USQ Update

USQ Update

US Quidditch 9 Bid Allocation

USQ is thrilled to announce the regional allocation of bids to US Quidditch Cup 9.

USQ is thrilled to announce the regional allocation of bids to the US Quidditch Cup.

In total 163 teams fully registered by the Oct. 1 deadline.

Due to performance at USQ World Cup 8, regions earned initial auto-bids for the next championship. Teams that advanced to the round of 16 or further earned a full bid for their region. With the smaller event size due to the 25% reduction in the number of teams participating, only 16 auto-bids will be given for progressing to the round of 16, with no half bids granted as in previous seasons. Bids earned by teams from last year’s Midwest Region are allocated to the region in which the team now belongs after the geographic split between the Great Lakes and Midwest regions.

Great Lakes: 3
Mid-Atlantic: 3
Midwest: 0
Northeast: 3
Northwest: 0
South: 0
Southwest: 3
West: 4

The Huntington-Hill method was used to apportion the remaining 44 of the 60 bids. The bids allocated from the team count are added to those allocated from World Cup 8 performance. Here is the final bid allocation:

Great Lakes: 9 Bids
Mid-Atlantic: 10 Bids
Midwest: 4 Bids
Northeast: 10 Bids
Northwest: 3 Bids
South: 4 Bids
Southwest: 9 Bids
West: 11 Bids

If regions are unable to fulfill their bid allotments, additional bids will be granted in the following order: West, Midwest, Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, then South. If further bids are required, Huntington-Hill provides ad infinitum.

Each team will qualify through one of the eight regional championships. US Quidditch Cup 9 will take place on April 16th and 17th, 2016 in Columbia, South Carolina.


This season, USQ will once again use the Huntington-Hill method of apportionment in determining bid allocation, which is used by the United States House of Representatives in determining its seats. The Huntington-Hill method ensures that each region is represented at the US Quidditch Cup according to the size of the region.

Using this method, we first determine a standard divisor, found by dividing the number of registered teams by the available number of available event bids. We then calculate a standard quota for each region, which represents the number of bids each region would receive if the bids were an exact representation of the region’s size. Unfortunately, ¼ of a team cannot receive a bid to represent their region at the event so some rounding must occur, which is why using this mathematical method is necessary.

If a region’s standard quota is less than the geometric mean of the integers between which it is located, a region is allocated the lower of those integers; if the region’s standard quota is greater than the geometric mean of the integers, it is allocated the higher of the integers.

If the total sum of all of those initial quotas adds up to the total number of bids, the initial quotas are used; otherwise, a modified divisor is used in place of the standard divisor so that the modified quotas sum correctly and those modified quotas are then used.

Further reading on the Huntington-Hill method can be found from the Mathematical Association of America.

To see the original announcement of the bid allocation format, please see this article announcing the gameplay format for US Quidditch Cup 9.