[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by jspatz1

The 500 lb. gorilla in this story is not these teams, or if or why they decided to play a certain way, or whether it was right or wrong. The much bigger issue is whether it can be acceptable at a FIRST event for a sponsor, or anyone else, to offer money rewards to teams for running up a high match score, or a low score, or any other goal that could be manipulated or affect outcomes. Where would this stop if permitted? I do not fault the teams for taking the temptation of the cash reward (nicknamed the "challenge".) I fault the sponsor who made the proposal, and any FIRST official who knew of it and allowed it to go on. It is a dangerous phenomenon that FIRST would be wise to nip in the bud.

Originally Posted by Libby K

This is what upsets me.
The challenge was issued, apparently everyone agreed to it, we've beaten that horse to death already.

But why does someone who supposedly 'in line' with the mission and vision of FIRST, and represents FIRST at such a high level, think it is IN ANY WAY okay to offer money to teams in a way that alters match play and event outcomes?

What was he thinking?!

That's my big problem with this as well. As a member of the public, he's got all sorts of latitude to make offers large or small, in public or even in secret—that practice may not be ideal, but it's hardly practical for FIRST to regulate this in general.¹ But as a member of the board of directors, he should be conscious of anything that could give the appearance of impropriety or undermine the efforts of other parts of the FIRST organization, and conduct himself accordingly. I think it's fair to say he erred on that count.

Originally Posted by ejSabathia

When I hear of alliances agreeing to how a match will be played, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm a competitor through and through, a virtue I hope to share with my students/teammates. When I heard about the offers being made at the AZ regional and then read about those celebrating the results...the following definition is all that comes to mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_fixing

As for the competitors themselves, there is also a responsibility to be judicious in accepting offers like this one. I don't have a problem with the idea of teams attempting strategies that subvert the intent of the rules, so long as they're demonstrably within the rules, and so long as the impact of those strategies outside of gameplay is not grossly negative.

Accepting the offer of something valuable in exchange for playing the match a certain way is definitely reminiscent of match fixing, but I think the fact that (so far as we know and have reason to believe) Sanghi did not stand to gain anything from the strategy mitigates the impact somewhat. Perhaps the willingness of a team to accept such an offer should be inversely proportional to their uncertainty about the motives and results of such a challenge.² Similarly, the teams should have realized that they'd be exposing themselves to scrutiny for the same reasons: was the expected value of what they stood to gain so large as to appear improper? $500 isn't trivial, but isn't exactly a windfall, particularly considering the difficulty of the challenge.

Another possible negative impact is the perceived legitimacy of the competition. If it devolves into a farce—even one which is squarely within the rules—FRC may be perceived as a pointless endeavour by participants, sponsors, schools and other important constituencies. Again, I don't think this happened here, because the agreement was to avoid defence, which didn't entirely ruin the match, even though it caused it to play out differently than many competitors would have expected.

Ultimately, I think the the teams involved were probably somewhat careless, but not malicious or negligent in their handling of the situation. And they'll definitely think harder the next time they're presented with a similar offer. In that respect, maybe they've taught everyone a useful lesson.

¹ There are laws and criminal offences intended for when this sort of conduct is drastically contrary to the public interest.
² Many leagues have severe restrictions on this sort of conduct, because of the impracticality if knowing who exactly benefits from the offer, or what the consequences will be. It's up to the FIRST community to determine its tolerance for the risk that someone will manipulate the competition, and up to FIRST to decide if they need to regulate it.