Could this make for both fair and entertaining seedings?
September 26, 2024 by Guest Author in Opinion with 0 comments
This article was written by Thomas Owen. He is a Virginia-based coach of Vault, and played college ultimate at Virginia and club ultimate with Oakgrove Boys in his playing days.
Club ultimate discourse in recent years has frequently centered the following two concerns:
- How do we make a regular season meaningful and compelling – for both participants and spectators – when it seems to be effectively a formality for the 8-10 or so top teams in each division each season, and many of the marquee events or opportunities for high level local play are out of the reach of most teams?
- How should we seed the National Championships?
In 2023, two large changes were made. One introduced a new split Pro-Elite Challenge into East and West to offer more schedule flexibility and more opportunities for crossover amongst a wider pool of teams. The other introduced rankings-based pots (ranks 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16) and random draws amongst them for seeding the Nationals pools.
The former (so far) has proven mostly effective, particularly in increasing the crossover between regular Nationals attendees and teams on the periphery of championship event, although concerns persist about the meaning or importance that the top teams see and feel in the regular season.
The latter – in pursuit of some combination of entertainment value and acknowledgement of the imperfection of a ranking algorithm – was an overreach that left useful information on the table. While thinking about groups of four teams in a 16 team tournament with four pools each is sensible, the sharp cutoff in potential outcomes between a team 8th in the rankings ahead of the pool draw and 9th in the rankings ahead of the pool draw is dramatic. The 8th-ranked team could feasibly see a pool with the 4th, 12th, and 16th ranked teams in the country while the 9th could see their pool feature teams ranked 1st, 5th, and 13th.
There’s a better, much more entertaining, and plausibly (and importantly) a more accurate way to seed Nationals while also adding a ton of juice to key regular season and regionals games.
I outlined a version of this in 2022 in a mailbag question, which is refined and expanded upon here. This is not a unique idea to ultimate – we have seen it proposed and implemented elsewhere.
The Pool Draft Proposal
The basic premise – reward teams who do well in the regular season by allowing them to optimize their postseason through selecting who they play – offers a real prize to teams that have seen success and a means of avoiding some real issues (including NBA teams who lose games on purpose to secure what they perceive to be a more favorable postseason matchup).
Even though ultimate doesn’t (yet!) have a tanking problem, it does have a real problem of rewarding teams that perform well in the regular season and an even bigger problem of key games (namely, flagship events like US Open and Pro Champs) lacking tangible value and meaning.
It is also highly likely that the seeding produced by a draft would be comparable or even preferable to that produced by either of the two most recent methods used by USAU for Club Nationals – the algorithm + some small adjustments/tweaks on the margins used before 2023, and the pool draw system used starting in 2023. Teams would be incentivized to pick opponents that they stand the best chance of defeating, which in aggregate likely resembles a ranking of relative team strength.
And on top of that, a Nationals pool draft – broadcast live – would instantly become a top evening of ultimate entertainment and source of subsequent intrigue and discussion in the buildup to the Club Championships.
Let’s get to how this could all work.
The Draft Setup
Nationals qualification proceeds like it currently does – same auto bids + strength bids + rankings used to allocate them, same regional qualification process.
The Nationals format is structured with the same pool format and bracket, with the same quarters bracket placement for pool winners and same pre-quarters bracket placement for teams finishing second and third in their pools.
- Pool A – Seeds No.1, 8, 12, 13
- Pool B – Seeds No.2, 7, 11, 14
- Pool C – Seeds No.3, 6, 10, 15
- Pool D – Seeds No.4, 5, 9, 16
Selecting the Drafting Teams
I propose that the top four seeds would get to draft their pools. Qualification for a top four seed would be rewarded based on the following criteria, in order of importance:
Win the US Open or Pro Championships
Criteria 1: Nationals qualifier + one of either Champion (or highest finishing US team if the Champion is international) of US Open or Champion of Pro Championships
This could produce two teams, or one team if they finished accordingly at both events.
This instantly adds real teeth to the bracket and especially the final at these tournaments. Having the ability to shape your path at Nationals is a real carrot to motivate teams to emphasize winning at these events while not overreaching like awarding an auto-bid to Nationals (another common proposal) that could skew things like regional tournaments. Almost always, teams that win these events will be qualifying for Nationals anyways. Let’s reward them when they get there.
Win Your Region
Criteria 2: Highest remaining ranking regional champions
For the remaining two or three (or four, if neither of the top finishers at US Open or Pro Champs qualified for Nationals) top four seeds, we give them out to the next highest regional champions in the post-regionals rankings (the same point in time used to seed pools for nationals today).
Regional finals should mean something, and many times in multi-bid regions these games are played with low stakes. Adding the potential for a team to secure their path to a drafting position will similarly charge these games up with additional meaning.
Selection Order
I propose that we order these teams by their post-regionals ranking, as it is the most comprehensive evaluation of the quality of these team’s seasons.
To put even more reward on offer at US Open / Pro Champs, we could alternatively guarantee top drafting position to the team(s) that earned their draft spot through this manner, but the top-four guarantee is sufficient to start.
