Championship 2014 Proposal

[Steven Sigley]

I'm not sure of it in comparison to some of the other locations, but as a freshman I was in awe of the size of the New Orleans Morial Convention Center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orl...vention_Center

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Best idea in this thread. Count me in.

I'm in. I could drive to it. Plus, it's a convention capitol of the world. However, I do mind the smoke.

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

I also put my vote in for how awesome this would be. Would you run this tournament on one central field?? or two (four?)??

This would make scouting really tough. You would basically have to scout every division...

The first, second and quarterfinal rounds would be played on the seperate 4 fields with the semifinal and finals on Einstein. That's exactly how it is played out currently, just we don't have a large extended bracket. Division Finalists are the Championship Quarter-finalists already, we don't don't call them that.

It would make scouting a bit wonky, but that is why I set each division up against themselves first, that way scouts have two or three matches to see what teams can do before they go up against them. And there is the thought of so many teams having to swap seating before the elimination matches and letting everyone know which Field they will be moved to. That can't really be fixed.

However if a change to how the elimination matches are played is something FIRSTers are looking for (and I'm not sure it is), this is an easy change that wouldn't take additional time than is already slotted and end up a more interesting tournament allowing top seeds from same divisions a shot at the prize.

[PayneTrain]

In all honesty, Detroit, New Orleans, and Las Vegas would all be great places to have CMP for so many reasons, but varying fair/unfair perceptions about each of these cities could scare away FIRST.

I think FIRST will never sacrifice these two things:
All age groups of the sport under one roof
The roof is a convention center/arena hybrid. Personally, I feel weird even thinking about playing Einstein in an Exhibit hall...

Other logistics issues: New Orleans and Detroit aren't really airport hubs like Atlanta, St. Louis, and Vegas are. While every city makes a proposal, I feel like FIRST liked St. Louis for its flights and central location over others. I'm not saying a city won't offer a better deal later and FIRST the deal just under the pretense of location in the contiguous states, but it's something they are considering now.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Nawaid Ladak

I think within a couple of years, the event will either have to move back to Atlanta, or move to Chicago/Dallas. Cities like Las Angeles, Orlando, Las Vegas and New Orleans are also viable options, although these cities are not centralized. If FIRST somehow makes it tougher for teams to get into the Championship event, keeping roughly the same number of teams/fields, then options like Denver, Indianapolis, San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Houston and Phoenix become available.

I've seen this mentioned in other threads before so I just wanted to mention it. Atlanta is NOT centralized. It was a good venue and it is the busiest airport in the US in terms of passenger volume, however it is no closer to the center of the country than Las Vegas, and is quite a bit further than the current championships in St. Louis. Once the championship is more than a 6 hour drive away flying begins to look like a better option and many teams will always be forced to fly to attend, so a good international airport is more important than a centralized location IMO.

I also wouldn't mind seeing FIRST rotate the championships once every 3 or 4 years. It'd be nice if only from a perspective of letting other areas see what it is like once in a while.

I like your ideas on a qualifying score system, though I think it should be simplified quite a bit. The idea of a Pre-elimination tournament seems like a pricey proposition though, I know my team could not pay to fly out for a "pre-qualifying" tournament where we may only be competing for one day, and it would be impossible to book hotels after winning (since you wouldn't want to book them before you know if you are staying).

[Koko Ed]

I've been told that San Antonio wants to get in on the fun. When I was down for the Alamo Regional I walked from the parking to the Convention Center. If it did end up there robots would have to go outside, cross a road, go under a shockingly low highway overpass and across a large open area to get into the Alamodome. I don't think teams would much care for that.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I've been told that San Antonio wants to get in on the fun. When I was down for the Alamo Regional I walked from the parking to the Convention Center. If it did end up there robots would have to go outside, cross a road, go under a shockingly low highway overpass and across a large open area to get into the Alamodome. I don't think teams would much care for that.

Hope it doesn't rain! (Though I guess there are worse places to bank on it not raining)

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I'm not saying a city won't offer a better deal later and FIRST the deal just under the pretense of location in the contiguous states, but it's something they are considering now.

#2014HawaiiChampionship
It'll happen.

In all honesty though, why extend what already works? Granted I have not attended the St. Louis Championships yet (That's this year for me ) but from what I heard, it seemed to have worked. The fields-in-the-pit thing would probably have to be worked out, but apart from that I think it went swimingly.
One of the best parts of keeping FLL and FTC at the same time is that it gives the younger kids (Mainly FLL) something to look up to. I imagine there is nothing more impressive to an elementary or middle school kid than walking into an arena or convention center and seeing THOUSANDS of High Schoolers eagerly awaiting to come talk to you about your lego robot. Heck, that's what keep me awe struck my freshman year when we qualified for Atlanta by winning Oklahoma as a #1 seed.

