Bare with me, I not trying to offend and I’ll explain in a second, but in my definition that is not a competitive team. It’s a rec team that pays too much money. Things like that are watering down the level of competition.
I said before, I think we are on the same page more than you think. Different approaches possibly ...
Which is my point. One thing we lack is a common definition of what is rec, travel, select, elite, competitive, etc. both in structure and in purpose. It can mean very different things in different areas (or to different people).
That lack of commonality leads back to @RADcatcher ’s point: anybody can call themselves anything (and start collecting checks).
You just kind of proved my point here. You just said that in YOUR definition my team isn't a competitive team. And that my team is just watering down competition. This is EXACTLY the elitist attitude that is ruining our sport, not building it up. More girls playing, more girls competing and learning is better. How is this even debatable? Tournaments are tiered to level out who are elite and who are lower skill level. I won't sit here and say my team is an A. It most certainly is not. When we first started we struggled vs B teams and even against lower. By your definition, my team was watering down competition because we didn't play as well as others. By the end of last season we were competing in every game we played in regardless of the level we were playing, granted we didn't play any super elite teams, but that isn't where we are.
There are SO many tournaments held every weekend. Instead of dogging on teams that aren't as good as those elite teams, more criticism needs to be put on those high level teams that join lower level tournaments.