[thefro526]

FIRST could be a sport and be considered a sport. In doing so, you will make some of the teams believe the emphasis is on winning which, it may or may not currently be like this to some of us. While there is nothing wrong with winning it tends to inflate egos and ruin good people's reputations.

For many, if not most, of us changing FIRST to a sport wouldn't effect our outlooks and performance. For some it will become a win at all costs affair. Some of these teams will just go to the end of the earth to but a superior robot and others will cheat. And I will have to say in theory it's a lot easier to cheat in FIRST then it would be to cheat in regular sports.

For example, there are material and budget restrictions and there have been accusations over the years of teams pushing these to the limits and then continuing to push past them. While they may or may not have gotten caught it's probably happened. And I know first hand that inspections aren't gonna catch everything at a regional. I've seen some inspectors fail us for something but then a different inspection let another team pass with the same issue but, they've never been anything that effects performance.

So on the issue of cheating, it will happen and probably already has. But I doubt it will become prevalent if there's no actual prize for winning other than bragging rights. And I doubt something that you do to make your robot perform significantly better will get through inspection anyways.

In the end, I'd love to see FIRST become a sport but it's probably not going to happen...