Quote:
Originally Posted by 1986titans
There's 33 teams from Michigan registered for Championships, which means that 13 had to buy in (since 51 and 67 get automatic bids, they don't count towards the 18). Compare that to Minnesota, which is sending 13 teams total... and they have something like 155 teams this year. Just something to think about.
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When I said "I think it would be fair to reduce the number of buy-ins to increase the number of qualifiers," I was not exempting Michigander buy-ins. Coming from a team that would never go to the Championship if we did not qualify, I would not complain if buying into the Championship were completely eliminated.
I'm not going to tell you that Minnesota teams are over- or under-represented or that Minnesota teams are better or worse, but they can buy their way to the Championship or they can go to regionals and qualify just like anyone else. You can't really specifically distribute spots in the open regional system, but if Minnesota were to have a state district system, they would (almost certainly) receive 155 teams worth of spots at the Championship, just like Michigan and MAR did when they began. However, Michigan is no longer receiving its fair share. Michigan has 190 teams, which is 8.1% (190 of 2343*) of FRC. The Championship has about 260 qualifying spots (400 minus 140 buy-ins*) this year. 8.1% of 260 is about 21. I will rescind my right to complain if FRC gives Michigan 3 more qualifying spots (unless Michigan grows significantly or the number of qualifying spots grows significantly).
The 13 Michigander buy-ins are 9.3%* of the 140 registration spots, which is probably a reflection of the resources many Michigan teams have. The 31 Michigan teams are 7.8%*, which is about right, except that I don't think we should be comparing teams that simply register. Those aren't spots allotted, which is the focus of this discussion, but rather spots open to all teams. I would focus on the fact that Michigan is only 6.9% of qualifying spots.
*Stats from
here assuming the Championship is 400 teams.
tl;dr We want more spots and the ideal of equal representation agrees.