I believe this is just another issue revisiting the same old topic of "more and more teams are joining, and less and less of the increasing number of teams gets to 'win'".

It's actually quite simple, really. 16 more matches means 16 X 5 minutes per match, so, 80 minutes more to add into the finals. Plus 20 extra minutes for making that much more matches works. That's about 1.5 to 2 hours addition to the existing finals.

For qualifying rounds, it's pretty simple too.

Matches runs from 9:30pm till 12pm, then 1pm till 5pm, and then 9:30pm to 12pm again. Total of 9 hours for QM. With about 32 teams, for all the teams to play at least 1 match, it will take

32 teams X (1 match / 4 teams) X (5 mins / 1 match) = 40 mins. In 9 hours, you can fit in 13 qualifying matches.

With 44 teams, you can fit in 9 matches, and with 50 teams, you can fit in 8 matches.

The more teams cramped in a regional, the less qualifying rounds per team, and less portion of the teams will get picked, and less portion of the teams will get awards.

It's the same as having a "qualification process" for the Championship event. They simply can't fit all 800 teams in it.

With more and more teams joining, the regionals will eventually reach to a number where it can't get any bigger anymore. That's what's happening to Silicon Valley Regional, we just can't fit in anymore teams. With the current schedule, it's hard to add any more qualifying matches, and make finals even longer unless you push the award ceremony later, and teams get to stay in the pit for a longer time.

Is it fair? No, not really. A lot of teams out there deserve to play in the finals, and win more awards. But, there just aren't enough room in the events. Everyone want to see more teams getting recognition for what they do, but frankly I believe the teams got the most out of the participation and not the recognition. Dean keeps saying "it's not about winning", and I agree. The teams already won by being there. Eventually finals, and championship event will probably be used to determine who's got the best robots for the game, but that's about it.

The final solution? More regionals and fewer teams to each regional. That's exactly what should happen when FIRST get larger and larger. They just got to find more money for the regionals.

Yeah.

I don't think there is enough time to add more teams to the eliminations. Plus, if the majority of teams were in the finals - it seems like that achievement is made cheaper for the small number of teams that make it that far.

I'd prefer to have two thirds of the teams out in the stands, looking on, then have only one third out there, bitter at not being chosen.