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Originally Posted by IndySam
Eric, Ohio has the Cleveland regional and Pittsburgh is right on the border with Ohio.
Jim, does 10k include the cost of fields? I think your number is a bit low. But I do agree that MI had shown the way for the rest of us and it's where FIRST should head.
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Sam, $10K is on the low end, but we just did the AnnArbor event this weekend for about this amount, and it was very professional. Dean said so himself during his visit on Saturday. The biggest variable on the event cost is whether or not we must rent the venue, or if we can get it donated. Our "older" events at GVSU and WSU are our most expensive because we must rent the field houses from the Universities. Most of the newer events like Troy, AnnAbor, Niles, and Traverse City have a much lower price point.
The Fields are not part of the this cost. Michigan commissions the construction of 2 complete playing fields each year. This is part of our upfront overhead operating cost. We use at each of our 10 events, as well as numerous post season activities.
Contrary to earlier comments "District System" is scalable down to very small numbers of teams. It really depends what your goals are. Some people think that to run robot tourmanments you need a big population of teams, but this is not the case. If you want your local teams to play more, the real question becomes "do we actually need different teams at different events?" Many people think the answer is yes, but we know that while this would be preferred, it is not actually an operational requirement. Teams want to play more. Who they play with is secondary to how often they get to play.
We run the OCCRA league here in Michigan with a population of 24 to 30 teams each year with 4 events and a championship. It can be done with very small numbers......think about it.