Where is gonna be located the 2014-2015 Championship?

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by neshera

So here's a project for someone with time on their hands: set up a map/algorithm that shows all FRC teams, and calculates their "center of gravity".

Ed Law doesn't have this done yet?

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

Ed Law doesn't have this done yet?

For some reason I just had a science-fiction dream of Ed Law, Mark McLeod, and Ether fusing together as some all-powerful FIRST AI.

I liked Atlanta a lot more than St. Louis but I wouldn't be opposed to something as convenient as Indy

[Racer26]

I feel (intuitively) that FIRSTs CoG is somewhere in Ohio.

Ontario, Michigan and the Northeast pull it that way, while California and Texas pull it away, resulting in somewhere in Ohio or Indiana.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by bduddy

According to Wikipedia, its arena only holds 9,100 people. Are you sure he wasn't talking about a regional, or the VRC championships which are already held there?

Jim was referring to the future Southern California State Championship.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by neshera

So here's a project for someone with time on their hands: set up a map/algorithm that shows all FRC teams, and calculates their "center of gravity".

It's been done before, with various assumptions as to how far teams would be willing to drive before needing to travel by air, and how much airfare costs. With certain reasonable assumptions, Atlanta is pretty good. With other reasonable assumptions, Indianapolis is very good. With yet other reasonable assumptions, St. Louis is good.

As different teams have different "value functions", there's no real global optimum unless you survey each team's preferences in detail.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by nicholsjj

How about St. Louis for 2015. I know it has had some problems but every venue will have some issues. St. Louis does provide a central location, major airport, and a nice layout for a major First event.

Just curious about the problems with St. Louis? The facilities are good, transportation is OK (STL is not a major hub, so direct flights are a problem), plenty of hotels, Gateway Arch, central location in US, etc are all plusses.

If the concern is crime, that's a problem in every US major city. Detroit, Atlanta, etc are not the safest places for young people to roam either.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

Just curious about the problems with St. Louis? The facilities are good, transportation is OK (STL is not a major hub, so direct flights are a problem), plenty of hotels, Gateway Arch, central location in US, etc are all plusses.

If the concern is crime, that's a problem in every US major city. Detroit, Atlanta, etc are not the safest places for young people to roam either.

The problem is weather, the lack of things to do really close to the venue, and food close to the venue. Having Olympic park, the CNN center, world of coke, and Georgia aquarium all within a 5 min walk of the Georgia dome was awesome. not to mention the awesome weather, the better pit set up and a more respectable HOF set up as well. Yes the pits were a really long walk from the stands for spectators but that is the only bad thing I ever had to say about Atlanta.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

Just curious about the problems with St. Louis? The facilities are good, transportation is OK (STL is not a major hub, so direct flights are a problem), plenty of hotels, Gateway Arch, central location in US, etc are all plusses.

If the concern is crime, that's a problem in every US major city. Detroit, Atlanta, etc are not the safest places for young people to roam either.

The biggest thing is it's just too small, there is no room to grow.


But I think most of you are missing the #1 thing when searching for a new venue, cash. From sponsors, hotels, or wherever, the city that gets the next championship will be bringing money to the table.

[JackN]

I would say logistically Detroit would be almost impossible for a site. Terrible mass transit and poor hotel locations make flying very difficult for teams. If you were to put it in Ford Field, you would have to work with the Tigers to make sure there is not a baseball game that weekend as they share a lot of the same parking facilities.

Indy would be a very good pick I think. Driving past it on my way home from STL I saw Lucas Oil+The Convention Center. If it wasn't for the NBA playoffs, I would say you could put FTC/FLL in Banker's Life Fieldhouse to give them their own world championship.

[Denise Bohnsack]

My thought on any future Championship location.

The event should be centrally located in fairness to all parties. It takes an entire day to fly to the west coast from the east coast and then a day the other other way. Or vice versus. So 2 days just flying from location on one end of the country to the other takes too much time for students in school.

The warmer the climate in April the better. Many teams spend much time walking outside to hotels, restaurants, and site seeing as their primary mode of transportation once they reach the hotels.
Also, a Finale like Atlanta in the outdoors, with plenty of room for everyone, and fireworks was magical, inspiring, and a chance for all teams to be in the same place. So when deciding the venue, it would be good to see if the city had a location which would provide the same venue and have weather which would likely be cooperative.

Very important: Airline transportation with at least one major airport with many flights to the city. Competitive rates for flying to the location.

An abundance of affordable hotels.

Great opportunities for other educational experiences and fun venues in the area.

Many strong teams in the state so that the volunteer base is already well informed of FIRST and can handle the need for local, supportive volunteers.

