I am the elementary (IQ) coordinator for a county in WV. I have a question concerning the use of League play in the IQ format. Now it can very well be that I am not understanding this correctly; so at the very least I am hoping to gain clarification. It is my understanding that after an arbitrary amount of time (2 or 3 months) of having qualification matches that a finals ranking will be set up for a championship tournament. The problem with this in the IQ platform is that obviously there is not currently a tournament platform for the finals matches (Which I am understand the reasoning behind not doing in a traditional IQ Challenge Tournament). Which would make for a VERY short championship tournament. So with this, my questions then is, would it not make sense to introduce some type of elimination bracket for just the IQ finals for league play? I would suggest setting it up just like the Olympics. Have the qualification matches set up the final alliances just as they currently are. However, at the finals tournament, those set alliances give it their best shot in 4 matches (That way everyone is guaranteed at least 4 matches when they show up for the Championship tournament and not just a One and Done Concept), after which time only the top 3 alliances make it to the finals round where each alliance has 2 opportunities to gain the highest single match score (which will decide the final results). Now, I understand that this will require updating the Tournament Software to allow this type of set up, but I believe it is the best way to make the league set up attractive for more districts/counties/schools to use. What does everyone else think.
In our VRC league we run the last qualifier rounds on the same day as the finals. They don’t have to be run on different days so you could do this in IQ as well.