Sectional Championship Tournament Host Requirements

General

Sectional Championship Tournaments (SCTs) are typically held the first weekend in February. This page currently contains the information for the 2024 Sectional Championship Tournaments. Each SCT will be a one-day event on either Saturday or Sunday, February 3 or 4, 2024.

SCTs may be held in-person or online. NAQT expects that there will be some sites hosted in-person and others hosted online.

SCTs must use NAQT’s registration system for all teams in attendance.

Submit Hosting Bid

Rules and Format

SCTs must be run according to NAQT rules. Among other matters, they must be untimed with 11–tossup-bonus-cycle halves.

All teams must be guaranteed at least seven games. Tournaments must follow one of the approved formats or receive special approval from NAQT for a different format.

SCTs must use NAQT’s Collegiate Eligibility Rules; in particular, chimera teams and high school teams are not allowed to play (even as exhibition teams).

Divisions

NAQT will produce separate sets of Division I and Division II questions.

The two sets will share question content, with some questions in the Division II set being easier versions of a corresponding Division I question. In such cases, the two overlapping questions will appear in the corresponding packets (e.g., packet 4 of the Division I set and packet 4 of the Division II set). Tournament directors must be cognizant of this overlap and ensure that corresponding packets are used at the same time.

Each SCT must offer separate competitions for Division I and Division II teams if there are at least four teams in each division. If there are fewer than four teams in either division, the fields must be combined. NAQT may also work with hosts of online tournaments and attending teams to consolidate and thereby avoid combined fields. Combined fields will use the packet set appropriate to the division in which the majority of teams are registered; if the combined field contains an equal number of Division I and Division II teams, the Division II set will be used.

Each SCT will declare a Division I (Overall) champion, a Division I (Undergraduate) champion, and a Division II champion (in each case, assuming at least one eligible team participates). This is true even if there are insufficient teams to run separate divisions.

Results

Statistics must be reported to NAQT in accordance with its SCT reporting requirements.

We strongly prefer that SCT hosts use the NAQT paper scoresheet or NAQT electronic scoresheet. If a host wishes to use a different scorekeeping method, they must receive permission in advance from NAQT. Scoresheets must consist of a contemporaneous spreadsheet record of all relevant aspects of each game, including part-by-part bonus conversion. TJ Electronic Scoresheets is not an acceptable system.

Hosts may not make scoresheets publicly available, nor may they make publicly available any other results beyond those posted on NAQT’s website, without the express permission of NAQT. The same applies to making such data available to anyone besides NAQT and people who attended the SCT site.

Hosts must retain all scoresheets while results are being checked. After that (when NAQT so instructs), they must be sent to NAQT (by mail or electronically).

Fees and Finances

Each SCT site will be responsible for invoicing and collecting payment from schools that attend their tournament.

The SCT entry fee will be $160 for the first team from a school and $135 for each subsequent team. SCTs must offer these discounts:

Discount	Amount	Notes
Moderator	$40	Qualified team-provided moderators must be accepted up to two weeks before the tournament; after that, discounts are at the host’s discretion
New School	per team: $20	Teams from schools that neither attended nor hosted a Sectional Championship Tournament (two- or four-year), the Intercollegiate Championship Tournament, or the Community College Championship Tournament in 2022 or 2023
Buzzer System	$10	Only for in-person SCTs. At least one discount per team must be allowed. Hosts should require that systems be functional and may require that they satisfy NAQT’s buzzer discount policy.

Tournament directors may offer additional discounts for scorekeepers, statisticians, early registration, long drives, or anything else they feel will contribute to a quality event; if a given style of discount is not supported by NAQT’s registration system, check with NAQT before announcing it.

The cost of the questions (to be paid by the host to NAQT) is $50 for the first team from each school and $45 for subsequent teams. For programs that qualify for the new school discount, the fee is $35 for the first team and $30 for subsequent teams. These are the only fees paid by the host to NAQT, and they apply to all teams, including “house teams” (i.e., teams the host school enters in its own tournament).

Other Requirements

Tournament directors may (but are not required to) distribute, free of charge, one printed copy of the Division I questions to each school with a Division I team in attendance and one printed copy of the Division II questions to each school with a Division II team in attendance. (This is one copy per school, not one per team.) Each host school may also retain one printed copy of each division’s set of questions.

Tournament directors may not distribute questions electronically to teams. NAQT will provide programs with access to the questions from the appropriate division(s) via Locklizard after all SCT sites have ended.

SCT hosts must provide at least one experienced staff member in each game room. This is in addition to whatever control room staff are necessary to run the tournament, resolve protests, and compile statistics. Staff members assigned to moderate matches should be capable of reading a 22-question game in 21 minutes of gameplay. Moderators who are slower than this should be paired with scorekeepers.

SCTs held online must use Zoom and premium room keys from BuzzIn.Live (at their own expense).

NAQT will provide email and telephone access to support, including a “protest committee,” during the SCTs. Tournament directors have the authority to rule on protests at their own events, but they are strongly encouraged to contact NAQT about any nontrivial protests or any other matters of concern.

Important: High school and middle school players and coaches may not work at or observe SCTs. (The same questions are used for some high school tournaments.)

The tournament director has the option of providing trophies or other awards to the top teams and individuals. NAQT prefers SCTs that provide prizes, but does not expect them to be lavish.

Registration

SCTs may not close their fields until seven days before the tournament. If a tournament director does not have the resources to handle the number of teams that wish to play (even with the potential assistance of NAQT personnel and equipment), alternatives will be sought. Teams who attempt to register fewer than seven days before the tournament may be accepted or rejected at the tournament director’s discretion.

Tournament directors may charge teams that withdraw within five days of the tournament of the beginning of the tournament a cancellation fee of up to $40. They may charge teams that withdraw within 24 hours of the beginning of the event, or that do not show up at all, a cancellation fee of up to $100.

All players must use their real names in a reasonably complete form. This does not have to be a full legal name; it can be any version of a “full name” (first and last) the person regularly uses in life. This includes, but is not limited to, a prohibition on the use of pseudonyms.

Announcements

Tournament directors must make a full announcement including contact information, tentative schedule, suggested lodging (for in-person tournaments), tournament location/setting, fees, and any other relevant information by January 9, 2024 on the Quizbowl Resource Center’s Collegiate Announcements forum and by email to likely attendees.

Tournament directors must communicate clearly with prospective teams about the location of the tournament, especially if it may need to be moved online on short notice.

During the Tournament

SCTs are expected to run an initial rules meeting that covers, at a bare minimum, the eligibility requirements for Undergraduate and Division II titles, the location and date of the Intercollegiate Championship Tournament, the qualification procedures, and the ways to contact NAQT with questions, problems, or comments. There should also be a period during which questions about the format, rules, and other issues may be asked and answered.

SCT staff are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner while planning and administering NAQT tournaments. This includes, but is not limited to, sending prompt and informative responses to interested and registered teams, attempting to accommodate reasonable requests of individual teams, dressing appropriately, and refraining from offensive, rude, or abusive behavior while interacting with teams, staff, and others.

NAQT believes that quiz bowl is an activity for everybody, in which all participants should feel welcome and respected. Tournament directors should make participants aware of how to report misconduct, both on-site and via the community misconduct form.

Next Steps and Questions