WTF is going on with the open bids

Can someone please explain to me why the bids are being offered out of order and why it is taking so long for them to offer all the bids? Does this happen every year??? Nobody on my team knows what's going on

-Sincerely a stressed out freshman with a team near the top of the list but with no offer yet

Yes. None of the teams that have been offered bids are below the 35 team cutoff. No one is stealing your bid. They are doing it this way to attempt to properly balance difficulty and travel schedules.


EDIT: To add, they also are adjusting where teams that direct bidding are going, which is why they don't offer all open bids at once. You can see the changelog getting updated on the Earned Bid List. Regionals directly bidding into ORCs can create some very strange geographical matches, like NYU A direct bidding into Cincinnati when they literally have an ORCs in their backyard.

Dinglebingus wrote:Yes. None of the teams that have been offered bids are below the 35 team cutoff. No one is stealing your bid. They are doing it this way to attempt to properly balance difficulty and travel schedules.


EDIT: To add, they also are adjusting where teams that direct bidding are going, which is why they don't offer all open bids at once. You can see the changelog getting updated on the Earned Bid List. Regionals directly bidding into ORCs can create some very strange geographical matches, like NYU A direct bidding into Cincinnati when they literally have an ORCs in their backyard.

Alright, dinglebingus.

Dinglebingus wrote:Yes. None of the teams that have been offered bids are below the 35 team cutoff. No one is stealing your bid. They are doing it this way to attempt to properly balance difficulty and travel schedules.


EDIT: To add, they also are adjusting where teams that direct bidding are going, which is why they don't offer all open bids at once. You can see the changelog getting updated on the Earned Bid List. Regionals directly bidding into ORCs can create some very strange geographical matches, like NYU A direct bidding into Cincinnati when they literally have an ORCs in their backyard.

Thanks for your input, dinglebingus.

Dinglebingus wrote:Yes. None of the teams that have been offered bids are below the 35 team cutoff. No one is stealing your bid. They are doing it this way to attempt to properly balance difficulty and travel schedules.


EDIT: To add, they also are adjusting where teams that direct bidding are going, which is why they don't offer all open bids at once. You can see the changelog getting updated on the Earned Bid List. Regionals directly bidding into ORCs can create some very strange geographical matches, like NYU A direct bidding into Cincinnati when they literally have an ORCs in their backyard.

Well said, dinglebingus.

Dinglebingus wrote:Yes. None of the teams that have been offered bids are below the 35 team cutoff. No one is stealing your bid. They are doing it this way to attempt to properly balance difficulty and travel schedules.


EDIT: To add, they also are adjusting where teams that direct bidding are going, which is why they don't offer all open bids at once. You can see the changelog getting updated on the Earned Bid List. Regionals directly bidding into ORCs can create some very strange geographical matches, like NYU A direct bidding into Cincinnati when they literally have an ORCs in their backyard.

Excellent explanation, Dinglebingus.

Okay DInglebingus, any insight on why they handed out nearly 30 open bids yesterday and a total of 0 so far today?

Sir Mocksalot wrote:Okay DInglebingus, any insight on why they handed out nearly 30 open bids yesterday and a total of 0 so far today?

I'm not an AMTA rep, but I have been following the list very closely and have a potential explanation. AMTA dug themselves in a roughly midwest sized hole and are trying to dig their way out. Of the 8 remaining bids at time of posting, 3 are for St. Paul, 1 Santa Monica, 1 Memphis, 2 Geneva, and 1 New Rochelle. They are offering bids much more slowly because they can only offer one at a time for most sites, then they have to wait for the team to accept or decline. Additionally, they were also waiting on the Tuesday deadline for accepting bids. Just a few minutes ago Naval Academy declined their bid, opening a spot in New Rochelle, while East Tennessee State accepted a moved bid to DC, opening an open bid spot in Greenville that Stetson immediately took (and also explaining why they hadn't filled up the DC ORCS prior, because they were waiting on ETSU).

