Why not have alliance selection first thing Saturday morning? Maybe even alliance selection before opening ceremonies to allow more strategy or inspection time.
Benefits of this over Friday night are numerous:
- Qual matches can go as late as desired Friday
- Teams get essentially all of the time they need to make pick lists.
- Rankings are known for certain during pick list meetings, allowing for better strategy.
- No "surprise captains" without lists (happens less often at Champs but occasionally an issue)
- Saturday doesn't have to be rushed, allowing for a longer Einstein
- No team would ditch Saturday morning as they might still be playing
I think 6 divisions of 70-80 teams is probably the way to go. A round robin on Einstein would mean 6 matches total for the "semi finals" (compare to 4-6 for current semis) and then the top two advance. Tiebreakers could either be a rubber match or highest total score. Finals are same old best of three.