NSW Championship idea

I have had an idea for a little while for a better NSW Champs. This idea would need to have some sponsorship.

My idea came about when i was thinking about the schedule for 2007 for my home club, Campbelltown, I was thinking whether a South Western Sydney League would be worth investigating. I was thinking about inviting Liverpool chess club, and perhaps Mounties chess club. The format would be, say, 10 player round robins with participants split into divisions according to rating. As this thought was later in the year i decided to abandon this idea.

When thinking of the low turn out at the NSW State Champs I thought that the league system might work for a state champs.

Say the state is broken up into regions:
South West Sydney Region: Campbelltown, Liverpool, Mounties
Western Sydney Region: Rooty Hill, Parramatta.
Eastern Sydney Region: Manly, Nth Sydney and Hakoah
Southern Sydney Region: St George, Canterbury, Wollongong.
Central Sydney Region: Wests, Ryde Eastwood, Asquith.
Central Coast reigion: Gosford, Mingara, Toukley, Ettalong.
Newcastle Region: Newcastle, Cardiff, Maitland.
NSW Country region: all other chess clubs in country NSW.

Each region runs their own league except for the NSW Country Region. The top division of each region is the qualifying division for the state championship finals. The number of entries into the state championships depend on the percentage of players accross all the divisions in that league compared to that of other leagues.
Games are played on their club night.

The NSW Country Region representative(s) will be selected by a GP of Country weekenders comprising of Dubbo, Coffs Harbour, Laurieton and any other NSW Country region tournament that pops up.

Now there is the problem of when to play these Leagues. In sydney there is always some club based competition going on whether it be the Grade Matches or the Western Sydney Chess Premiership or Club champs etc etc. So in my opinion it would happen over an 18 week period starting in February thus allowing two weeks per league game. This would hopefully gel with the players playing in the WSCP and Grade matches. Now dont get me wrong, I support the WSCP but if it was not possible to play the games over the 18 weeks then perhaps Sydney could convert to only having one teams event in the Grade Matches and forgoing the WSCP to have some variety in the sydney chess scene!?

The State Champs Final
The state champs final will have at least 16 competitors, 9 round Swiss over 5 days. GM's, IM's, WGM's, WIM's recieve entry without having to qualify in the Regional leagues. If more than 8 positions are taken up by the titled players then every division will get one position in the State Champs final (thus potentially increasing the field). A couple of oversease IM's / GM's may be invited to play to make the event a possible norm producing tournament. These players would not be elligible for the title of State Champ.

Here is where the sponsorship needs to come in. I think for making it this far all divisional players must be rewarded with a cash prize. But with titled players now in the mix there is the chance that the qualifiers would miss out. So a cash prize for everyone in the Finals would be Ideal. Perhaps someone like Star City could be approached to hold the premium tournament there with some sponsorship and possibly some TV coverage. Maybe a weekly show covering the game of the round or something like that.

I'd like to know what others think of my Idea. Its a pipe dream, i know, but it is an idea!