Introducing the Debate Performance Index

# Introducing the Debate Performance Index For years, the competitive debate community has lacked a unified, transparent ranking system. Tournament results live scattered across Tabroom.com pages, school websites, and social media posts. Coaches compare their debaters against rivals using gut instinct and fragmented data. That changes today. ## What is the DPI? The **Debate Performance Index** is a composite metric that captures a debater's competitive strength in a single number. It accounts for: - **Win-loss record** weighted by opponent strength - **Speaker points** normalized across tournaments to control for judge variance - **Elimination depth** at each tournament (quarterfinals, semifinals, finals) - **Tournament tier** (Majors like TOC and NSDA Nationals carry more weight than local invitationals) - **Opponent average DPI** -- beating higher-ranked opponents earns more points The scale runs from 0 to roughly 4000. A debater with a DPI above 3000 is performing at an elite national level. Most competitive varsity debaters will fall between 1500 and 2500. ## Why build this? We built the DPI because debate deserves the same level of competitive analytics that every other sport enjoys. Basketball has ESPN's BPI. Tennis has the ATP ranking system. Debate has... a spreadsheet that someone updates twice a year? We think debaters, coaches, and parents deserve better. The DPI provides: 1. **Objective benchmarks** -- Know where you stand nationally, regionally, and within your event. 2. **Trend tracking** -- See how your ranking changes week to week as tournament results come in. 3. **Recruiting visibility** -- College programs can discover talent they might otherwise miss. 4. **Strategic insight** -- Understand your strengths and weaknesses relative to the field. ## How rankings are updated Rankings refresh within 48 hours of a tournament's completion. Our data pipeline scrapes results from Tabroom.com and other public sources, normalizes the data, and recalculates every debater's DPI. We currently support four events: **CX (Policy)**, **Public Forum**, **Lincoln-Douglas**, and **Congressional Debate**. Both high school and college divisions are tracked. ## What is next This is just the beginning. In the coming months we will be rolling out: - School-level rankings aggregating all debaters on a team - Historical DPI trends with interactive charts - AI-powered coaching tools to help debaters improve - Judge analytics for tournament directors We are excited to bring transparency and data-driven insights to the debate community. Welcome to the DPI.