perhaps they would be able to overcome not getting any bonus points and still become champion. That might be interesting too.

Well, how do you judge difficulty? what if i think that spirit bomb is hard, but i han do a 4.5 hook? people are good atdifferent things. ladder escape might be hard to someone, but then iwasawa tower might be easier.

[bigkat]

@CarlG

@bigkat

@CarlG

Well, I feel that an open division would be great, but 2a can have over 100 clicks a minute (or more, i know nothing bout 2a xD) So, how would you modify the points? some of us STINK at 2a. (meh)

For the preliminary rounds? My first guess is to have all tricks graded on a difficulty scale, say 0-10. Then you perform the trick and get graded on how well you did. Then this is multiplied by the degree of difficulty. Not sure how this would work out for 2A (I stink at it as well, so I’m not the most qualified to figure it out).

But maybe it wouldn’t be necessary to be skilled in each category. Maybe you can be rewarded for diversity, but if someone was completely dominant in one category, perhaps they would be able to overcome not getting any bonus points and still become champion. That might be interesting too.

Well, how do you judge difficulty? what if i think that spirit bomb is hard, but i han do a 4.5 hook? people are good atdifferent things. ladder escape might be hard to someone, but then iwasawa tower might be easier.

You submit your tricks and a judge or panel of some kind decides. Similar to how different skills are rated differently for gymnastics or diving.