The APA basically is a pyramid scheme with its 23 rule.
This is flawed logic. I won't call it flawed logic to the level of Mongoose giving us a breakdown of APA prize money when he doesn't even play APA, but it is flawed.
The 23 rule is not how APA grows. APA grows because host locations want this type of business in their establishments. The APA grows because people who play APA go to work and brag about how much fun they had last night. The APA grows because people walk into the bar and see all the fun people are having. That's what makes the league really grow.
Now, people do go up in skill level. Everyone is generally going to get better over time. That's not a bad thing. But, the 23 rule was created to allow EVERYONE to be able to enjoy a pool league, not just good players.
As an LO, I make roster adjustments just about every day. The new teams joining my league are not teams split in two because of handicaps. More often than not, they are all brand new players or maybe someone who wants to play on another night and they grab some other people.
Teams with handicap issues typically replace one or two players with lower skilled players. The replaced players usually find teams with handicap space. In some instances, the replaced players might form a new team, but it's pretty rare. If I relied on that as my only growth, I wouldn't grow much.
The 23 rule is there for the lower skilled player to be able to play. The 23 rule forces teams to play the lower skilled players. And that makes sense since close to 70% of the APA is made up of players with skill levels of 4 or lower. The 23 rule currently allows these line ups:
77333
55553
55544
66632
76542
And a whole lot of other combinations. If your team has gotten to the point that you can't meet the 23 rule anymore, you are going to have to make some changes. Here are the realistic options:
A) replace a higher skilled player(s) with a lower skilled player(s)
B) Split the team in half (which also requires finding 6 to 8 more players to fill out those two teams)
C) Drop the team
I'd venture to guess teams choose A) 95 times out of 100. Why? Because someone typically drops off the team each session anyway. As popular as I was as a team captain many years ago, there wasn't a single session that went by where I wasn't replacing someone. School, work, babysitter issues, girlfriend/boyfriend and husband/wife spats, etc... I don't have enough space to give all the reasons people stop playing, but when someone drops, you simply find a replacement and you move on.
This is why the 23 rule being a pyramid scheme is flawed logic. It's simply not true. It would be awesome for me if teams did split every time someone went up in skill level, but it just doesn't happen that way.
