[dtengineering]

If the outcome of the matches were truly random, and red and blue each had a 50% chance of winning, then the chance of seeing 14 straight matches won by the red alliance would be .5^14 (0.5 to the 14th power) or about one in ten thousand. Not likely.

However if you assume that the higher seeded alliance has an increased chance of winning, then those odds are drastically increased. For instance if the higher seeded alliance had an 80% chance of winning then the chances or .8^14, or about 4.4%. In other words, you could expect it to happen about twice each year, given that there are 41 regionals.

And I just drew the 80% number out of the air as an example, but it does show how quickly a weird co-incidence can be explained as an expected random occurence.

Assuming that the match scheduling algorithm assigns teams to matches and alliance colours at random then examining the qualifying matches would be a far better test of the hypothesis that red had an inherent advantage.

Looking at the qualifying match data fairly quickly, it looks like Red won 29 times, Blue won 32 times and there were two ties. That should quench any controversy about the field favouring red.

Jason