Parents can buy a National Spelling Bee spot for their kid if he or she loses at regionals
A child’s National Spelling Bee dream isn’t over if he or she loses at regionals as long as someone is willing to pony up a $1,500 entry fee to the National Spelling Bee finals.
Yes, the 2019 spelling bee field isn’t entirely made up of winners. According to the Wall Street Journal, this year’s spelling bee is the second that includes a pay-to-play option for kids who misspelled a word at the regional spelling bee and didn’t qualify for this week’s finals.
Then, 14-year-old Karthik Nemmani won the 2018 Bee, correctly spelling the word koinonia for the championship. Karthik’s path to the national event was different. He was part of the Bee’s first ever class of “invited” spellers: kids who lost at regionals but whose parents agreed to pay an entry fee of $750 and fund their family’s own travel and lodging, potentially thousands of dollars.
This new pay-to-play option, called “RSVBee,” nearly doubled the number of young people vying for the championship to more than 500. It also changed, with one stroke, what it takes to access this high-prestige contest, adding significant money to the mix. For this year’s event, which takes place next week, Scripps has raised the fee to $1,500, getting even more takers. Now, paying contestants will outnumber those who got there the traditional way.
Scripps says it’s being more fair with paid spots
If you didn’t read the bolded part above closely, read the last sentence again to make sure it sinks in. Kids whose parents — or a generous donor — paid their way into the spelling bee outnumber those who earned their way into the spelling bee by winning their regional bees.
Is this fair? Scripps rationalizes to the WSJ that it is by pointing out that some regionals are more competitive than others, while other regionals don’t have sponsors to pay the way for their winners. And that makes sense. Think of it a bit like the electoral college. There is a larger concentration of advanced spellers in a more populous area like New York than there is in a state like Idaho or Wyoming.
If you’ve ever been outraged about what you think is a scourge of participation trophies in today’s society, you can’t rationalize this one as anything but an extension of that theme. And, as always, your blame should be directed toward the adults and not the kids.
But while Scripps may say it’s being more fair by adding additional spots to the spelling bee, it’s actually being even more unfair. Why? The $1,500 entry fee that assures that not every regional loser has an equal shot at getting to the finals.
The spelling bee has long been seen as one of the competitions where participants are pitted on a level playing field and the tournament’s best are fairly represented at the finals. That’s clearly no longer the case.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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