[Lil' Lavery]

A large part of the rationale FIRST laid out for the dual Championships was saving travel costs. A purely random assignment of teams between the two Championships undoes that.

For instance, there is a MASSIVE population of teams in Southeast Michigan, Ontario, Indiana, and Ohio within an easy drive of the Detroit Championship. Many of the Southeast Michigan teams could even do it as a daytrip (potentially on schoolbuses), slashing the travel costs to near zero. If 50% of these teams end up assigned to the Houston Championship, the costs savings rationale is completely out the window.

Now I realize that for a large portion of FRC, the cost of travelling doesn't really change all that much. We've seen plenty of comments reflecting that from west coast teams. Ultimately a large portion of these teams, especially those that qualify in-season, are going to want to go to the later of the two championships for logistic reasons*.

*The exception being where one championship may interfere with state or AP/IB testing preparation, prom, etc.