Personally, as someone not on the open bid list, I'm not super happy with the way they did it this year. A team like Ohio University has no reason being at a much more geographically contested ORCS like DC instead of Geneva or Cincinnati. Specifically, if North Carolina declined their bids because they were to somewhere like St. Paul or Santa Monica and I was on that team I would be very unhappy and publically complaining to AMTA reps.

Dinglebingus wrote:

Sir Mocksalot wrote:Okay DInglebingus, any insight on why they handed out nearly 30 open bids yesterday and a total of 0 so far today?

I'm not an AMTA rep, but I have been following the list very closely and have a potential explanation. AMTA dug themselves in a roughly midwest sized hole and are trying to dig their way out. Of the 8 remaining bids at time of posting, 3 are for St. Paul, 1 Santa Monica, 1 Memphis, 2 Geneva, and 1 New Rochelle. They are offering bids much more slowly because they can only offer one at a time for most sites, then they have to wait for the team to accept or decline. Additionally, they were also waiting on the Tuesday deadline for accepting bids. Just a few minutes ago Naval Academy declined their bid, opening a spot in New Rochelle, while East Tennessee State accepted a moved bid to DC, opening an open bid spot in Greenville that Stetson immediately took (and also explaining why they hadn't filled up the DC ORCS prior, because they were waiting on ETSU).

Personally, as someone not on the open bid list, I'm not super happy with the way they did it this year. A team like Ohio University has no reason being at a much more geographically contested ORCS like DC instead of Geneva or Cincinnati. Specifically, if North Carolina declined their bids because they were to somewhere like St. Paul or Santa Monica and I was on that team I would be very unhappy and publically complaining to AMTA reps.

As someone who is on the open bid list (I'm with Wake Forest), I am also not super happy about how things are playing out. This would be our first bid to orcs since 2012 and we were obviously thrilled when the final open bid list was updated and we realized we would be making it. Our excitement has now greatly subsided as we have now to come to realize that we are almost certainly going to be sent to a distant orc, one that the school may not even be able to send us to. Obviously, this is a difficult process, there are a lot of moving parts, and an open bid, as opposed to an earned bid, comes with fewer guarantees. But it does seem like there are some potential changes that could be made to the current lineup, as you've pointed out. I also suspect, like you, that UNC declined due to the location. Competitive balance and even numbers are obviously very important, but it doesn't seem to me to be within the spirit of AMTA for a team that rightfully earned a bid, open or not, and just wants the opportunity to compete at ORCS for once to be effectively excluded from competing for reasons completely out of their control.

It seems like they are treating every team on the open bid list equally and position does not matter. I would be pretty annoyed if I was in Wake's shoes like the above poster, still waiting on a bid, and then a team ranked 10 spots lower like PSU B immediately gets a bid to a close regional.

Dinglebingus wrote:

Sir Mocksalot wrote:Okay DInglebingus, any insight on why they handed out nearly 30 open bids yesterday and a total of 0 so far today?

I'm not an AMTA rep, but I have been following the list very closely and have a potential explanation. AMTA dug themselves in a roughly midwest sized hole and are trying to dig their way out. Of the 8 remaining bids at time of posting, 3 are for St. Paul, 1 Santa Monica, 1 Memphis, 2 Geneva, and 1 New Rochelle. They are offering bids much more slowly because they can only offer one at a time for most sites, then they have to wait for the team to accept or decline. Additionally, they were also waiting on the Tuesday deadline for accepting bids. Just a few minutes ago Naval Academy declined their bid, opening a spot in New Rochelle, while East Tennessee State accepted a moved bid to DC, opening an open bid spot in Greenville that Stetson immediately took (and also explaining why they hadn't filled up the DC ORCS prior, because they were waiting on ETSU).

Personally, as someone not on the open bid list, I'm not super happy with the way they did it this year. A team like Ohio University has no reason being at a much more geographically contested ORCS like DC instead of Geneva or Cincinnati. Specifically, if North Carolina declined their bids because they were to somewhere like St. Paul or Santa Monica and I was on that team I would be very unhappy and publically complaining to AMTA reps.

Thank you for your service, dinglebingus.