[Bongle]

Restricting regionals wouldn't 'solve' this 'problem' anyway.

Let's say we restricted teams to 1 regional per year. To claim that this will somehow eliminate the spectre of powerhouse teams dominating regionals is incorrect. At least in my neck of the woods (Canada), there are 48 (Ohio), 68 (Detroit? I'm thinking of Truck-town, I may have got the # wrong), 188 (Toronto), 217 (Detroit again?), 1114 (St Cats), 1503 (Niagara), and 2056 (somewhere in Ontario) who are consistently high performers. Since that's more teams than there are regionals in my area, you can infer that it will STILL be very difficult to win nearby regionals. In fact, by reducing the number of powerhouse teams, you reduce the probability of anyone BUT the powerhouse teams winning by reducing the depth of the field at each regional. If there are only 2-3 of these top-tier teams at a regional, you pretty much guarantee that the #1 alliance will face little opposition as they pick the other powerhouse team and steamroll to a regional win.

I should note that I had the same negative opinion of multi-regional attendance until I was on a team that went to multiple regionals. Going to multiple regionals increases the enjoyable:miserable ratio of a FIRST season quite a bit by allowing you to have fun with your robot for longer. You spent thousands of man-hours building it, compete with it as much as you can! For large tracts of North America, there are multiple regionals in driving distance. If you can't afford to house everyone, get a hotel for a few select students, pay just the entry fee, and ask everyone else to bear their own costs. Multiple regionals is really the way to go.

My solution: Change the name from 'regional' to 'invitational' so that the name more closely matches how people actually treat it with regards to attendance.