Being a former signals guy, I prefer to look at the world like this graph shows.
By comparing the average OPR against the Signal to Noise Ratio of the same data, you can get a singular view of both the overall strength of an event and its competitive balance.
We try to get our District System to produce a DCMP event which as far up and to the right as possible. As high performing and balanced as we can make it.
This makes for an exciting event (and exciting TV
)
The CMP divisions always under-perform the DCMP events on balance, because there are simply more weak teams at the CMP due to the FIRST regional promotion strategies as compared to the district promotion system.
This graph gets pretty cluttered in the center these days with 150 events (i have a little wizard plugin which helps with viewing this)
The CMP divisions are in RED. These points are of course predictive, actual results may vary next weekend.
From this you can see that the Newton division is a pretty big outlier, so like Waterloo, the top teams from Newton will have a real battle to win their division. It should be fun to watch.