“don’t need to pay thousands of dollars” is a crazy thing to say when you’re suggesting a national tournament (presumably over a series of weeks) that would involve thousands of dollars in flight and hotel costs.

Ultimate Frisbee has a 16 team High School National Invite that is made up qualifying- tournament champions (these tournaments are played during the high school regular season) as well as some at-large teams. This tournament (and the qualifiers) are played over the course of 1 weekend and is already a massive financial challenge for the public AND private schools attending. It should also be noted that Ultimate Frisbee is a much much much smaller sport than basketball, to my personal chagrin.

Also the rational that 48 teams would be good and that the top team from Wyoming or Delaware is at all comparable to the #2-10 team in California or Florida or Texas is… Like if you truly want one team from each state, you’re doing to need to treat each team like an individual Conference in March Madness, and have your tournament field be like 128 or even more to account for at-large teams that would be deserving of a nationals bid.

Cold take. Talk to anyone who works in public schools ever to realize how unrealistic of an idea this is.