kentishgirl wrote:You quoted earlier that double december "will endeavour to keep people coming back to their local", however I dont think this will be the case. The only people interested in the points will be the people chasing the top 10/top 50 places in the state leaderboard and they know very well that in order to gain the maximal points, they will only play in venues with a large number of runners. Consequently, places like PGCC, para hills which have 100+ runners in every game will continue to attract more, leaving the smaller venues with only the dedicated few locals.
top 50 are not the only ones interested in points!!
i agree with carlos here, it will definitely keep players going back to the local.
lets dream up of a scenario - lets say you missed a week earlier in the season, and as a result, you are 17th at a venue. this is your only venue that you play regularly, but at this point in the season, you are a fair way off the top 5, say 50 points.
50 points is makeable, but hard to do, so there is not much motivation for that person to continue for the rest of the season now that states are out of the question.
but because of the double points, you now have a crack at the top 5 - good results are still needed of course, but at least these players have a chance to still qualify.
so the players that are say in the 8-20 region of the venue leaderboard, are the players that the double points is designed to help out, completely the opposite of what you have said IMO.
for the insane-gamers that go for the state top 50, this isn't really going to worry them. in the last 3 weeks of the season, they will play at least 30 games where double points are on offer - if they can't get some decent points out of this to keep their place on the leaderboard, then they dont deserve to be there.
so while i am not a massive fan about the double points, i can see why they are doing it, and as a business, you cant really knock them for their reasoning. i think the only thing that could have been done better was giving the players a bit more notice.
PS the dreamed up scenario above is the actual one i am in now!