[Observing]

The traveling team does not have to pay the travel expenses. Those costs and host team expenses come off the top of the gate. What is left is split.

Personally I don't care if a 4 seed beats a 1 seed once in a 1,000 attempts. The joy and emotions that those kids on that one 4 seed team experience makes it worth it to me. And something to think about: the coaches strongly supported having the top 4 seeds advance. I'm quite confident if all those players on those 3 and 4 seeds hated the experience of getting beat badly; if the coaches of those teams didn't want to make the long, miserable bus rides; and if the coaches who get paid almost pennies per hour to coach didn't really want to have just one more week with their players at the expense of being away from their families another week, the coaching community wouldn't have pushed for 4 teams to advance.

If you don't want to see a likely blow out, then you shouldn't go to the game. High school athletics is not, repeat not, about the fans anyway. I'd hate to deprive any senior that loves the game of football one last opportunity to play the sport he loves. That's true about football and every other sport. But because football is such a tough and demanding sport, I think those kids that play it have a special passion for the game. Letting them play just one more football game is all the justification I need for the current system.

Pretty sure the traveling team gets an expense allowance, it doesn't necessarily equal a reimbursement for it's full costs. Ditto hosts. And
despite most fans preference to see competitive games, it's for the
KIDS that I hate to see all the excessive blowouts. I HIGHLY doubt
the kids on the 1-9, 2-8 teams that already know they're going to
get their brains beat in, will feel shortchanged an "experience".
Seeing as the final week is reserved for non-district games, most
of those kids would have a MUCH better chance to end their careers
in amore competitive game, and have that as their final memory of
playing days.