Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Steve W
... Or for the sake of those that are saying it costs too much to compete, make the 2nd regional you attend $7,000.00 and maybe $10,000.00 for the 3rd regional. This way teams that want to buy their way to Championship can help support those that can barely attend one.
...
|
I could go for something like this.
FYI. There were 926 teams that attended regionals last year (according to the data on regional results posted on FIRST's website).
- 72% (667) went to 1 regional
- 26% (238) went to 2 regionals
- 2% (20) went to 3 regionals
- 0% (1) went to 4 regionals (Team 141 in case you are interested)
This means that you will have to increase the fees by quite a lot if you want to subsidize the Championships to a significant extent.
To be honest, I think I would prefer that FIRST INCREASED the fees at the Championships by a lot more but then included more in the bargain. For example, suppose that FIRST charged $20K for the Championships but then included 15 rooms (Wed - Sat) at the official hotel and agreed to feed 50 people for that same time period.
I would even go farther, perhaps FIRST should increase the fees to the point that travel is covered (most of the teams would be provided a bus, those over a 20 hour bus ride would be chartered from major cities).
By the way, does anyone else think that the Las Vegas Regional is the camel's nose under the tent for Sin City hosting the Championships? Seriously, there are close to a dozen
hotels in Las Vegas could host the Championships without breaking a sweat. Think about it. Everyone in ONE hotel, including the competition, pits, celebration events, and so on. Flights to LV are cheap and plentiful (and almost every city has a direct flight there as well). In many ways LV is perfect.
In my opinion, the only reason against using them is that I thought FIRST was a little afraid of being associated with a city where gambling & prostitution are legal. But... ...if LV is good enough to host a regional, isn't it good enough to host the Championships?
But I digress...
Back to the topic at hand. It may be in the best interest of FIRST to increase the fees for the 2nd & 3rd regional and perhaps even the Championships (provided more stuff is included in the package -- especially things that would allow for last minute qualifiering teams to attend, like hotel rooms, food, and transportation).
Joe J.