The Valley Mid-America Cup has made the decision to move fully online. We will continue to offer an octofinals bid to the TOC in the Lincoln Douglas division and semifinals bids in Public Forum and policy debate. 

We considered various options and while none was perfect, this option seems best.

First, we considered remaining fully in-person. That event would be very small — perhaps 25-30 entries in LD, and fewer in PF and CX. This would make for a poor quality competition, and would reduce or eliminate the awarding of TOC bids. This would also be catastrophic for our revenue, which we depend on to support our own students. We collected data and a huge majority of schools indicated preference for an online event. 

Second, we considered a hybrid event with shared divisions. While a hybrid pool would likely be larger, the “in person” group would still be small. Those teams would invest in travel expenses, only to get a largely online experience. While we are in favor of in-person debating, this would be an expensive disservice to those teams.

Third, we considered separate in-person and online fields. We are not confident that the in-person field would support TOC-level numbers, so this is not a workable option. We don’t want teams to commit resources to attend in person only to find that our bid levels are reduced or non-existent due to the size of the field.

Some important notes:

1) Events, rules, and TOC bid levels will be the same as in previous years. Our schedule will be similar to what it has been in the past -- Saturday = prelims, Sunday = prelims and early elims, and Monday = late elims. 

2) We have reduced our entry fees. This was originally in service of facilitating in-person travel, and now that we've moved online, we've left them lower, resisting our capitalist urge to jack the prices up as far as they could go. :) 

3) I have missed all of you, and look forward to seeing you in September and throughout the season.