The major downside though about Panasonic format though is that many of the kids that have competed in this format really don't like it all that much (sampling from the people who compete in college that have memories of their Panasonic experience). The other problem is that the best team can get screwed out of winning a match very easily. The "meet-play" of Panasonic is very difficult to satisfy, and you won't see too many college programs recommend running it for high school (much less even college) competitions. To its credit, the redeeming quality I like about the Panasonic format is that numerically, it works very well. Each of the 18 semifinalists qualified by winning one game (out of two possible chances). The top 2 from each 6-team heat compete in the 6-team championship heat. The other redeeming quality is that they take a lot of time to develop a question when they present "demonstrations" such as musical questions, art questions, and other things. And heck... it is Walt Disney World. On the other hand, I don't know how one can consider any pairing completely "random" if you have Maryland play South Carolina THREE TIMES (maximum number of times you can play a specific team) like they did last year. Multiple choice matching questions are kinda dumb and you should be able to pick off the question without hearing the other choices to match against. One minute for a regular "tossup" question to die is just ridiculous (unless they changed that rule). The only other thing to note: although Florida has been contenders at Panasonic for a number of years, no Florida team has ever won a team national championship or contended significantly for one (unless Vanguard finished runner-up at Lake Forest, which I'm not aware of). Obviously format is a factor, but Panasonic is not a tournament which is necessarily the best at confirming any information I have about the best state to do quiz bowl (even though my own opinion that Maryland has the best talent has been demonstrated many times). It's like Academic Decathlon: California and Texas win those competitions at Nationals, but rarely do those same teams appear on the quiz bowl national scene.
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