Timely Information for Takedown Scoring and Stats Users
Version 2.13.8
New release of Takedown Scoring and Stats.
In the App Store now, release 2.13.8 includes bug fixes pertaining to audio drop outs during video recording.
Before updating your installation to this newest release, be advised of this issue concerning iOS 9/10 devices.
Otherwise, this release is recommended for all users.
Version 2.13.7
New release of Takedown Scoring and Stats.
In the App Store now, release 2.13.7 includes bug fixes and improved diagnostics.
This release is recommended for all users.
Version 2.13.6
New release of Takedown Scoring and Stats.
In the App Store today, release 2.13.6 includes bug fixes and an in-app shortcut to manage your subscriptions.
This release is recommended for all users.
Manage Subscriptions
Available in the Takedown Store, Manage Subscriptions is a shortcut that will take you directly to Apple’s Subscriptions section.
Takedown Store — Manage Subscriptions shortcut
Tap on any of your Takedown subscriptions to gather information or make changes. Remember to tap Done when finished and, if you want to return to the app, tap Takedown in the upper left corner.
Bye, Bye iOS 9, 10 and 11
Last December and March we announced our intention to end support for iOS 9 and 10 in the 2020 - 2021 season.
Takedown Scoring and Stats release 2.13.5, available today in the App Store, is the last Takedown release supporting iOS 9 and 10. The iPad models “stuck” at iOS 9 or 10 are iPad 1, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4 and iPad Mini 1.
Future Takedown Scoring and Stats releases will require iOS 12 or higher (note: any iPad running iOS 11 can upgrade to iOS 12).
If you have an impacted iPad model, you can continue using 2.13.5. We strongly suggest migrating to an iPad supporting iOS 12+ as soon as circumstances permit so that you can enjoy the benefits of future releases.
Moving Data to A New iPad
To migrate your consolidated Takedown Scoring and Stats data to a new iPad:
On your old iPad, email each of your Takedown Seasons to your new iPad using the Share Season feature.
On your new iPad, retrieve the emails sent in step #1 and import each email message’s attachment into Takedown. Double tap the attachment to start the import process. Each email message attachment represents a Season.
When finished importing your Seasons, check to make sure the databases are identical by comparing Reports from the old and new iPads. For example, running the Scoring Details report (for all Seasons) on the old and new iPads should yield the same results.
Note that in order to use an existing subscription, the new iPad will need to be registered to the Apple ID of the subscription purchaser.
Version 2.13.5
Arriving in the App Store today, release 2.13.5 includes bug fixes. This release is recommended for all users.
Also, this is the last release supporting iOS 9, 10 and 11.
Version 2.13.3
Details about our latest release of Takedown Scoring and Stats to the App Store.
Takedown Scoring and Stats release 2.13.3 is available for download from the App Store. This release is highly recommended for all users and includes changes and improvements as follows:
Bug fixes, internal improvements
YouTube-mandated changes to video uploads and privacy policy acceptance
Feature retirement: Scoring Graphics
Bug Fixes, Internal Improvements
This release fixes a serious bug that caused video previously uploaded to YouTube to disappear from the Mange Video list. If you are using Takedown’s video feature for uploading to YouTube, it is critical that you install this update before accessing the Manage Video portion of the app.
In addition, we improved our bug diagnostic capability by migrating to a better technology.
YouTube Changes
As a YouTube Developer, we are obligated to implement our YouTube-related features in accordance with certain Google and YouTube terms and conditions, policies and technical limitations. As such, we have made these changes in Takedown:
In order to use Takedown’s YouTube features, the user must explicitly accept our Privacy Policy.
Automatically created wrestler and event YouTube playlists are no longer available. YouTube does not allow for automatically created playlists at the scale required by our user community. We have tried to work around this limitation without success. YouTube is aware of the issue and we will revisit should YouTube change its policy. Users can still manually create and organize wrestler or event playlists on the YouTube platform.
Automatically created YouTube channel sections for each Takedown Season is no longer available. Users can still manually create YouTube channel sections.
For each video uploaded to YouTube, the user can optionally specify the video title, video description and privacy setting.
So Long Scoring Graphics
A few years ago we introduced auto-generated, network-delivered, high quality scoring graphics in support of dedicated, stand-alone video production systems. An advanced feature requiring in-depth video production and networking expertise, the Scoring Graphics feature was under-utilized by our users and, at the same time, required significant ongoing engineering investment. We decided to invest in our engineering resources in other capabilities that would be more valuable to our users.
How Expensive is an NCAA Division I Wrestling All-American?
Updated look at the cost of producing a NCAA Division I wrestling All-American with reference to the March 2019 championships.
Producing a Division I Wrestling All-American is Expensive
Back in 2016 we first looked at the cost of producing a Division I wrestling All-American. Here we update that analysis for the most recent Division I Championship in March 2019.
Of the 70 participating teams, the twenty most expensive programs collectively spent about $32.3 million annually (averaged over four years).
These programs captured 59 (74%) of the All-American awards at the 2019 Championships.
On average, this group of teams invests roughly $521,000 annually per All-American with a range of $322,000 to $1.86 million.
Most Efficient College Wrestling Programs
Many of the most expensive programs are also pretty efficient at producing All-Americans. However, the two most efficient programs — Princeton and Cornell — aren’t in the group of the twenty most expensive programs.
We can also look at how much it costs to produce a team point in the championship. This metric encompasses more teams than cost per All-American. The chart below compares annual expenses (averaged over four years) versus championship team points.
