Quote:
Originally Posted by Dunngeon
Please get educated on districts before telling those of us in them to "think about" why they don't work for poorer teams.
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Everybody who wants to make serious proposals about NY making a transition to districts should read the entire
District Planning Guide thoroughly. It contains all the guidelines FIRST HQ gives to a region when they want to move to districts. I'll try and hit some of the main points
Money
When a region goes to districts, they need to make their own organizational entity (for example, NEFIRST is part of ingenuityNE, a 501(c)(3) created for the purpose of operating New England districts). This organization is responsible for planning and paying for everything a district does (it'll own full field(s), other assets, and pay for the competitions). Think of it as a regional planning committee on steroids. Third event registration fees go entirely to the district, but the organization has to fundraise everything else (support from HQ is minimal, especially after the first year).
Events are recommended to have a total budget of ~25,000 (as compared to ~150,000 for a regional (see
Regional Planning Guide, budget section). This is a substantial decrease in costs - especially compared to the NYC Regional, which I've heard costs upwards of $500,000 to put on. There's a reason that (I'd say) the majority of district venues are donated or heavily subsidized - budgets are much tighter and FIRST HQ provides much less assistance. One of the most important parts here is having a strong sponsor/team base who can secure and help plan venue costs.
The district championship is planned like a regional, with a corresponding budget. For a district with 8 events and a championship, you're looking at over $300,000 in event costs (not even factoring in the fact that NYC events will inevitably be more expensive than average). Then factor in other asset investments - a 10 event district needs to own, store, and transport two full fields, a new set of carpet for each event (and transportation of each new set of carpet to the venue), plus the many other little things you need. A field costs ~20,000 for the perimeter, ~2,500 for the plastics, plus all the electronics (can't find data for that, but I'd guess ~10,000). Point is, it all adds up and gets very expensive very quickly.
Events
You need to have enough events spots to ensure that every team can register for 2 (with each event small enough to guarantee 12 matches/team). The sweet spot is typically around 40 teams per event. They should occur in venues with reasonable cost (see above) and be close to as many teams as possible. This is the major problem for NY because it has pockets of high team density, and these pockets are pretty spread out. That means there needs to be smart planning when deciding the size of the districts and location of events. A full state district would probably need 10 events, split evenly between the pockets of teams.
Volunteers
This is probably the most overlooked part. It takes a lot of manpower to run one event, let alone 10. There are a number of key roles that require training beforehand and there's a limit on the number of experienced people to fill those roles. If there aren't enough people to staff events, you can't do districts (this is the current issue facing Minnesota).
tl;dr - There's a lot of components that go into making the transition to districts that you probably haven't thought about. It's a massive logistical and financial problem that requires significant effort to undertake. The people in charge of making the decisions are definitely aware of the desire to switch and are trying to make it happen (and I've talked to some of them about it), but the fact no public announcements have been made means they haven't had real progress with these issues.
super tl;dr - Just read the
district planning guide