Right now I believe there's 12 games total per class. With 5 classes that 60 total games. With the new format, that's an additional 2 games per each class, so 14 per and a total of 70 games.
This would be doable (IF) they made more use of the other three diamonds, especially for the 1st round games. With 5 diamonds, I would think they could make that format work.
On this year's schedule, all of 3A and 4A 1st rd will be done by Monday, with two 5A Qtr games for the night cap. Each game is about 2 hrs apart on the schedule.
If you add the other three diamonds, you could potentially knock down 1st rd games for 4 classes, with 3 more Qtrs from another class to finish on Tuesday. Light would be the biggest issue with later games for those other 3 diamonds. Games at 5 or 5:30 run the risk of losing enough light if they were played over there as opposed to the main two diamonds. If that were not an issue, then you could finish all 5 classes in one day.
The
biggest issue, though, as I mentioned earlier, is that parking would be a bear. They've got it staggered every half hour right now in order to handle the parking rushes. Adding 2 or 3 more classes of games would make for a very packed parking lot. People already whine (a lot) about having to park on the far side of that small parking lot (which is smaller than either of the ones in Cedar Falls or Des Moines for state, btw), or in between the 3 slow-pitch diamonds). Just think how much more upset they'll be when we send them to the soccer fields behind all that.....
I think that would really be the biggest issue. That and needing to adjust for potential attendance figures regarding who gets to use the other three diamonds for their 1st rd games. (Like you said, the bigger classes, especially 5A, hardly bring anyone until the semies or finals). Some of those smaller classes that draw bigger may be a little cramped if they get sent to those mini-major diamonds.
To be honest, and this is just my opinion here.....I think they need to turn that vacant field behind Yankee and the baseball field into more parking. That would solve a lot of problems.
Btw, there are rumors that Diamond 1 could be getting a face-lift (press-box, stadium seating, etc), but first they need the money to make such a project happen.