I played around with this idea a couple years ago while attending a not very interesting conference. The idea I had back then is that there would be categories of tournaments, as I think all tournaments should be included. If they are not, perhaps they will still struggle in getting teams, etc. We should be promoting inclusiveness. (Now, I think we have grown really quick and I am curious to see how this year pans out, but that is a topic for another thread.) Plus, who am or any of us to decide that a small little tournament in SW MN should be in and a small little tournament in Southern IL should not be. I do think that a tournament would have to meet some sort of qualifications and play by official rules, etc, and that it needs to be open for all to enter, and perhaps maybe even require that it has some people that have traveled. I am sure I have the scrap paper somewhere in one of my kubb idea drawers, but the idea was that tournaments under a certain size (say 16) would have points given to teams that finish in the top four. Tournaments between something like 32 and 17 would have points given to teams that finish in the top eight, with the top teams getting more points than the under 16 tournaments. Tournaments between 48 and 33 would have points given to teams that finish in the top 16, again with more points to the top teams that finished high than the smaller tournaments. The U.S. Championship would still go to the top 16 (or maybe real small number to T-17), but the points would be weighted a little more, as I do believe one should be given more points for a U.S. Championship than say a Rockford Championship. (Full-disclosure like Chris here...U.S., Rockford, Dallas). One issue is, and perhaps it will go away if we do a points system, is that people are not playing with the same players and/or change team names. Myself, as a tournament organizer, I don't have much interest in taking even more information from teams if they want to enter as a "registered team", so I do like the idea of some independent site doing that. I think our Swiss friends are doing this already with teams and individuals, actually.
I will also add this. I would recommend that for those of us that are interested in this, go back and look at the results from 2010 and 2011, or even farther back, if you want. Decide who were the top 5-10 teams/players (depending if you want to do it with teams or players), rank them, and try to create a system where those teams/players were as close to the order that you envisioned them finishing with appropriate distance between them as well. Also, we would all have to decide on # of tournaments vs. where people finish vs. where they don't finish. Often, I look at teams as a whole when I mentally rank them over a year and/or current place in the U.S., as I have my own opinions who the top players/teams are. For example, there are some teams that are not as consistent as others and/or players that will not line up with an equal level player for a tournament. Perhaps they play a lot and get high in 66%-75% of the tournaments, but the other 25%-33% they do not get far (don't play well or perhaps are not playing to "win"). Also, teams of two playing on three-person teams. For example, would two-person team A be given points if their two players played on the three-person?
