[Madison]

How isn't this proposal functionally equivalent to the alliance selection process we've had for three of the past four seasons?

Some teams play "the game" (read: some teams win, some teams earn awards, etc.) and earn their way into the elimination rounds. Those teams then select the remaining team who'll join them.

During alliance selection, teams sometimes pick based on performance, sometimes on friendship, sometimes on need, and sometimes they do it randomly. I've never seen anyone complain about how unfair that process is, so what makes this different?

Think of qualification for the Championship as moving on to the biggest set of Elimination Rounds there is. The who, what, why, where, and how of who's playing isn't important, nor any of our business. Giving more people a chance at playing the game, though, is something we should all be working toward.

While we're at it, can we take on a matter of nomenclature for a moment? I'd like to see that "qualification" be removed entirely from FIRST's vocabulary, replaced with "opportunity" instead. It seems far more appropriate, since teams can both earn or be given the "opportunity" to compete and learn and play at the Championship Event.