[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

This is kind of an aside, but something I haven't seen mentioned is, where is FIRST getting the idea that every team both wants to go and can go to the Championship every four years? They keep pointing out that making champs bigger means 25% of teams get to go, which means everyone gets to go every four years. But that's ridiculous. I think it's fair to say at least half of the teams at Champs had been there in the past 3 Championships. If 25% just happens to allow everyone who wants to go every four years to go, that's one thing, but that's not how the argument is being presented and they haven't shown us data to support that.

I'm really curious how much demand there is for the Championship. The length of the waitlist is one way to tell, I guess, but being on the waitlist and desiring to go to Champs off of it are two different things. Some use it as a hedge, if they have a good season but don't qualify, then get a waitlist invite, they go, otherwise they don't.

I get FIRST's position here - the championship inspired me as a student, and not really just because I was playing for the championship, but because of the overall experience. I just think they vastly underestimate how much of that experience they'll lose by cutting out half of it from each one. It's not two championships; it's two halves of what was one championship (plus 100 extra teams each, true)

+1 Well said.

Even if they didn't ask teams, mentors or volunteers for feedback about 2 champs, you would think they would have tried to poll teams on potential attendance. Filling another 200 slots, regardless of the change in structure may be difficult...