Quote:
Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery
Having a Championship in Detroit is the thing that makes the most sense out of all of this. Michigan has 347 teams already. Ontario has 175. Ohio has 75. Indiana has 61. That's a very sizable portion of FIRST within a few hour drive. With or without the explosion of teams in Michigan in the last couple years progressing into future years, the Great Lakes region is already incredibly dense for FRC.
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Additionally, Ontario is expecting to move to districts in the next 1-2 years, and will undoubtedly result in further growth here.
I'm excited for FIRST Championship Detroit to be within a 5-6 hours drive for me. I'm VERY not excited that it will only be half of the championship.
For the Toronto-region teams (which is the overwhelming majority of ON teams), MI/OH/IN and to a lesser extent PA/Western NY teams, a Detroit Championship DOES have real cost savings.
It should be downright
terrifying to HQ that this announcement had many long term, well respected mentors from HOF teams ready to jump ship to another program at the drop of a hat, even if it meant building a new program themselves. It took only a couple pages into this thread for someone to suggest that its time for a vex pro competition to finally offer an alternative competition to FRC in a similar style.
Its easy to say (correctly) that a championshplit will enable more teams to get there and by extension get (most of) the inspiration that going to championship gives. HOWEVER, that's only true if it doesn't come at the expense of disillusioning the elites. They're the ones who MAKE that championship level so inspiring. If they jump ship because they want to actually compete to be the best in the world, then the inspiration evaporates in a really big hurry.
Most of those super-elite teams (the 1114s, 254s, 118s and 148s of FRC) build their season with the goal of WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP. Its the goal that drives them to the level of excellence they achieve, and its that excellence that makes them so inspiring to the other teams they play with. By splitting the championship, you cheapen that goal and make it less attractive for them to achieve, and their performance may suffer, and ultimately make them less inspiring.
Improving the DCMP/Super-Regional level of play to be more inspiring is the better way to reach greater numbers of teams -- even if it means a
smaller grand championship with only the winners and finalists of the DCMP/SR level.