Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH
With 44 regionals next year and ~ 20 teams with a slot already, here's the math:
6 teams/regional*44 regionals +20=284 teams currently qualify through past performance/regional performance. (Next year)
So how long would it take to max out? Add 1 team per year (HoF addition) and run some numbers. I'm going to assume steady growth of 3 regionals per year. For the 2010-2012 seasons:
303
322
341
and the next year, we're over the current team limit. Or, how many more regionals will it take? At 3 a year, it takes 3 years, so 9-10 more regionals (after the 2009 season).
Not all teams will come. But, there still won't be a whole lot of room for non-qualifying teams.
So for the next 3-4 Championship Events, the current system would work. But after that, either a different qualification method (e.g. super-regionals that you get to through regionals) or more (or bigger) divisions would be necessary.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David Brinza
Six teams per regional is a worse-case scenario. In reality, there are teams that will win more than one regional, or hall-of-fame teams, past champions, CA and EI that will also win one or more regional. That could prolong the inevitable change in the Championship qualification criteria or format.
On the other hand, if FIRST's growth rate increases (400 new teams next year?), the change may occur even sooner. Another thread discusses possible new venues: could a requirement on the facility be the ability to accommodate ~700 teams, eight division fields + Einstein??
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The other alternative to this: Limit the number of regionals a team can enter, so that there will not be more regionals needed, and will not be a need for more spots at Championships. 44 regionals * 55(avg) teams per event means they can accomodate 2420 teams. That takes us through several more years, at least. I don't know that we'll get 400 additional teams per year; according to the annual report we have netted about 200 more teams per year for the past 3 or 4 years.
This is not an alternative that I or most people would like, but it is an alternative.