[Alex2614]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

This is not true. There have been a large group of people, not the majority by any stretch but not one or two odd balls out in left field, that have said that the World Championships are in fact, too big. The entire Division Structure of the Worlds came up as a response to many of people saying, "there are just too many teams for one competition." The largeness of the Worlds is awesome. But I do think that it can get too big.

If I had my way, I would ask the question this way: How many teams should attend the World Championships such that it maximizes FIRST's chances of getting the event picked up as a Prime Time show on TV? I think by this standard, even 400 teams is higher than optimum.

Read my rant above, but I still believe that the fastest way for FIRST to make the cultural change that it seeks is to get the World Championships on TV.

Dr. Joe J.

Don said in St. Louis they they are looking into holding a small event where the winners of the two championships compete together. Now THAT is an event that could be televised. And then everyone that is complaining about having one world champion can be happy.

But for me, I personally don't really care about that, and neither do our sponsors. Our sponsors care that we attended championship. And if more teams can go back to their sponsors and say that they went to a world-level event, how can that be a bad thing? They won't care that there were 2 world level events. They won't care about how many teams were there.