My team attended a trivia tournament Saturday in East Lansing that was a virtual nightmare. The bar was simply too small – and understaffed – to accommodate the number of players/trivia company workers/bar staff whom were all in the room. Simply staging the tournament at a bigger venue would have been a temporary fix, but I think Sporcle needs to look at re-drawing its league divisions – and possibly adding a fourth division.

Here are some numbers:

East Division: 34 teams

Central Division – 34 teams

West Division – 56 teams

A little lopsided, eh? Well, from what I have gathered, about eight teams from the west division were moved to other tournament spots, which again, was a temporary fix. It obviously did nothing to alleviate the crowding experienced at the west division tournament on Saturday in East Lansing! Chair backs touching each other…tables pushed too close to arcade/pinball games. My team was in a corner booth, but had a couple of other tables pushed so close to it that some poor saps probably got bumped with my ass so much they would have grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit!  Imagine if a fire marhsall from East Lansing paid an impromptu visit. The Riv would have flunked that test!

Fire Marshall Bill would have displeased with the situation at The Riv last Saturday…

Speaking of flunking, my trivia team virtually flunked in our attempts at trivia supremacy that day, but it was because of blowing big points on questions, I’m not blaming anything on the crowded bar! You can read about that in another post here

Here’s how my four-division plan for Michigan would look:

“Lakes” Division (approx. 29 teams)

Cities included in Lakes Division: Chelsea, Dexter, Grand Rapids, Grandville, Holland, Howell, Kalamazoo, Manchester, Manitou Beach, Mason, Springfield,  Three Rivers, Traverse City.  This is an area experiencing some growth, partially because of all of the new microbreweries/brewpubs being opened in the west side of the state.

U.S. 23 Division (34 teams)

Cities included in U.S. 23 Division: Adrian, Ann Arbor, Brighton, Highland, Milan, Saline, Tecumseh, Ypsilanti

Western Detroit Division (34 teams)

Cities included in Western Detroit Division: Allen Park, Belleville, Brownstown Township, Canton, Detroit (partial), Farmington, Farmington Hills, Livonia, Northville, Novi, Plymouth, Taylor, Westland, Woodhaven, Wyandotte

Eastern Detroit Division (34 teams)

Berkley, Clinton Township, Detroit (partial), Ferndale, Macomb, Madison Heights, Oxford, Rochester Hills, Royal Oak, Shelby Township, Southfield, Sterling Heights, Warren, Waterford

So what about the prizes? Prizes currently divvied between fifteen top teams, under this plan here’s how it could shake out:

Lakes division: top three teams win cash prizes (smaller prize pool because of smaller number of teams)

U.S. 23, Western Detroit, Eastern Detroit: top four teams win cash prizes – equally shared prize pool between three easternmost divisions