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Growing Speedcubing and making it more Spectator Friendly

Should speedcubing be a sport?


  • Total voters
    86

gsingh

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I made a thread about this on the WCA forum, decided to also post it here.

The speedcubing community generally seems to disagree with the idea of speedcubing being more like a traditional sport.
I think it’s a great idea though, growing speedcubing will always be a good thing.
However, there are a lot of things that need to be done before this.
The main thing that needs to be done is to make it be spectator friendly. Competitions as they are now are not. My idea is making a couple of types of competitions. There doesn’t have to be only one official type; multiple of these could be official, just different versions of competitions.

My ideas:

  1. A Public Competition: This is just a standard WCA comp, where you have rounds. In the first round, anyone can compete. Top x qualify for Round 2, and top x qualify for finals (unless the comp has more rounds). Finals should be head to head and live-streamed for most events, like 2-7, as well as 3Bld, Pyra, Mega, Skewb, Clock, Sq-1, and OH. The problem is that finals might take too long, but there is a simple solution: just have less people qualify for finals. For example, instead having the top 16 make finals for 7x7, just take the top 4, or 6. (Unless you have enough time.)
    Because this keeps comps open to the public and not only for the elite solvers, I think this is an idea that would be fairly popular, and it is already happening in some places. (Most comps that I go to, in the Bay Area, California, are live-streamed and have head to head finals. They do only have head to head finals for 3x3 though.)
  2. Nation vs. Nation: This is just a country, making a team of the best cubers in the country, competing against another country, head to head, in a relay. This could be only 3x3, like the Nations Cup, or have different competitors solving different types cubes/puzzles. This has proven to be something that is very spectator friendly, as the Nations Cup has generally been really exiting to watch when it has taken place at major comps.
  3. Cuber vs. Cuber: This would be like the monkey league. Cubers who qualify will compete head to head against each other to find the league champion. I’m not going to explain the format now, read it here.
I think this could work. It wouldn’t be hard to implement this, it would greatly benefit cubing, and increase the chances of it being accepted into the Olympics (go read that thread on the WCA forum here)
What do you guys think?
 
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if speedcubing is a sport then it can be a full time job for cubers which i think is great. especially since if it is considered a sport it will be more recognized and then more people will want to learn how to solve or solve faster, cubing "coaches" can make a living off it and it will also be a fun job

i would be so happy if cubing is in the olympics
 

Thom S.

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If cubing becomes a sport, money and sponsorships(not like currently) will be involved heavily. Bigger competitions will likely be plastered with ads.

I've always been vocal about the idea of making cubing more spectator friendly. Cubing is about one person holding one cube for a short amount of time. Many events aren't even formatted for this. For 2x2, times are so fast, a broadcast of the solve or reading the individual times makes no difference in emotions. For 7x7, spectators aren't going to look at a 10 min solve. Keep broadcasting and large amounts of spectators out, it only increases nerves.
 

Garf

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If speedcubing became a sport, then that'll give me a reason to practice it more.
I would be able to start a club and actually get the support I needed to improve and help others improve.
Also, as Thomas said, sponsorships would be big. Cubing companies would have to be coming out with new cubes all the time. Moyu still haven't released the WRM 2022 yet. Probably won't be until a little while. Imagine having to be able to come up with new ideas all the time. Puzzles would be probably cheap in quality to make sure they are getting produced fast enough, then better performing puzzles will start to trickle in.
 

BenChristman1

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Chess is not a sport. Speedcubing is not and will never be a sport. The definition of a sport in my mind includes these 3 qualifications:

- Strenuous physical activity (can be measured by increased heart rate, body fatigue, etc.)
- Competitive atmosphere (everyone is trying to be the best)
- Objective scoring system (points, time, etc, SUBJECTIVE JUDGING DOES NOT COUNT! I could get into a whole rant about how dance and gymnastics are not sports because of this, but I won’t do that now.)

The thing that both chess and cubing are missing is that they are not a physical activity. You can argue that “no, it works your fingers, and my fingers feel tired after a comp,” but I’m sorry, that’s not good enough. You could go as far to say that cubing does not include a competitive atmosphere because of how supportive we are of each other, but I don’t think I’d go that far.

