[EricH]

Originally Posted by TheMadCADer

Growth doesn't have to take a long time.

Israel went from 12 teams to 30 or 40 in 1-2 years once the regional got started. Most of those teams are still around, and the regional is now attracting some U.S. teams in addition to the "locals".

OTOH, Brazil did something similar at about the same time, I think with a few more teams. That didn't work out for more than a couple of years--there is now no Brazil Regional, and fewer teams. Other than Israel, there are no regionals south of the U.S. border (Hawaii doesn't count as south of the border) at this time.

What happened? I don't know. However, with rapid growth comes the challenge of sustainability. You can't just start 30 teams overnight with a short-term grant and expect them to still be there in 5 years or more after the grant runs out--you want them to diversify their funding to be more sustainable. How does it help you to have 25 teams fail as soon as the seed money runs out?



That said, I'm sure that this hasn't slipped FIRST's mind. However, I'm thinking that they just aren't sure how they're going to deal with it yet, so they aren't saying anything.