Currently, Week 1 starts the second week of the year (So Jan 11 for 2027). To me, there is a couple of reasons why this is not great:
Finals happen around end of March / early April. For some reason, this week is one where people end up doing some big plans, like traveling, camping, or spending time with family. It's probably due to 1) spring break, 2) Easter & good Friday, and 3) if you want to schedule a big event around this time, this week makes more sense than others since many others take it off anyways or you get some time off from work/school. Take me for example, where in 2025 and 2026 I was in Medical School and I had long-planned months in advance important life events during this time. I literally played my 2025 finals game in my suit a few hours before my engagement, and my 2026 finals game from a phone on hotel wifi in Bali Indonesia during my honeymoon. It felt weird because those life events are clearly way more important than Pokemon but I also did not want to let down my team by subbing out on our most important week of all the tournament, potentially throwing hundreds of hours and weeks down the drain. This makes for worse quality games as well.
Another thing is that it makes for a better tournament schedule. SPL players often have Pokemon fatigue and need at least a couple of weeks from big tours, and is the main reason why I joined Slam late (after Ubers, LC, and UU signups were gone). Not to mention, WCoP feels a bit close. Yes SCL is behind SPL but most players play different tiers between SCL and SPL, when they have to play the same in WCoP, so I think making that gap a week bigger is also nice.
There is also precedent for this as it did happen before, in SPL XIII, as well as SPL XI, X, and IX was actually December 31st. I'm too lazy to check more, and I'm not sure if this change to 2nd week of the year was deliberate or not, but I do think scheduling it in the first week of Jan would make more sense to me and also make it more hype.
Finals happen around end of March / early April. For some reason, this week is one where people end up doing some big plans, like traveling, camping, or spending time with family. It's probably due to 1) spring break, 2) Easter & good Friday, and 3) if you want to schedule a big event around this time, this week makes more sense than others since many others take it off anyways or you get some time off from work/school. Take me for example, where in 2025 and 2026 I was in Medical School and I had long-planned months in advance important life events during this time. I literally played my 2025 finals game in my suit a few hours before my engagement, and my 2026 finals game from a phone on hotel wifi in Bali Indonesia during my honeymoon. It felt weird because those life events are clearly way more important than Pokemon but I also did not want to let down my team by subbing out on our most important week of all the tournament, potentially throwing hundreds of hours and weeks down the drain. This makes for worse quality games as well.
Another thing is that it makes for a better tournament schedule. SPL players often have Pokemon fatigue and need at least a couple of weeks from big tours, and is the main reason why I joined Slam late (after Ubers, LC, and UU signups were gone). Not to mention, WCoP feels a bit close. Yes SCL is behind SPL but most players play different tiers between SCL and SPL, when they have to play the same in WCoP, so I think making that gap a week bigger is also nice.
There is also precedent for this as it did happen before, in SPL XIII, as well as SPL XI, X, and IX was actually December 31st. I'm too lazy to check more, and I'm not sure if this change to 2nd week of the year was deliberate or not, but I do think scheduling it in the first week of Jan would make more sense to me and also make it more hype.
