Michi's Message to WFTDA

WFTDA, understand that these days, I have been a staunch critic of the organization lately mainly because the direction of derby has turned. As someone who was raised on the T-birds and who has most of her derby experience in Arizona, which you have to admit has been the test bed for the overall development of the sport in its different varieties, it saddens me to see the "strategies" the game is using right now. The pace is no longer there. The excitement is gone in most cases. Yes, I admit when you get two good teams in there, you will have a nailbiter. What was once a game of hard hits and whips and an always moving pack has turned into slow and stopped packs, backward skating and many more powerjams and far wider margins (even for top teams). I recently went to a WFTDA rules bout and I almost walked out because it saddened me to see the direction of the sport.

In my blog regarding the Dutchland situation, I recommended that the WFTDA establish focus groups of those who are fans and media who are not tied in any way to a WFTDA league (no skaters, no refs/NSOs, no announcers, no spouses/SOs) and to meet on a conference bridge for discussion.

The WFTDA membership (IMHO) has truly lost touch with the fans, the media and the overall perception of the sport. Merv's "by the skater, for the skater" comment at DNN was what made me snap. That statement to me is modern derby's way of distancing themselves from the former professional sector (with the infamous bosses in the backroom smoking cigars) but now the derby community embraces the son of the inventor of the sport. In other words, we need to wash this mantra out as it is no longer necessary for this sport to defend itself. With that, we also need to get rid of the "67% skater" management rule as that precludes those who are qualified to manage league functions who have business savvy but can't skate are excluded from participation. Also if tested (especially in California) may be found to violate the public accommodations laws in various states (of course, that is stretching it) based on sex discrimination.

The motto for WFTDA "real, strong, athletic and revolutionary" seems to be drifting towards "real, cerebral, athletic and we like it that way". The fans want to see skating in a forward motion and they want to see the skaters, skating, not sitting in a penalty box. They also want to see exciting games with close finishes, not runaway victories that are determined 10 minutes into the game.

The Arizona independent leagues including Desert Dolls Roller Derby which do not play current WFTDA rules are definitely more exciting to watch because there are fewer rules but still a structured game. OSDA is also a good example of a ruleset that gets good low scoring close games. Too many rules confuse fans and imagine how much it confuses the media.

There are many things that WFTDA members can't do because of budgets (such as a structured schedule meeting as many teams within their division in a season) and this is why the ranking system is so subjective. It is based on member vote, not necessarily on statistical measure. The derbydata.com Arizona Power Rankings is a statistical based ranking that uses final score data to rank teams across leagues and rule-sets. It is not perfect, but it is a fairly accurate measure.

The bottom line is that the processes, not the people are broken. The right people are in place to fix them and yes, compared to MLB and NFL, WFTDA is a very young organization who is going through some very severe growing pains but the association has had some time to develop.

Just know that even though I have been a staunch critic of WFTDA lately (because I remember the earlier days), I am the first to come to the table and work towards solutions in a civilized manner to improve the WFTDA experience for the fans and to improve the sport's impression in the media.