There's a quote that I love from The New Cool which (paraphrasing; I don't have the book with me at school) "You've seen the robots on the internet, and now you're seeing them in person. You realize that this is it.. You're here, and you may never be here again."

[Racer26]

I'm still proposing a FIRST Championship in Toronto.

The SkyDome/Metro Convention Centre combo is perfect. (Yes, I still refuse to call it the Rogers Center)

I know it won't happen though, since FIRST would rather hassle the ~100 FRC teams from Canada with border crossing than the ~2000 FRC teams from the states.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Donut

I've seen this mentioned in other threads before so I just wanted to mention it. Atlanta is NOT centralized. It was a good venue and it is the busiest airport in the US in terms of passenger volume, however it is no closer to the center of the country than Las Vegas, and is quite a bit further than the current championships in St. Louis. Once the championship is more than a 6 hour drive away flying begins to look like a better option and many teams will always be forced to fly to attend, so a good international airport is more important than a centralized location IMO.

On this topic, I did a little research into airfares to the various cities we've been talking about. (Sorry, didn't get to San Antonio.)

These are the cheapest roundtrip fares (all US$) Expedia is currently offering for Wed-Sun of this year's Championship (April 25-29). Granted, they fluctuate, but from my back-checking they don't seem to change too much to offer a general idea. The columns are (most?) the venue cities mentioned in this thread. The rows are the kinda-sorta most populous FIRST cities/areas based on the EWCP 2012 map, kinda-sorta in order, with some weighting towards checking different geographic areas. My minimum flight distance was 9-10hrs by car (whoops?). I also threw in Honolulu, Tel Aviv (do you guys fly out of TLV?), and Istanbul for reference. The averages are not weighted. If someone has better location data than me trying to slog through a heat map, I'd be happy to weight them.

Initial Thoughts:
1. <3 Chicago
2. Is Vegas inflated for some reason? (e.g. did we hit peak season/spring break for something?)
3. LA, while not geographically central to CONUS, seems quite well-priced. And it's not even the most expensive for our Eurasian continent friends.
4. Toronto is probably having an overly strong affect on price averages for venues out of driving distance. (It's disproportionately expensive for the number of teams there.) This also goes for any possibility of it housing a venue itself--flights are expensive!
5. Denver (listed only as a row) seems to have a lot of cheap flights. No good venues, huh?

[lemiant]

Based on that Chicago seems to be the best, is there a place we could host it there?

Chicago isn't too bad coming from San Jose. Plus, if we play in any of their basketball stadiums, we NEED to have the Chicago Bulls intro (Sirus/Eye in the sky) played during alliance intros!

[Jonathan Norris]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

The first, second and quarterfinal rounds would be played on the seperate 4 fields with the semifinal and finals on Einstein. That's exactly how it is played out currently, just we don't have a large extended bracket. Division Finalists are the Championship Quarter-finalists already, we don't don't call them that.

It would make scouting a bit wonky, but that is why I set each division up against themselves first, that way scouts have two or three matches to see what teams can do before they go up against them. And there is the thought of so many teams having to swap seating before the elimination matches and letting everyone know which Field they will be moved to. That can't really be fixed.

However if a change to how the elimination matches are played is something FIRSTers are looking for (and I'm not sure it is), this is an easy change that wouldn't take additional time than is already slotted and end up a more interesting tournament allowing top seeds from same divisions a shot at the prize.

I think it would be fun if this elimination bracket was held all (or most of) Saturday on a central field or two, and was a fully produced show like Einstein is now. They could run it like a double regional alternating between fields for the different sides of the bracket until the final match. That way all the teams could see the great elimination matches. I personally think that would be quite a show...

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

I think it would be fun if this elimination bracket was held all (or most of) Saturday on a central field or two, and was a fully produced show like Einstein is now. They could run it like a double regional alternating between fields for the different sides of the bracket until the final match. That way all the teams could see the great elimination matches. I personally think that would be quite a show...

It would provide a unique, "extended scouting" experience for the elimination alliances if chosen at the end of the previous day, too. Imagine meeting with your alliance partner drive teams and key people, going over tape, crafting the perfect autonomous strategy.... *drool*

[Racer26]

You could conceivably substitute Toronto (YYZ) for Niagara Falls International Airport (IAG) or Buffalo (BUF).

Both are within a two hour drive of Toronto, and typically YYZ commands a 50% or greater price premium over them. Most pleasure travellers I know steadfastly refuse to fly from Pearson, preferring instead to drive over the border and fly from Buffalo or Niagara. It means you don't have to deal with customs in the airport (the land crossing guards are much easier to deal with) AND its substantially cheaper.