In 2024, that would give us:
- Women’s division – Fury (US Open Champ), Phoenix (Pro Champs Champ), Scandal, Brute Squad (highest ranked remaining regional champs)
- Mixed division – Hybrid (US Open Champ), shame. (Pro Champs Champ), BFG, Disco Club (highest ranked remaining regional champs)
- Men’s division – Truck Stop (US Open Champ), Johnny Bravo (Pro Champs Champ), Machine, DiG (highest ranked remaining regional champs)
The Draft Process
Logistics
We should hold this draft the week after the last regionals conclude (akin to how the pool draw is held today). This gives ample time for team / media preparation for Nationals afterwards.
To give teams time to prepare their strategy for the draft, the Thursday of that week (akin to how the pool draw in 2024 was timed) seems reasonable, presuming the drafting teams are finalized the Monday after the final regionals.
One captain from each drafting team shall participate in a livestream, hosted by whatever ultimate luminaries are deemed suitable. This draft show could easily be held in a two hour window with some buffer time for analysis in between the draft process for each division.
Drafting For Seed
For each division, there will be two sections of drafting – drafting seed and subsequent drafting of pools.
It is this first section – drafting seed – where the ordering for these four teams matters the most.
Drafting for seed establishes what pools each of the four seeds would be in, and then drafting pools will see those top four seeds fill in teams in those pools accordingly.
The team with the right to the first pick (the highest ranked drafting team in this proposal) has the pick of which pool – A, B, C, or D – that they want to be the top seed in.
For example, if the team picking first picks their place as pool D (seeds no.4, 5, 9, 16), that would give them the first pick in the subsequent draft of pools (as they would be selecting the team to go in as the no.16 seed amongst available teams). If the team picking second in drafting for place picks pool C (seeds no.3, 6, 9, 15), they would get the second pick in the subsequent draft of pools (picking for seed no.15). If a team picked to draft their place as pool A (seeds no.1, 8, 12, 13), they would not pick until the fourth and fifth selections in the pool draft.
This gives the team with the first pick the most control over their experience while preserving the relative structure of pool strength seen historically. If a team with the first pick deems that they would rather ensure they minimize the quality of the top end of teams in their pool, they could pick the traditional top spot in pool A and see at best the team the draft seeds at spot no.8 during pool play. If they deem there’s a real dip in quality after teams likely to be picked in the first three spots of no.16 through 14, the team with the first pick in order may choose to be the top seed in pool B (the traditional no.2 seed), leaving them guaranteed to pick at least one of those teams as their selection for seed no.14. We could see teams choose top spots in Pool C or Pool D with similar rationale.
An additional layer of strategy could correspond to setting oneself up for favorable potential bracket matchups. If you think Pool D is the least favorable position (such that the pool drafting team ordered fourth is likely to be stuck there) and they are the team you’d most like to see on your side of the bracket should they win their pool, then it may behoove the team with the first pick even more to pick their place as the 1 seed in pool A.
The rest of the draft for seed placement follows accordingly for the next drafting teams in order. After it has concluded with the top three ordered teams making their selections, we will have the no.1, 2, 3 and 4 seeds set.
Drafting the Pools
According to the allocation determined through the place draft, we proceed to drafting pools.
The team that resulted with the no.4 seed in Pool D would pick first, drafting a team to seed no.16. The team with the resulting number no.3 seed in Pool C would pick next, drafting from the remaining available teams to seed no.15. The team with the no.2 seed in Pool B, would pick next, drafting for seed no.14, and then the team in the no.1 seed position in Pool A would pick twice in a row for seeds no.13 and no.12. This process would play out in full.
After this, we’d have our pools. Again, the Nationals bracket that results from these pools would be unchanged – the winners of Pools A and D would be on the same side of the bracket, the winners of Pools B and C on the same side of the bracket, B2 playing C3 in a pre-quarter with the winner taking on the pool A winner – all of Nationals would proceed as usual from there.
We would have just had a really fun show of how we set up what teams were in what pools.
Potential Issues
The biggest potential issue from a fairness perspective with a pool draft is the possibility that a team that is deserving (here we deem “deserving” to be most closely approximated by the judgment of the rankings) of a relatively high seed through the quality of their play could be drafted to a pool in a seed much higher than the rankings suggest (e.g. the 6th ranked team overall being picked second to be in pool C at seed no.15 because the top seed in Pool C really thinks they have their number).
To ensure that in our pursuit of entertainment a more highly ranked team is not unduly lowly seeded as the result of a particularly overzealous drafting side, I propose we will add into the draft a single stipulation: a team cannot be drafted more than 7 spots above their pre-draft ranking amongst Nationals qualifiers.
For example: a team ranked 7th amongst Nationals qualifiers could be drafted as the no.14 seed, but not as no.15 or 16.
While it is highly unlikely that this would occur in practice if no restriction was placed, this would ensure that no team is picked way before the rankings would indicate they should be picked, helping to avoid a potential concern of a deserving team being slotted into a dramatically unfavorable position just because another team wanted them as an opponent. Giving a wide bar of margin does still allow for the drafting teams to make real adjustments vs. the rankings while avoiding the most dramatic potential differences that could be introduced.
There would not be an equivalent restriction in the opposite direction – if a team ranked 16th amongst Nationals qualifying teams is judged to be very good (perhaps they’re a particularly dangerous-seeming pickup team!), they can be drafted as late / seeded as high as the drafting teams deem they should.
There are no limitations or caveats for avoiding rematches or teams from the same region – we’ll let the draft decide where teams go.
