2024-2025 Extemp Central National Points Race: The Structure of This Year’s Competition

Next month the 2024-2025 national circuit season will begin online when the University of Kentucky hosts its annual National Speech and Debate Season Opener.  And that means the return of the Extemp Central National Points Race, which is entering its tenth year.

The Extemp Central National Points Race is a season-long competition that seeks to identify the top extempers across a select group of prestigious national circuit events.  Extemp Central recognizes that in some years the top extemper in the nation may not win the National Points Race due to the inability of some competitors to travel extensively.  Still, seven national champions are among the nine previous National Points Race winners.

Last year’s National Points Race was close, decided by the final round of International Extemp at the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament.  Brandon Cheng of Flintridge Preparatory School (CA) placed third in IX, which was just enough to finish ahead of Sruti Peddi of BASIS Scottsdale (AZ), who led the standings for much of second semester.  Cheng has a chance to become the first repeat winner this season.

Tournaments selected for the National Points Race have been placed into five tiers due to their level of prestige, size, geographic location, and – most importantly – their ability to attract top-tier competitors.  It should be noted that the position of all of the tournaments on a particular tier is not fixed from season to season.  Last season saw the introduction of the Apple Valley Minneapple Speech Tournament to replace the Star Tribute Lightning Classic.  And this year features the addition of two tournaments:  the Princeton Classic and the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions (NIETOC).

One of the reasons we are able to maintain the National Points Race is that we have readers who contribute results.  If you attend a National Points Race tournament this year, please let us know the results of these tournaments.  For bigger tournaments, a tab sheet is preferable since competitors who finish outside of finals still earn points.

First Tier:  NSDA Nationals

Since NSDA Nationals does not have a unified extemp category the field of the tournament that has the “deeper” field will receive a 50 point bonus.  The extemp category that has the most extempers from the top 25 in its field – determined after the conclusion of the National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL) Grand National Tournament – will receive the bonus.  If there are an equal amount of competitors in each category no bonus will be awarded.

Here are the points awarded for NSDA Nationals in 2024-2025:

*Bonus for strong field is denoted in parenthesis.

Second Tier:  The Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin, Harvard, and NCFL Nationals

These second tier events each carry prestige on the national circuit.  MBA is the season’s first major competition, serving as an elite showcase of talented speakers that earned a bid from last season’s results or the first batch of competitions in the fall.  Harvard is the largest invitational tournament on the calendar.  And NCFL Nationals, while not as big or as long of a tournament as NSDA, attracts a massive enough field to warrant second tier status.

Second tier events award points starting at the octa-final level.  The exception is MBA, where points are awarded for the six highest-placing extempers because those individuals are recognized at awards.  Points are not awarded to those who are invited to MBA but do not place.

Here are the points awarded for these second tier tournaments in 2024-2025:

Third Tier:  Glenbrooks, the University of Texas Longhorn Classic, the California Invitational, and the University of Kentucky Tournament of Champions (TOC).

Glenbrooks has been a staple in the third tier since the National Points Race’s creation.  It is arguably the biggest and most prestigious competition on the national circuit during the fall semester.  The Longhorn Classic and the California Invitational are the best competitions in their respective states, providing large fields in areas of the country that typically have multiple national finalists.  The University of Kentucky Tournament of Champions (TOC) remains in this tier since it has outgrown the Extemp TOC and will be recognized as a major championship for the first time this season.

At third tier events extempers earn points for making the quarter-final rounds and beyond.

Here are the points awarded for these third tier tournaments in 2024-2025:

Fourth Tier:  The Yale Invitational, the Florida Blue Key, the Princeton Classic, the Barkley Forum, the Stanford National Invitational, the Tournament of Champions (TOC) of Extemporaneous Speaking, and the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions (NIETOC).

The fourth tier is for strong regional competitions and post-season tournaments that are not as strong as those in other tiers.  Princeton has begun attracting extempers who typically competed at George Mason and that earns it a place in this tier alongside Yale, another strong Northeast tournament.  The Florida Blue Key rises to a fourth tier event this season because it has seen growing participation across multiple states.  The Barkley Forum will be another big regional tournament for the Southeast but, unlike other parts of the country, the region will not have a third tier regular season event.  The Extemp TOC has seen dwindling attendance in recent years and the University of Kentucky TOC has eclipsed it as the fourth major, so the Extemp TOC falls into a fourth tier event for the first time since 2009-2010.  The NIETOC, which has drawn lots of numbers from the Midwest, has been added so that Midwest extempers have another tournament for the National Points Race as this year’s tournament will take place in Missouri.  And the Stanford National Invitational has been upgraded to fourth tier because it is an online event.  Extemp Central wants all extempers to have a crack at National Points Race points somewhere and Stanford and the National Season Opener at UK provide online opportunities for extempers throughout the country.  We encourage extempers to take advantage of those opportunities to test their skills beyond their home states.

Extempers who reach finals and semi-finals earn points at fourth tier events.

Here are the points awarded for these fourth tier tournaments in 2024-2025:

Fifth Tier:  The National Season Opener at the University of Kentucky, the New York City Invitational, George Mason Patriot Games, the James Logan MLK Invitational, and the Apple Valley Minneapple Speech Tournament:

All of the tournaments in the fifth tier are respectable events that draw strong fields in their local area.  This allows the National Points Race to provide more opportunities for extempers at tournaments in large states or regions.  The only change that exists at this level for 2024-2025 is James Logan is moved into the fifth tier due to Stanford moving up since its an online tournament.  This preserves a third, fourth, and fifth tier tournament for West Coast extempers that mirrors the structure of other regions.

Fifth tier tournaments are make-or-break affairs.  Only those extempers who reach the final round will receive points.  Remember also that only extempers that finish in the top six receive points at these events even if a tournament breaks more than six competitors to a final round.

Here are the points awarded for these fifth tier tournaments in 2024-2025:

Extemp Central wishes all extempers good luck in the 2024-2025 season.  We look forward to covering this year’s competition.