Is there any kind of minimums to the State Championship / number in state evnets?
say an dive bar with pins run 1 event and then they end hosting the State Championship??
Can happen in say PR that is USA or maybe Alaska or HI
How ready is your system for say 51 states or even 52 1 new state + DC?
Can us base military host an event or will the rules about excluding people void that and even if say an overseas base has an open day and they run an event by law that is US land.
Minimum 2 events in a state.
Don’t worry about the details Joe . . . we got it covered 
Minimum 2 events in a state. Is that only thing with no min players per event or even min number of games at finals and say only 1-2 people turn up for state finals.
say I have bar with pinball in AK or HI with an monthly ($1 per player marketing fee!) and the only real people who show each time are locals + maybe the pinhead in the area from out of sate. It may be an route for some with pins in an place like AK or HI to get an easy way into North American Pinball Championship. And can just be come with pins there homes as well.
I think they may need to be on site but I think there should be some minimum game standard for the State Championship
IT’s cool that DC has places with good pinball but I was thinking that was likely to have an State Championship in an drive bar with sub par games that people from nearby states can flood in.
As for HI that is an places where locals have an big advantage with just monthly or even an State Championship in place where not all will really want to Interisland to get to.
Just thinking about stuff that may be an small thing now but If pinball where to get bigger be nice to talk about now vs as it’s happening live.
I guess you can think about the SCS like the US Senate, where every state gets equal representation no matter what its size
Maybe but then states with zero events should be able to have an open to all SCS final if filed in the 30 day window. If some can run it localy with $0 pay out from pool and $0 ifpa fee.
Down road I think some state lines should become metro areas or maybe let TD’s indent there event as part of X state if they are near an state line in an area that is metro to an city / area that is in a differnt sate.
later maybe stuff like the 3 / 6 californias
Or maybe it’s fine as it is.
Joe can discuss what he’d like to discuss, not need to be dismissive and rude.
Events like the Nationals were never about “fairness”, they’re about opportunity. Dozens if not hundreds of contests in many fields take one person from each state. No, it’s not “fair” to the #2 person in CA, TX, FL or NY that they were omitted from the “finals” while the winners of WY, DE, VT and AK are, given that they probably rank higher on an absolute scale most of the time. [That’s why the IFPA also takes the next highest-ranked players who aren’t #1 or #2 in their country.] But if these contests were done solely on population, some of the smaller states might never get anyone in at all. And if the primary goal is to crown a “National” (or North American) champion, rather than to worry about how properly placed the remaining players are, then it’s not an issue, since those #2s and below can be considered eliminated when they fail to win their states.
If you said this out loud to a person who was being explained “competition” pinball for the first time, would you expect them to take it seriously after that? If someone told me “competitive bocce ball isnt about fairness” I would think they shouldnt even bother calling it competitive bocce ball at that point.
I think part of what @BMU is getting at is that State Championship Series and the path to Nationals is conceived of as a mechanism to motivate more IFPA participation overall. Giving players something in addition to overall rank to focus on/compete for, including a chance to represent their state in Nationals, has demonstrably increased participation. I think of it as similar to the World Cup, where teams representing countries with less soccer infrastructure aren’t necessarily likely to win but are included, in part to celebrate the global nature of soccer and offer the opportunity for players from many countries to compete. There are obviously states where it is harder/easier to qualify, and one can’t necessarily help where one lives (or in my world cup example, one’s nationality and eligibility for different national teams), but that’s why NACS is only one major pinball event. There are plenty of “open” tournaments where everyone is able to test their skill against all opponents, but the SCS/NACS has a specific purpose that is slightly different.
Exactly. The key word we both used: “opportunity.” Most other events let the flips fall where they may; this one uses “even the small markets have a shot” to increase action in small markets. Bigger markets don’t need as much motivation.
Maybe something like the Electoral college. smaller sates get some and bigger ones get more.
Like the US system state / country lines are poor for the real drivers of the areas.
While the US system may not flex that easy. If the local players / td’s are willing I may want to see some non sate line metro area grouping. Even if it’s just at the TD’s choice I can say I want to be listed as in X state that is part of my local area and not the in state metro area that is 100’s of miles away.
Also maybe something differnt for TX / CA like area splits.
An other idea can be based of the ideas of things like
New York city / new york 5 boroughs + long island as it’s own state
Chicago / Chicago land / cook county as it’s own state.
as cut lines for IFPA
Would be a bit like that each state can only have 1 NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB team as in market and even if you are 15 min drive across the line to the stadium no you are out market but the stadium that is an 4+ hour drive is the in market one. Also big places with the pop level to handle it can’t even have 2 MLB teams in the same city.
We talk about this every year and Josh won’t budge.
While I’m here, here’s my yearly plea to implement a 5 tournament minimum to qualify in any state! 
That may be an bit much Other then maybe 5 event minimum (state wide) to have an state at all.
At least maybe have flex on some of the other things or at least plan if say some city’s do become the 51’th state.
The difference is in the world cup there are different numbers of spots for teams from certain continents. For example, Europe has many strong teams so it receives more spots in the world cup than africa or asia does. It would be ridiculous to only include 1 team from each of the continents. Similarly, it makes sense for nationals to have more spots for higher populated states with more unique players and tournaments
I doubt that will happen unless the IFPA is willing to significantly enlarge the field for the Nationals. They’ve wanted to keep it a “manageable” size thus far. It’s up to them to decide how large is too large; they didn’t want a bigger field for Pinmasters until this year. If there is any major expansion, I’m sure how it is structured it will be heavily discussed first.
Every state with 800+ players sends two players to NACS.
NACS should only take 44 players. Starting with the supers. The other states that do not send a representative keep the prize money all in SCS.
Why would you want to exclude some winners from taking part in Nationals? Seems like it’s been an exciting opportunity for some of the smaller state / province winners to travel for their first big destination event.
Louisville Arcade Expo still accounting for all the Kentucky qualifiers? 