Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex2614
It's about the percentage, not the number of events. You say only 25% of teams get to go to one of the two events. Just like in previous years when 25% of teams got to go to one championship. You still say "only 25% of teams made it this year, and we were one of them."
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I think this is the root of the disagreement. On the one hand, some people want to have a level of qualification that every team can attend once every four years. On the other hand, some people want that level to be the "Championship experience". The problem is that at least one very important group wants
both of those things to be true at the same time: FIRST HQ.
I'll discuss this with regard to more "-Splits", though I'm still not sure I want to project to the point where we're "having only 0.5% of teams being able to experience the championship" (-
post by Alex2614).* I think the more general question that comes from that post is: how long will having more Splits actually be sustainable for both goals? Right now two Splits is just an attempt (potentially successful) to split the baby between attendance and "Championship experience"--between number of inspired people and level of inspiration. In the long term the problem is still there: is it about what percentile you are in the organization, or about getting to be inspired by "the championship experience"? For ourselves, if we framed our Worlds bid as being 1 in 4, our sponsors would be as underwhelmed as Dr. Joe's. Money comes and kids go not because we're 1 in 4, but because it's an incredible experience and a chance to play and be ranked among
the best in the world.
Personally, I keep wondering why the multi-Split vs Worlds experience have to be the same thing: if we've got more Splits in our future, be it 4 or 75, have the top teams qualify for Worlds and the next tier qualify for the Splits/Super Regionals. There's nothing that says Super Regionals and Worlds have to be in
series as long as they're separate.
*For the record,
my personal argument was that that's too far away to be worth talking about,
but you [Alex] bring up that it's no so far away due to the growth curves. I haven't seen these(?) or run the numbers for myself yet, but I will. Do you have curves/data available? I'd like to run some numbers to get a better feel what we're facing.