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Re: where shoulod I start?
I'll build on what Matt said.
1. Well, I'll skip this one because I've already commented on it.
2. I'll voice my opinion here again. With the current of Nationals, it is too large. If FIRST can do something to make it feel more like a regional and get people excited while keeping or increasing the number of teams, I'd love it. But if they can't bring the fun back, they have to reduce the number of teams. FIRST has a big problem here: Nationals isn't as fun or exciting as regionals.
Since this is the Rumor Mill, I'll pass one along. I heard that FIRST is considering limiting Nats to teams that attend a regional, unless it's a rookie team.
3. I was the one who said there wasn't a lot of dancing or excitement at Nats, and I'm standing by that statement. Sure there were isolated instances of dancing, but it doesn't come close to what you find at a regional. And I can't help but compare Nats '01 to Nats '96, where during most periods between matches people would stand up (sometimes on the park benches) and dance, and during some songs almost everyone was up dancing. I just didn't see that type of excitement this year.
And as Matt said, there wasn't as much yelling either. Actually, there weren't many people even watching the matches. With ~80 teams per division, I'd expect the division stands to be overflowing (the only time this happened was the division finals). At times there were plenty of open seats. And during the finals on Einstein, the stands were empty. Contrast that with the finals in Chicago where everyone was watching and cheering. The place erupted when our alliance got the 710.
FIRST needs find a way to make Nationals as exciting as regionals and as exciting as it used to be.
Mike
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