Division 1 Men’s College Gymnastics in the USA continues to decline. One day there may only be College clubs. 😕
To improve the situation the Men’s College Gymnastics Association are considering some changes:
- do we make our scoring more understandable?
- How do we make our competitions easier to follow?
- How can we make our product more attractive for television?
- How do we increase parity and competitiveness within our competitions?
Proposal: Use a 10.0 conversion system in conjunction with the open ended scoring system
Straw Vote: 21 in favor; 4 against; 11 abstentions.
Some of the top coaches are strongly against.
If a gymnast scored 14.00 FIG they would flash a 9.75.
Personally, I think it’s worth a try.
Spencer and @papaliukin point out that a BETTER change would be for Men’s teams to provide good, consistent scoring, University media coverage and online video. Â
Since the Men are already posting competition videos after the fact on Road to Nationals, I’d like to see them increasingly use that site for LIVE coverage. LIVE scoring, etc.
There’s much more under consideration. Click through for Details.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 
The last thing I pay attention to at meets is the scores … It’s about marketing the sport and making it more visible. It is so hard to watch men’s gymnastics if you cannot go to the meet itself. Unless you purchase a number of online streaming services, then you can never watch any of the meets. People don’t watch it in part because it is so hard to find meets online or to stream the meets! The teams should create fan portals with interviews with the gymnasts (voluntary participation only of course). Learn more about their lives as young college athletes – one guy works part-time, cross-trains, is on the debate team, has a hobby for painting, who knows? More media, make it personal, market their accomplishments, and make it easier to watch meets. This scoring conversion thing doesn’t make it more interesting or easier to follow. Usually at men’s meets in the U.S. you’re in the equivalent of a training gym (which I actually love so I can be right there close to vault – the power on that event is just super-human), so the score board is usually hard to see/follow. That is personally fine by me, but the argument that this will increase interest in the sport is untenable. Take ASU as an example: the women compete in a very nice stadium with comfortable seats and you can see all the apparatus while the men compete in a training hall in one of the ASU sport facilities (like where regular people go to do cardio or to play racquetball) with very uncomfortable seating with bad views of the apparatus). It’s not like the meets are at the same time and compete for space or that there are too few people who go to the ASU men’s meets (it’s packed in that small facility). This sort of disregard or disparity at the NCAA between sports or men’s vs. women’s versions of the sports is part of the problem. Now, it happens less with men’s teams than women’s (think softball and baseball), but in the case of gymnastics, it is the men’s teams that can barely get the light of day. I do not want women’s teams to suffer at all to raise men’s gymnastics up … those teams have fought hard to be recognized at the university level for spots in good stadiums, scholarships, pay for the coaches, and overall respect for their tremendous women athletes).
I just can’t see people coming in droves now once the word spreads that the “10” is back … I don’t know anyone who has abandoned interest in the sport because they felt they could understand 9.2 more than 13.5. The real problem that gymnastics faces – at least in the U.S. – is the long-time perception that this is a woman’s sport, therefore any men who do it are less manly. The conversation in the U.S. is changing now regarding gender and the definition of masculinity, but that will be a gradual, generational change not likely to help the sport anytime soon. The answer isn’t to encourage that sort of masculinity either by playing up the idea that these are burly men’s men … less of that please. More marketing of the sport as something that appeals to kids (that ninja stuff) or to parents as a great option for physical fitness may do better for the sport than some score conversion system. The USOC needs to support sports that are not winning medals in droves, not just those that are (like women’s gymnastics) – some support in marketing could really help – focus on the mental and physical benefits of gymnastics for boys (and girls), programs to get kids in fitness programs at local gyms, maybe some financial support, partnerships with schools for after-school gyms, etc.
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Thanks Phillip. Let’s hope for the best next season.
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It didn’t work before. Why bother with it again?
The vast majority of the men’s NCAA teams that were lost were lost during the era of the 10.0
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And these will NOT be perfect 10s. It will be FIG 15 or over converted into the number 10.
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