Knowledge Bowl

Anything that's on topic but doesn't fit elsewhere, including related events that might be of interest to quizbowl players.
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allievh
Kimahri
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2022 1:41 pm

Knowledge Bowl

Post by allievh »

Hi,
I know that Knowledge Bowl is kind of a big deal in southern Minnesota (that's how I joined quizbowl initially, Owen added a pkbot to the Northfield KB server), but how well-known is it elsewhere from your experience? Given the format idk if it's more prominent than quizbowl in places that already have qb teams.

Thanks :)
Allie Hoffert - Northfield, Minnesota - Boots Liaison
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Halinaxus
Wakka
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2019 9:39 pm

Re: Knowledge Bowl

Post by Halinaxus »

allievh wrote: Wed Mar 16, 2022 1:34 am Hi,
I know that Knowledge Bowl is kind of a big deal in southern Minnesota (that's how I joined quizbowl initially, Owen added a pkbot to the Northfield KB server), but how well-known is it elsewhere from your experience? Given the format idk if it's more prominent than quizbowl in places that already have qb teams.

Thanks :)
Hey Allie! Glad to see some more Minnesotans making it onto the forums.

Knowledge Bowl is a lot less prevalent than quiz bowl nationally, largely because most of the country has figured out how much better quiz bowl is (mainly in question quality, but also in tournament format). Minnesota, Colorado (where Knowledge Bowl was founded and where the old question company was based), and Washington State are the three states with the most Knowledge Bowl presence to the best of my knowledge, although I believe there are pockets of it in other states.

In both Colorado and Washington, Knowledge Bowl is by far the most dominant all-subject academic competition, and good quiz bowl tournaments are few and far betwen (usually only one or two a year, drawing very small fields). However, Minnesota has a very significant pyramidal quiz bowl presence. The Minnesota Quiz Bowl Alliance (MQBA) and Minnesota High School Quiz Bowl League (MNHSQBL), which are two separate organizations run by basically the same people, run one of the best-organized and most consistent quiz bowl circuits in the country for teams in the Twin Cities metro area. Many large metro schools exclusively play quiz bowl (think Wayzata or Eden Prairie), while others compete in both Knowledge Bowl and quiz bowl (Chaska is in that group).

MQBA and MNHSQBL have been trying to introduce rural Minnesota Knowledge Bowl teams to quiz bowl for over 15 years now (among other things, they ran the outreach tournament at Chaska in February 2020 that Northfield attended), and they've had some success (Northfield is one of them). However, the vast majority of the rural schools have stayed with KB, and attempts to impove Knowledge Bowl from the inside (including using NAQT questions and adding quiz bowl rules like prompts) have failed too, usually due to opposition from the rural schools.

Hope this helps! Feel free to contact me here or on Discord (there's an MNQB server that I can invite you to if you're not already on it) if you want to learn more.
Reilly Melville
Chaska High School '22
Purdue University '26
allievh
Kimahri
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2022 1:41 pm

Re: Knowledge Bowl

Post by allievh »

Thanks so much for replying, this helps a lot!
Allie Hoffert - Northfield, Minnesota - Boots Liaison
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