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Unread 03-05-2015, 15:36
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Re: Proposal for the 2 Championship format

Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH View Post
That's not exactly what I'm getting at here. As a whole, the number of sports teams stays the same, right? (Barring any school closings or openings or suspensions and all.) And between any two random years, the skill levels ain't gonna change all that much, right? Barring some random luck of getting a superstar on a low-level team, of course.

Not in FRC. Not only does the number of teams vary year-to-year, but the skill levels of those teams can change radically. Example: 330, from 2005 to 2007. 1 regional and world champs in 2005, didn't get closer than finalist to anything in 2006 (and didn't get picked for CMP elims), back on Einstein with two regional wins in 2007. If you went promotion/relegation, they'd be in Premier in 2006 and in Challenger in 2007, when you could sure argue the reverse ought to be true. This isn't the only team I can think of...
I would argue that good FRC teams are highly consistent, since the mentor base and team structure make good teams, and that doesn't turn over all that rapidly. Most drastic changes in performance are a result of mentor related changes. Sure there may be exceptions like 330 - but go look through the list of what teams have won CA regionals over the last 4 years, it's a lot of repeats, no? I haven't seen many established teams rocket up and down on a year to year basis. It's normally a gradual increase or decline in performance, short of massive school/sponsor/mentor changes. Talking about the top 10-15% of FRC here...

Again, I'm not arguing for fixed divisions, there's no need to since teams will still be attending districts, regionals, etc with all teams. Splitting champs into performance tiers would be simple to do on a yearly basis.

Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH View Post
My point wasn't necessarily that that was the case, but rather that one of FIRST's stated items was to reduce team travel costs. If you're a Detroit team and get assigned to Houston because you're a "Challenger" team (and "Challenger" is in Houston, rather than being assigned to Detroit based on distance, FIRST looks an awful lot like a bunch of liars, no? I mean, unless they offer to pay your travel down there, which I highly doubt they'd do. Being on the west coast, let's just say that for us out here it's kind of irrelevant, we have to fly anyways, so I'm really hoping that Salt Lake City is being talked to now about 2021...
Again, I don't buy that as a reason for the move to 2 events. If that was the reason, they did a horrible job picking venues. It's still a long bus ride or a flight from both coasts. Growth is FIRST's MO - and that's what this is about.

I have no problem with difficult travel to Champs, you go there to meet up with the best of the best. I'm less inspired by difficult travel to an event that might be less competitive than a District Championship, and only getting to see half of the best teams.
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Last edited by scottandme : 03-05-2015 at 15:40.