Question are the championships your talking about straight up or are you talking HDCP, 8Ball, 9Ball, and 10Ball?
I would think you are speaking of non-HDCP events if the winner would represent the country in the worlds.
Why I ask is because I really don't see a lot of people in the U.S. if they has a similar tournament signing up if they had to play even, I think that is unfortunate, but true.
Today in our society people think that they don't have to practice to get good. They just assume that they should get a HDCP if they're not as good. I think this comes from the everybody gets a trophy concept, oh they're to young to keep score, it's not about who wins type thinking.
Then as they get older it's just compounded by the HDCP league concept.