[Siri]

Originally Posted by Alex2614

When we go to two championships, getting to the top of one of the two championships is the highest you can possibly do in FIRST. You really think a sponsor is going to devalue you because you went to the absolute highest level possible?

Honestly? Yes. Absolutely.

I understand where you're coming from, and I'm glad you have that relationship with your sponsors. We do too, for the ones that understand FIRST and/or us well (Boeing, Sikorsky, etc). But in terms of marketing? Public recognition? In terms of attention grabbing and press impact and sponsors just being recruited? The buzz word isn't "highest level of competition" or "Region". It's "World". And not just in terms of "Champion", we've seen it as "World Finalist", "World Semifinalist", and to a lesser extent with "World Division Finalist". Everyone that gets an award, that even gets to Worlds can potentially benefit from that title. We've also been "Regional Champion" and "Region Champion". It's not even close.

People don't care how many Champions there are--they rarely even think about it--they don't care how qualifying works, the don't care about the bracket or the snake draft. Headlines are built around "World Championship". The R in FIRST comes from things that are easily comprehensible to the public: that's the entire point and method of going mainstream. "World" is a very big one of those things. People that already "get it", people that can put this in the FIRST perspective, are not the target audience that anyone's worried about losing with this publicity change.

Originally Posted by Alex2614

It's been proven that teams that attend champs are more successful at obtaining sponsors and support. Those sponsors would still sponsor them if they made it to one of the two championships. Why? Because it's the highest "event" in FIRST, just spread across multiple cities. Only 20% of teams get to go. Or better yet 10% of teams in the East get to go to the east championship. It's still just as marketable as before. Sponsors aren't going to care. They will care that you made it to a top tier, world level event that only 20% of teams in the world get to attend. That is still something very special. And our students are going to get just as much of an incredible experience out of it that they are now in St Louis or Atlanta.

You can believe this about all teams, but realize that you're speculating. (Your language doesn't tell me that you are.) I speculate that it will matter, based on the way my sponsors jump at the word "World". To be honest, if we marketed Worlds as "only 1 in 4 teams gets to go", we'd lose a lot of interest very quickly. No one thinks "a quarter of teams make it" when they think "World Championship".

I'm also not sure how you're getting "10% of teams in the East get to go to the east championship". How can you make the point that expanding the number of slots at the "highest level of competition" won't affect recognition by invoking a slot percentage that's half of what it was this year? FIRST's goal is 25%, unless you expect it to be that biased against the East even with their attempts at balancing. (Or unless you mean that half of the eastern teams (in the southeast) actually go to Huston? I don't think that's what you mean, but if so, I have to point out that it's it's both a deceptive statement and an example of why this gets so complicated to explain without reasonable buzzwords.)

Originally Posted by Rman1923

You had me cheering for you when you made this point. I'm actually on my way back from the first FLL Razorback invitational and I can tell you that you don't need all the programs together for champs if it's a question of inspiring. My team went in this weekend thinking it'd be their last weekend as a team (we have some eighth graders). But even though it was a invitational and 72 teams and not worlds, my team has unanimously agreed to continue the team again and asked me to mentor again. The eighth graders asked me the soonest possible time they could join FRC. Being at a FIRST event inspires you, and I think it's important to remember that. If you have FTC, FRC and FLL champs separate, it's still okay, I feel like the kids were more inspired by the other teams, the teams who did amazing, than any other type of robot. FIRST is designed to be inspirational at every level, and that's the reason I love it.

This is great to know. In wonder if HQ would be willing to poll these sorts of issues with FTC and (J)FLL teams. The ones I've judged seemed pretty inspired already.