That being said, cubing is a great activity to grow, both in competitors and spectators. Certain events can be very friendly to spectators, such as 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, and 3BLD.

Of course, this post is just my opinion, and by the looks of the poll at the moment, more people will disagree with me than those that will.
 

Thom S.

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Chess isn't a sport. Almost nobody thinks it's a sport.

It's a mind sport. It strains your cognitive thinking abilities.
You can't sprint for an hour straight because you are physically exhausted.
You can't play chess for hours on end and keep your edge because you are mentally exhausted.
 

LBr

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As somebody who in the past has played football and currently does long distance running and casual tennis, cubing is very different as it doesn’t work your lungs or heart, I also agree with Thom’s point about the ads, to me it’s a fun hobby and nothing more
 

gsingh

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Chess is not a sport. Speedcubing is not and will never be a sport.
1660052552324.png
its a sport :cool:
As somebody who in the past has played football and currently does long distance running and casual tennis, cubing is very different as it doesn’t work your lungs or heart, I also agree with Thom’s point about the ads, to me it’s a fun hobby and nothing more
Being serious, it's a fun hobby for people now, and it will remain that way if you aren't the best, where if you are, it will become your job. I think that speedcubing growing and top cubers getting paid is the best thing that can happen to speedcubing. If top cubers are paid, it gives them more practice time, because they don't have to get a job, and thus won't slide down the rankings like Feliks did. And like @Kaedenthecuber said, more people will want to get faster, where speedcubing "coaches" come in. And if cubing keeps on growing like it is, we will get there eventually. Why not sooner.
Money will be involved in elite speedcubing in the future, and I can't see how that is a bad thing.
 

LBr

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View attachment 20310
its a sport :cool:

Being serious, it's a fun hobby for people now, and it will remain that way if you aren't the best, where if you are, it will become your job. I think that speedcubing growing and top cubers getting paid is the best thing that can happen to speedcubing. If top cubers are paid, it gives them more practice time, because they don't have to get a job, and thus won't slide down the rankings like Feliks did. And like @Kaedenthecuber said, more people will want to get faster, where speedcubing "coaches" come in. And if cubing keeps on growing like it is, we will get there eventually. Why not sooner.
Money will be involved in elite speedcubing in the future, and I can't see how that is a bad thing.
Although not every community is perfect, I think that cubing is generally more chill, even at the top levels people are friendly and people like feliks or drew brads just need to get on with their life and their achievements will always be with them, but putting too much money into cubing would remove that, and the competitive aspect may be driven to an unhealthy level
 

Thom S.

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Please don't call me Tom.
Please get help.

If top cubers are paid, it gives them more practice time, because they don't have to get a job, and thus won't slide down the rankings like Feliks did.
I think this is getting forgotten very quickly because I have seen 2 posts get it wrong last week, but Feliks was the first cuber to get a paid sponsorship. He got paid to promote Moyu, got paid expenses for Traveling to major comps and got paid for world records set using their cubes.

You have to remember, in 2017 when Max really hit the scene, Feliks has had WRs for 8 years. At some point, it's fair to assume he got tired from practicing for hours on end and wanted to persue a different carrer.


Let's imagine professional cubers.
You can always fall down the ranks because of a kid who started young and lose your job.
You can always get permanent damage on your hands and fingers and nobody will give you insurance because those surgeries have a high failure rate(I, for example, have had 2 permanent damages - one regarding my Slice hand and one regarding my U' Finger - before I hit 18 and I surely am not the only person in the world to get hurt) which can end your job within a moment with no invalid insurance either because insurance companies can just decide who and what to say yes to.
You get naturally older, keep old habits and your fingers may lose their springyness.

All this is just a bad scenario, right? Well, what jobs can you get if your whole work experience is being a cuber? What references do you have?


But again, continously bigger amounts of money will do the cubing community only bad. You can see it all the time. Keep money out.
 

Mattecuber

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I made a thread about this on the WCA forum, decided to also post it here.

