I guess it all depends on what you value. Steve makes some good points regarding growing the interest with all levels of wrestlers, not just the top shelf guys who have wrestled since kindergarten. "fan" values a single tourney which allows the best of all classes compete at the same tournament.
At the end of the day, I suspect there will be resistance to collapse 4 tournaments down to one, which means going from 896 wrestlers (4 tourneys * 14 weights * 16 wrestlers) down to 224 (14 * 16). That's a big drop off in the number of wrestlers and families and coaches and managers and cheerleaders spending money on food and gas and lodging and t-shirts and tickets. We are talking a significant amount of dollars.
So you're you saying, we need class wrestling to stimulate the economy. Im sure the amount of food the cheereleaders are buying has a big effect on KS GDP. Counterpoint to this is the economically stressed and budget conscious schools now have to pay for extra hotel rooms, larger buses, more meals. KSHSAA has to pay to rent 3 facilities instead of 1. Maybe if you have one site and put a better product by attaining higher level of wrestling and create the big wrestling event for the community, you generate more interest and sell more t-shirts and tickets. Proabably a more profitable venture for everybody.
You could not be more wrong about my point. In no way did I say we need 4 tourneys to stimiulate the economy. Please read my post (slowly if you have to). I said there would be resistance. Either you didn't understand the simple point I was making, or I didn't make simple enough. So let me try again:
People (KSHSAA, chambers of commerce, politicians, etc...) will be resistant to the dip in revenue which would result from a consolidated tournament. To think otherwise would be having your head in the sand.
