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You and your students are cordially invited to attend the 48th Newman Invitational, which will be held on December 11-13, 2026. We are excited to welcome you to our beautiful campus in New Orleans, LA. We provide a unique and diverse competitive experience. Join us this year for a wonderful celebration of 48 years of forensics excellence.

I. Registration Overview

A. Schools are capped at 8 entries per event. Additional entries will be put on a waitlist and will only be accepted if room permits.

B. Varsity debate events are capped at 84 entries, Novice debate events are capped at 60 entries, Speech events are capped at 60 entries, Congress is capped at 80 entries.

II. Events Overview

We are a qualifying tournament for University of Kentucky's National Tournament of Champions in all events they host. We are one of the few who can claim to be a TOC qualifier in literally every event that they offer (Policy, LD, PF, World Schools, Congress, and Speech).

New in 2026: We are ALSO a qualifying tournament for the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions in all relevant events. We are honored to be selected.

We offer:
6 preliminary rounds of debate in novice and varsity divisions of Policy, LD, and PF
6 preliminary rounds of World Schools Debate
2 preliminary sessions in Congress
4 preliminary rounds in all Speech events
Note: students will not be able to cross-enter debate and speech events. Speech competitors can enter up to 3 events within the speech category, but no triple entry within a pattern.

LD will debate the 2026 Nov/Dec NSDA Topic. This applies to BOTH Novice and Varsity divisions. The Newman Invitational does NOT use the NSDA Novice Topic.

PF will debate the 2026 Nov/Dec NSDA Topic

Policy will debate 2026-2027 NFHS Topic

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT WSD: We will permit hybrid teams (where team members do not attend the same school).

We will tabulate all events on tabroom.com. All postings will be available online and emails/browser notifications will be blasted. All contestants and judges must have a linked tabroom account. All judges must have devices to complete and submit electronic ballots.

Continuing in 2026
This year we will adjust the debate schedule so that the first full elimination round will be on Sunday morning. This means that ALL debate judges will be obligated for at least the first round on Sunday morning. Judges who miss this round on Sunday will be subject to a more significant fine than other missed obligations. We would ask you to make travel arrangements accordingly.

PF: PF will flip for sides and speaker order in all preliminary and elimination rounds [Essentially, we follow NSDA rules instead of NCFL rules for PF].

If you have any questions about the tournament, please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you,

Demarcus Powell
Tournament Director

Greg Malis and Alma Nicholson
Associate Tournament Directors