This message is for DDowell or someone at the office. When there is a shortage of teams in a division in a particular area of the country would ssusa consider bumping a few of the better teams up to balance the divisions? For example hypothetically, if in the Midwest states for 50 major they only have 2-3 teams registered each tournament in that surrounding area is there a particular time in the season SSUSA would consider bumping a few stronger 50 AAA teams that have done really well in that division up to make the 50 major division stronger in season for that age level? Thanks. Just curious how that works if there is a shortage on teams in an area.

Westersizzle,

I don't work for SSUSA and I'm sure Dave will be along to answer this better. I do believe there are midseason bumps made in certain circumstances but, 50AAA teams shouldn't be bumped up just to create more 50M teams at tournaments. Now, if that 50AAA team is running through everyone in the area then yes they should be considered to be bumped up to 50M but to do it just to create more teams isn't fair to that team. Plus we all know just because a 50AAA team is good at a few tourneys in the Midwest doesn't mean they are a legit 50M in other geographic areas where they might travel to play.

Sizzle ... We don't consider the number of teams in a given division for a specific tournament/season/area as an appropriate reason to move any other team ratings ... That stands on its own for every team ... I wouldn't want my signature block on an email that says, "..We moved your team from 50-AAA to 50-Major just because we need more 50-Major teams.." ... That wouldn't fly! ...

What I do in almost all tournaments is combine a couple of those divisions having the same (ideally) or close (within one) rating level to get a bigger group ... Using your 50-Major example, I would look to combine that group with another generally smaller group like 55-Major+ or even 40-AAA ... Second choice would be to add 50-AAA and/or 55-Major to the mix, with an equalizer in play ...

There is some rating based fine tuning that goes on almost all year, but we do the major re-rating efforts only twice, around the end of May and after the World's ... The ultimate goal is to have everyone in the appropriate rating division for the World's, where divisions are much larger ... Good luck! ...

Thanks Dave for the clarification. Was just curious how tournaments would go if a division was lacking teams. Thanks again