The speedcubing community generally seems to disagree with the idea of speedcubing as a sport.
I think it’s a great idea though, growing speedcubing will always (ok, maybe not always, but most of the time anyway) be a good thing.
However, there are a lot of things that need to be done before this.
The main thing that needs to be done is to make it be spectator friendly. Competitions as they are now are not. My idea is making a couple of types of competitions. There doesn’t have to be only one official type; multiple of these could be official, just different versions of competitions.

My ideas:

  1. A Public Competition: This is just a standard WCA comp, where you have rounds. In the first round, anyone can compete. Top x qualify for Round 2, and top x qualify for finals (unless the comp has more rounds). Finals should be head to head and live-streamed for most events, like 2-7, as well as 3Bld, Pyra, Mega, Skewb, Clock, Sq-1, and OH. The problem is that finals might take too long, but there is a simple solution: just have less people qualify for finals. For example, instead having the top 16 make finals for 7x7, just take the top 4, or 6. (Unless you have enough time.)
    Because this keeps comps open to the public and not only for the elite solvers, I think this is an idea that would be fairly popular, and it is already happening in some places. (Most comps that I go to, in the Bay Area, California, are live-streamed and have head to head finals. They do only have head to head finals for 3x3 though.)
  2. Nation vs. Nation: This is just a country, making a team of the best cubers in the country, competing against another country, head to head, in a relay. This could be only 3x3, like the Nations Cup, or have different competitors solving different types cubes/puzzles. This has proven to be something that is very spectator friendly, as the Nations Cup has generally been really exiting to watch when it has taken place at major comps.
  3. Cuber vs. Cuber: This would be like the monkey league. Cubers who qualify will compete head to head against each other to find the league champion. I’m not going to explain the format now, read it here.
I think this could work. It wouldn’t be hard to implement this, it would greatly benefit cubing, and increase the chances of it being accepted into the Olympics (go read that thread on the WCA forum here)
What do you guys think?
Its a Great idea. One thing that would be cool Is to make qualifiers all over the world and the best 3 or 5 cubers of each country Will Be competing as a team in like Continental championship and the top like 10 countries of each continent Will compete in the world championship. What do you think?
 

LBr

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Please don't call me Tom.
Please get help.


I think this is getting forgotten very quickly because I have seen 2 posts get it wrong last week, but Feliks was the first cuber to get a paid sponsorship. He got paid to promote Moyu, got paid expenses for Traveling to major comps and got paid for world records set using their cubes.

You have to remember, in 2017 when Max really hit the scene, Feliks has had WRs for 8 years. At some point, it's fair to assume he got tired from practicing for hours on end and wanted to persue a different carrer.


Let's imagine professional cubers.
You can always fall down the ranks because of a kid who started young and lose your job.
You can always get permanent damage on your hands and fingers and nobody will give you insurance because those surgeries have a high failure rate(I, for example, have had 2 permanent damages - one regarding my Slice hand and one regarding my U' Finger - before I hit 18 and I surely am not the only person in the world to get hurt) which can end your job within a moment with no invalid insurance either because insurance companies can just decide who and what to say yes to.
You get naturally older, keep old habits and your fingers may lose their springyness.

All this is just a bad scenario, right? Well, what jobs can you get if your whole work experience is being a cuber? What references do you have?


But again, continously bigger amounts of money will do the cubing community only bad. You can see it all the time. Keep money out.
What permanent damage and how did you sustain it?
Yh my U’ knuckle (left hand index) kinda feels weak but should go away and heal stronger
 
Last edited:

Thom S.

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What permanent damage and how did you sustain it?
Age 13, guy in PE shoots me with a 1 Meter ball, I recoil about 2 Meters against the wall in the air, fall down, break my right hand.
Docors didn't order an X-Ray when my cast came off so we didn't know for 2 years that a knuckle inside my wrist has shattered. There is no surgery for this, turning my wrist is painful.
Ironically I only did Sq1 from 2017 to 2021, so I kind of made the pain better by doing too many solves in a day.

Age 17, sharpened a scythe because I couldn't mow around the field borders as exact back then, slashed through the second knuckle on my left pointer finger. Back then we restorated a local restaurant. Was really weird to hold the sanding block. I now hear a crack if I use my left pointer too much.

I shared too much about me, probably gonna have to start a new account now.
 
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