[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by artK

In FIRST, a huge number of people have the philosophy of "in order to level the playing field, raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling". This is why people who suggest that FIRST make rules about limiting resources (because a powerhouse team has a good robot) get a lot of flak and a negative reputation in the community.

A lot of this discussion about people disliking the Championshplit probably stems from the fact that FIRST has lowered the ceiling, and the floor. I suspect that a lot of the backlash is from the ceiling being lowered.

Personally, I thought at first that 8 divisions would be a silly idea, but as I think about it more, while it would lower the ceiling for a division win, the expansion would allow more teams to see the best, learn from them, become more competitive, and it would (theoretically) get back to a point where a division win then would be just as much as a division win last year. Had the 2015 championships been the model for the future, the lowest a division ceiling could be would be the ceiling this year, and this year is looking pretty good.

Running the Championshplit would lower the ceiling of all major awards to an irreversible low, and the lowering from 8 divisions would only compound the lowered ceiling. The ceiling would be so low that division champions would go from 12 -> 16 -> 32 -> 64 in under 5 years. The ceiling being that low would reduce the inspiration to the floor, and the floor would rise much slower than 8 divisions ever would. This is why I dislike this idea.

So back in 2003 when 291 of about 746 teams (39%!) made it to Champs, we must've been doing a terrible job of inspiring people at that competition. I mean, we were because it was the most poorly thought out layout for Champs EVER, and HQ's poor planning gave Houston a bad rep that has apparently lasted to this day... But I don't the the size of the event relative to the field of teams had anything to do with it. Heck, I'm pretty sure way back in the dawn of time, over 50% of the teams that competed ended up at Nationals. I don't really think that made Nationals any worse or less inspiring.