The line on the chart is statistically fitted to the data (though the fit isn’t great) and attempts to show the average relationship between expenses and team points. To the extent that this line is meaningful, it is desire-able to operate above or the the left of the line as this represents above average performance. Conversely, operating below the line represents below average performance. Again, the line doesn’t fit the data very precisely so these conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt.
Know Your Numbers
Wrestling has been under assault for quite some time. When we did this analysis back in 2016, Boise State’s program had just been terminated. Recently, Stanford’s wrestling program has been threatened with discontinuance justified, in large measure, on financial grounds. It helps to know where you stand in terms of delivering results for funds invested when your program’s future hangs in the balance.
Short Time Scoring Report
Important Predictor of Match Outcome
Why do coaches care about “short time” performance?
The reason is simple: points scored in short time are difficult for an opponent to make up because of the imminent time-out due to match clock expiration. Short time scoring is similar to edge scoring in this sense.
Many in the wrestling community believe that scoring the first takedown is the best predictor of victory and that might be true. However, short-time scoring may be just as relevant and if you’re looking to goose your winning percentage, short-time scoring merits some practice attention.
Implementation in Takedown Scoring and Stats
This Short Time Scoring report can be found in the Reports section of the app.
Recognizing that ‘short time’ means different things to different coaches, Takedown allows you to set a short time value of 5, 10, 15 or 20 seconds. For each wrestler, the report displays the number of points scored and conceded within this short time ‘bucket’ prior to clock expiration. Use filters to narrow or expand the scope over which short time scoring is calculated.
The report also provides a ratio - Average Point Advantage - that allows you to quickly evaluate a wrestler's short time performance. This statistic is simply short-time points scored minus short time points conceded divided by the total number of periods wrestled.
If the Average Point Advantage is positive, then your wrestler is scoring more short-time points than conceded. If the value negative then the opposite would be true. This wrestler will be far less likely, on average, to win matches.
As a coach that's what you want to know.
The accuracy of the Short Time Report depends on your having scored the match live because the stat requires an accurate match clock. If the match has been marked as “transcribed” then Takedown excludes the match from the short time scoring statistics.
Why is it so Difficult to Score a Wrestling Match?
Why can’t coaches, managers, athletes, parents accurately score a wrestling match? Lots of reasons.
In athletic competition the score matters. Wrestling is no different. All wrestling matches are scored according the the applicable rules book. It’s harder than you might expect. Why is that?
Rules Book is Bad
The NFHS rules book is an old, expansive, intricate document conceived of and edited by committee over many years. It is often difficult to interpret and is subject to annual revisions for clarity and rule changes.
Certain sections of the rule book are no longer relevant and are routinely ignored in practice. These sections aren’t culled over time as they should be so that the book is confusingly bloated with vestigial passages.
Finally, the rules yield "corner-cases" -- infrequent scoring sequences -- that trip up even the most experienced. The net result is scorers, coaches and officials do not — and probably can not — have full command of the rule book and its application in all possible situations.
Referee Role
After athlete safety, getting the bout score correct should be the referee’s #1 priority.
In this light, referees should signal scoring promptly, using official hand gestures persisted long enough for recognition by the scorer. When there’s a quick flurry of activity and lots of scoring, the referee should communicate with the table to verify that all the scoring was accurately recognized and reflected in the score.
Also, prior to an event a good referee will discuss with the scorer their responsibility — “recording points scored by each contestant when signaled by the referee” — and procedures for fulfilling that responsibility as outlined in NFHS Rules 3.1.4.e and 3.1.5.e or appropriate state rules.
A great referee will be in frequent contact with the official scorer to insure all is well.
Scorer Role
The scorer’s primary role is to get the score right by recording the scoring events signaled by the referee.
If there’s confusion or disagreement about the score, the official scorer should ask the referee for assistance and resolution. To translate the referee scoring signals into a recorded scoring event, the official scorer should be familiar with the “Referee’s Wrestling Signals” in the NFHS rules book.
Proper notation helps, too, when reconstructing from the scorebook what happened on the mat. Official “Scoring Symbols” are documented in the NFHS rules book.
That Never Happens
In practice, the implied contract between the referee and official scorer is almost never fulfilled.
In practice, scorers typically lack the confidence to stop a match to clarify scoring confusion. This is especially true in high school.
In addition, scoring hand gestures are often confusingly and quickly presented by the referee. Sometimes non-standard signals are employed.
Compounding this problem is the referee’s apparent desire to move the action along at Mach 5, creating the impression that pace is more important than an accurate score.
That behavior can lead to disastrous outcomes as in the case of Ian Miller at the 2015 NCAA Championships.
Technology Helps
A carefully engineered digital scoring solution will drastically improve scoring (and clock) accuracy by embedding the rules book into well-designed scoring interface.
Here are few examples of how digital scoring can help your scoring table:
Uses standard scoring symbols
Prevents illegal scoring sequences, e.g. near fall for defensive wrestler, escape for offensive wrestler, escape/reverse/near fall not allowed in neutral, etc.
Presents 2nd and 3rd period choice for correct wrestling
Implements the penalty table including disqualification sequences
Starts/maintains injury timer for each wrestler
Maintains blood, recovery timers for each wrestler
Implements choice on restart as appropriate
Records each scoring notation offset from previous for easy readability and reconstruction of scoring activity
Implements overtime protocol
Does period arithmetic for automatically recorinding cumulative match time for bout-ending scoring events such as a fall or disqualification
College: automatically stops/starts riding time clocks with change in control and calculates riding time advantage
Continuously calculates the tie-breaker counts by criteria and identifies the winner
In dual meet, automatically calculates team score.
Takedown Scoring and Stats has all of these features.
Scoring a wrestling match is hard. Make it easier by using a state-of-the art, high quality digital scoring solution.