Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan
The real customer is the teams. If regionals competed with other with entry fees, Las Vegas would be at the top with the highest demand. What we have is that a highly demanded product but it gets money from other sources. Teams love this regional, its a shame there are not enough sponsors to help. If team demand translate to more money for the regional, this regional would be fine but the business model is not set up that way.
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You need to get inside FIRST's head as to what "performing" might mean in this context. Certainly they are financially motivated, but that's only part of the formula.
As someone else posted, FIRST is trying to implement a culture change. Growth is most important. There are many ways to measure this growth. Number of teams, number of students, number of volunteers, number of sponsors...
If a regional can't pull in the sponsors needed to support it, that's going to be a red flag for FIRST. We've already established that Las Vegas is not an Engineering focal point.
FIRST also has criteria for new regionals based on the number of local teams. Does Las Vegas meet this criteria? If not, it's another red flag.
If CA is the main supplier of out of state teams for Las Vegas then any new regional in AZ or CA nets FIRST the same money.
MN organizes regionals a little different than most. We have one group that does all 4 MN regionals. If Duluth was organized on it's own, I don't think it would have the success it does today. Maybe Las Vegas needs to partner with one or more of the CA regional planners. The combined support of those CA companies that want to support the CA teams may save Las Vegas.