Championship Hybrid Model?

[davenowa]

Perhaps this has been proposed before (I failed in my search of this board), but perhaps a hybrid of a dual meet championship and the individually bracketed tournament could work?  Maintain current format for the individually bracketed event, and assign simple ordinal value for placement of teams  (1=first, 2=2nd etc). Implement a dual meet championship with top 12 ranked teams (some conference representation), byes to top 4 seeds, 2-day event (mid-size venue, maybe even mid-week to focus on TV/stream market and not battle hoops etc)  Traditional bracket to determine champ, but add additional matches to determine places 3-12, with losers in R16 getting 2 more matches to place 9-12, losers of quarters getting 2 more to determine 5-8 and semi losers meeting for 3rd.  Each team then has an ordinal placement 1-12. Overall NCAA champion determined by lowest combined ordinal score of the 2 events.  Would need to decide which event is the tie-breaker (if Team A wins duals and is 2nd in brax, while Team B is 2nd in duals and wins indiv brax...or even the 1-2-3/3-2-1 "3-way tie with 4 points").  Only other request would be to invoke margin of victory scoring for duals to eliminate the dreaded dual meet tiebreaker. 

[CHROMEBIRD]

Would that essentially be Nationals limited to just 12 teams? No thanks..

[JVStateChamp]

What would the positive be to this hybrid model? It seems if we try to combine the dual and individual into a hybrid model we're eliminating the opportunity for any mid-major school. It seems every idea or change that is being made to enhance the sport is actually moving towards taking away more programs.

[DJT]

I think the way to go would to rethink the whole schedule for the season.
 

November-December Open Tournaments/ Invitationals/ Duals

This would be a “wrestle at your own pace” sort of time, where the only concern would be getting ready to peak for the individual championships (and pass finals, I suppose). There might be some ducking/ no-shows in duals, but that’s par for course with the whole season right now.

2nd Week of January Individual Qualifying Tournaments 

I’d say have regional qualifiers for NCAA tournament instead of the awkward conference allocations. Of course we still want conference championships, which would fit in with the first “phase” of the season in December.

Last Week of January NCAA Individual Championship Tournament

Not much going on for sports outside of NFL playoffs… would help with drawing some TV viewership. With a bit less of a grind leading up to the tournament, wrestlers won’t be so beat up/ worn down and could perform at a higher level. Yeah, it’s in the middle of winter, so let’s hope for some Orlando, Dallas, Phoenix bids for the tournament .

February Dual Meets

This is a tough time to get fans in the seats with HS states series, especially when you drive 3-4 hours on a Sunday just to see a backup wrestle instead of an All-American. With the individual championships done, there will be less ducking, and more of a chance to see some bumping around for “super matches”. Wrestlers would have current “credentials” to promote duals… and might see some revenge matches from the tournament. 

March NCAA Team Championship Tournament (Duals) - Every team in 64-team bracket w/ pigtails.

-> Week 1 - Elimination Round (Pig Tail/ Round of 64) Hosted at higher seed (32 locations)

-> Week 2 - Regionals (Round of 32 and 16) Hosted at eight sites, whether high seed or predetermined. 

-> Week 4 - NCAA Team Championships “Elite 8” (Quarters/ Semis/ Finals) Hosted at predetermined site over 2 days.

Let’s crown a true team champion in a competition that’s marketable to someone who doesn’t want to spend 30 hours over three days watching eight matches going on at once. I don’t give two shits about women’s hockey, but I still watched the Badgers women’s championship game… if I happen to flip to a track and field meet, if a Wisconsin athlete is on at that moment, I might watch it until they’re done then move on because I don’t care about random people running in circles. I’m assuming there are a lot of people out there with similar sensibilities when it comes to “their team” regardless of the sport.

Obviously, there are some flaws/ potential gripes to this. I’m sure I could add another 5000 words of details and/or tidying it up better, but I’ll leave it at this for discussion’s sake.