Quote:
Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve
Some things to think about.
1. An event can get too big for any one city to support, hotel-wise.
2. Recruiting enough volunteers for our style of event in one city can be an issue. I know I've been hit up several times to sign up to volunteer at champs.
3. Having >1 champs is consistent with FIRST's mission around reach
4. This could be a first step toward a multi-tier playoff model leading back to a single championship in the future.
5. There's nothing about this that can't be changed back to a single event in 2021. At that point, though, you'll have teams used to 1000ish slots for Champs and complaints that it reduces access.
6. Having 2 events does increase the number of teams within driving distance, particularly the DET event. The west coast would not be a logical second location, if you are using driving distance as your metric. If the model is successful, I'd expect a championship in California to follow. Houston is a curious choice for the second location if you use transportation costs as a metric; I'm wondering whether there were facility availability reasons for that, as 2017 not very far away in the world of venue scheduling.
7. I could see 1,000 spots for champs in 2017 (600 in STL and 400 in DET)
8. I'm glad that they're willing to try something new, even if in the end it turns out to be less successful than expected.
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Then decrease the number of people going to "championship" by adding an intermediary competition. More teams get to experience "moving on against tougher competition" without causing the integrity of the sport to suffer.