[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Cory

I'm not sure how you came away with that impression based on the quoted rule.

It's quite clear that FIRST wants teams to develop relationships with companies and consider them team members. It literally says that. It then says that if a sponsor is a team member, you do not account for cost of labor.

Well, no, it says if the sponsor employee is team member, which is a very real distinction. Let's take a look at R11, example 5.

EXAMPLE 5: A Team purchases steel bar stock for $10 USD and has it machined by a local machine shop that is a recognized Sponsor of the Team. If the machinists are considered members of the Team, their labor costs do not apply. The total applicable cost for the part would be $10 USD.

This clearly indicates that the machinists are not team members by default through the company's sponsorship of the team. Now, how you define who your team members are is up to you. But I for one am not sure that (in the extreme case) someone who, over the course of the entire season, spends two hours machining a few parts for the team should be considered a member of the team.

I would, however, agree that these rules are encouraging teams to build relationships with sponsors and to integrate those employees into their teams. But the way the rule is written does draw a line in the sand. Sponsor-machined parts are not by default free of labor costs.