OK, here's some more info, a few questions Mat answered. Feel free to post your questions.
What Cities do you think will have a qualifer?
So far, only japan is secured, that is officially announced.
We are also working on around 10 other events, spread in europe, africa, asia and latin america, but these still require some time to secure. But we will try to hold events in the big freestyle places, whether its Series or Conference events.
will there be on in Africa and the Americas?
Yes there will be some, under work right now. But I guess a good part of our future success will be linked with the Japan Series success.
The bottom line is : a lot of people/companies are interested in holding a WFSLeague event, they just need some more visibility.
Will there be "invited" guests or only people who rigtfully qualify?
Depending on wht kind of event we're talking about : Series or Conference.
For Series events, there shouldn't be invited guests, the qualifying process is 1 – go through a video qualifier (to be among the 16) 2- the competition itself.
For the Conference event (a Conference shall gather the top freestyler of a geographic area – for example Asia will gather japanese, korean, Singapore...and more), there might be invited guests, in the case we cannot organise proper Series Events in some particular countries.
All travel expenses will be paid for the finalists correct?
For the Conference events, yes. As well for the Master Final. For Series events, we won't be able to cover travel expenses.
Will the 1st place get some sort of prize?
Ok, the whole WFSLeague project is designed to become a professional League (depending on how fast it goes...within the next 5 years).
Beeing professional means that the sport is the freestylers everyday work, so we need at some point to provide the necessary prize money to make it happen, but it will for sure take some time before we succeed : have big companies involved, have a wide media coverage...etc...
Now we are just starting the WFSLeague, and we will provide anyway Prizes from our sponsors for Series events and Cash money for Conference and Master Final events. We will disclose soon the prizes for Japan Series, and around february for the Master Final grand prize : it will be HUGE !
Will the top 16 go directly to a knockout?
The way the competition is managed is available on the site. Same system for all competitions.
Will the players be able to choose which Adidas ball/shoes they will use or will a default model be given to everyone?
Adidas is the Official Equipment Provider for Japan Series only so far. As a result we will ask the qualified freestylers to wear their shoes and use their ball. In both case, we will provide the equipment a couple of weeks before the event so they can get used to it.
One of our goal is to have a large equipement provider to support the League, and then for example have the same ball for the entire season and for all events.
Having these kind of brand onboard is, we believe, a great opportunity for everyone .
Who will be in charge of selecting freestylers that will be invited & judges and based on which criteria?
Tough question. Right now it is one of the biggest issue, and we know it will be difficult to make everyone happy on this particular point.
Freestyle is a very « young » sport, and as a result, it is difficult to find the right judges, not involved in competition anymore. There are actually very few who have the necessary level/experience AND have stop competing.
Its difficult to give names right now, it is still under work, but we will try our best to provide fair and experienced judges for our events. And of course this part will get simpler in the next years to come, when some freestyler will stop competition.
The Judges for now will be selected by the League itself.
Will there be any rules? For example, usage of hands, additional equipment (hat, rope, bottle), etc.
Yes there are some rules that are (for some part) already available on the website, and some new ones are under work right now. I can say that additional equipment will not be allowed. Hands (different than arm) will not be allowed except for spinning tricks.
The rules will also evolve on a regular basis, based on the event production experiment. Also we would like to involve the freestylers in the rules for the 2012 season by creating a players comitee.
It is important for us to have the feedback from the community too, and we will look very closely at all comments.
Will this event happen every year?
Hopefully yes. But I would like to insist on the fact that its not just events, its a Sport League we're trying to build from scratch.
So yes, we would like to have a World Champion every year.
Is it going to be aired on TV or streamed on the web?
We're in talks with a good number of channels interested in this type of content, so once again it might take some time to show them how it look like and how they can handle it, but so far the feedback is quite positive.
For sure we will have a production crew on site to film all events and show it on our Youtube channel. We're working also on a webcast, very simple to start, and that will improve with the time and, of course, the required budget.
