Money in Cubing

This is just my ideas on the growth of competitions and where we go from here. Some people would want to have more money involved in this sport of speedcubing. Others would like to have it be a world televised event, similar to FIFA. I personally, both are not good ideas at all, especially the first.

 My main reason is the idea of community that occurs in various competitions. At my last competition, the main room was so full I had no choice but to take an empty seat in the corner of the room, that a group of people was close to. I came up, introduced myself, and 5 minutes later I have sold a cube, and made more friends than you can count on one hand. Now it may sound childish, the idea of community and making friends, but having fun is what this sport is based around. If the grand prize at worlds in 2013 was 100,000 dollars instead of 2000, there would be a lot more competition and a lot less friendship and fun. Mats Valk and Feliks Zemdegs actually hang out before competitions, because they are competing together and have gotten to know one another over the years. Now add the 100,000 dollars back in. All of a sudden they hate each other when one gets second place, because they lost all that money. This would just make the sport more cutthroat and a lot less fun.

The idea of being televised just doesn’t sound good for the reason that everyone would be worried about appearing on camera, and not on their solve or enjoying the community of the event. In a way, I think that is just it, the community makes cubing. If you don’t have the tables of people puzzling together, you don’t have a competition. Remember that when you want more money next time you win a competition.