What to do to improve the Skyline Champions Invite

So I went and watched Game 1 of the inaugural Skyline Champions Invitational on Tuesday, which pitted Jordan, the defending 5A champ, against Bountiful, the defending 4A champ. This week’s invite also includes last year’s 2A champ, Waterford, as well as host Skyline.
Of course, the idea is to pit last year’s champions against one another. It’s an outstanding idea, something I hope will continue into the foreseeable future. But there are two obvious changes that need to be made going forward.
First, this thing has to be played on a better field than the one at Skyline High, and second, you need to get all four champs involved.
Following Tuesday’s contest, which ended in an entertaining 3-3 draw, I briefly spoke on the phone with first-year coach Alan Jones, who helped organize the event. I complimented him on the invite and told him I thought it was a good idea. Without me even mentioning the field situation, Jones quickly acknowledged it would be nice to have played it at a better facility.
As Jones and his players are painfully aware, Skyline High’s field is too narrow, too short and is very, very bumpy. You simply can’t play good soccer on it, and teams are left to play boom-ball and hope to win as many corners and deep throws as possible.
A source told me that architects were recently summoned to Skyline High to explore the possibility of redoing the soccer field in hopes of vastly improving the size and quality of the pitch. However, that’s not to say that anything definitive is on the table, and even if it was, there’s no telling how long it might be before it happens.
In the meantime, we’re left with what Skyline has to offer. I really hope that Jones and Co. don’t abandon the Invite after this season. It was very fun to watch Jordan and Bountiful collide, and if they can figure out a way to include all four state champs next year while playing on a better pitch, we’d really be firing on all cylinders.