The Rest Of The Best

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by dcarr

I admit that I am relatively new to FIRST, and when I first learned that there were so many ways into the Championship *other* than winning a regional, I was surprised. It seems to me that the Championship should be reserved for only those teams that have shown that they have what it takes to win in a given year, not based on legacy reasons or those who can afford to "buy in." Clearly there is a lot more to it than that, but the Championship is already quite large as it is. If/when my team makes it to Championship, it will be because we won and not gotten in another way, and it would be nice to know that all the other teams there followed the same path.

Just to clarify, no one actually "buys in." There is a gigantic wait list. I remember someone posting last year that the wait list is sort of merit based. Can anyone confirm this is true? I was given the impression that FIRST tries to reward good teams but with such a huge wait list, its still a lot of luck involved.