Quote:
|
Originally Posted by nic_radford
Every time I read a post on this thread that only simply talks about the logistics of Triple Replay and how unfeasible they are, is really missing the point of why Lucien created it. In reality, we all know that Triple Replay has no more chance of becoming a reality than calling an "All-in" bet to draw to an inside straight. However, I feel it is an interesting vehicle for discussion -One of which most of us has avoided discussing- Why FIRST is collapsing under it's own weight. Dean wants more teams, but realistically doesn’t have a way to support more teams. Why isn’t nationals open to 1000 teams? Seems to me we can’t support the teams we have. Surely there are more scientists that we could name divisions after. Let me pose this point another way. If the amount of FIRST teams in the world were to double in size next year, would we still only have 400 teams at nationals? Then if not, why don’t we have more teams at nationals anyway?
|
If FIRST were to double in size next year, I think we'd have a dilemma. My math says that there were 1,438 regional slots this year. If the current rate of regional growth of three or four new regionals per year continues, we'd be looking at a total capacity of somewhere around 1,600 teams.
As for why FIRST doesn't have 1,000-team championships, the issue is simply space. Sure, if you cut out the FLL and Vex pits, you can probably squeeze another hundredish pits, but you've still got to give all those additional teams some matches. There's only a few ways around this problem, and none seem that good (add another day to the Championship or shrink divisions, which most likely means eliminating teams because of frequency constraints in the Dome).
Of course, that's just handling teams at events. How FIRST is going to handle distributing that many kits, answer that many questions, find that many volunteers...whoa momma! I tip my hat to any individual or group that can handle that much stuff.