Of course, facilities that can handle the venue, but that is a given, and any location which cannot accommodate the championship would be out.

My thoughts for the strong city candidates would be the following.

Houston:
Centrally located, and has at least 1 (maybe 2) major airports, plenty of flights in and out, which are affordable. One of America's largest cities ( is the 4th largest city in America) with great infrastructure. Enormous amount of hotels suitable for FIRST participants.
Great teams, and strong volunteer base.
Warm climate suitable for plenty of outdoor activities.
NEARBY: The Johnston Space Center,(incredible and a great educational opportunity) Kemah Boardwalk, (Boardwalk with loads of restaurants, hotels and a few rides(the Beast roller coaster, ferris wheel, etc.) Galveston Island (beach with ocean front hotels and activities) the Houston Museum District, the Aquarium, and too many more to mention.
Possible down side: Understand the walk between Reliant Center and Convention Center is longer than Atlanta or St. Louis.

Dallas: Dallas would be a great venue. Many of the points above are the same as Houston. Dallas has other great educational and fun activities for students and has 2 major airports with plenty of flights. In the Fort Worth area is Six Flags across from the huge Jerry Jones stadium,(which would be a great venue except no convention center nearby) I do not know if there is an existing facility which could really serve FIRST well which is the main issue. I leave that to the experts.

Indianapolis: Centrally located, great venue for the FIRST Championship, Great downtown area with good hotels. Home of the Indy 500 and Indy Museum and Indianapolis Children's Museum, both great facilities.
Downside: It is cold in Indiana this time of year, so outside activities will be limited. Could be very cold and rainy. The airport is good but not large like Houston or Dallas and perhaps not as many flights available. This is an issue needs to be studied to make sure there is enough accommodating flights for the teams. Having said this, Indianapolis is a wonderful city with great, friendly, volunteer oriented people. They understand big events. The Indianapolis 500 is the largest sporting event there is and so the city understands hosting large amounts of people from everywhere.(I know, I lived in the area for 2 years)

St Louis: I have enjoyed St. Louis. It meets most of the original criteria I stated above. One issue seems to have been the unpredictable weather prevents some outdoor activities. I think it has been a great host city, and could continue to be a great venue, but perhaps some folks are ready to try something different and have some new experiences.

I realize there may be some other excellent candidates for host cities I have not mentioned here. I think the best candidates meet the criteria I first stated and perhaps there are other locations I have not mentioned that meet these criteria. Also, it is really important to have the support of the community which the event takes place. I look forward to future FIRST Championships and spending time with the great people who are always there.

[MARS_James]

Originally Posted by Racer26

I feel (intuitively) that FIRSTs CoG is somewhere in Ohio.

Ontario, Michigan and the Northeast pull it that way, while California and Texas pull it away, resulting in somewhere in Ohio or Indiana.

Don't forget Florida's 76 teams pulling it south (only 1 less than Ontario) . Also fun fact If you are a team in Miami and want to drive to some other state for a competition it is about 7-8 hours just to get out of Florida

[artdutra04]

Here are my thoughts on some of the proposed cities:

Atlanta
Present: I really liked CMP here. The weather was almost always beautiful, the subway provided good public transit from airport / around downtown area, and there was an abundance of parks, attractions, food courts, restaurants, hotels, and more downtown. The fact that ATL is a major airline hub makes is really easy to fly into. I would prefer a 1 hour longer flight if I can fly direct. The walk from the pits to the stands was a bit long, but the convention center was absolutely HUGE and would provide a lot of room for future growth.

Future: Why is ATL looking to replace what appears to be a perfectly fine stadium with a new one? It would be one thing if the stadium was 70 years old and requiring excessive maintenance, but it seemed relatively new.

A future benefit to Atlanta is that they are currently building a streetcar line downtown connecting all the major attractions together. Hopefully this will provide more convenient access around the downtown core.


St Louis
Present: The weather here is meh in April - the past few years have frequently been stormy, rainy, and cold ish. The Dome / convention center is nice, but there aren't that many options for food in downtown STL (no large food courts / malls in walking distance of Dome). Public transit is decent around downtown and to airport.

The downtown area seems "cold" and "dead" - like half the buildings are completely empty and there aren't many people walking about on the sidewalks. More activity and things in downtown would increase street life and make the area seem safer (more people around = people feel safer).

Future: If the Championship event continues to grow, finding enough space for pits will be an issue.


Indianapolis
Present: I haven't been to downtown Indy, but from the descriptions it seems good and are looking better for future economic growth. The stadium / convention center are close, but may require ramps again. While it may be nice for those in driving distance, flying into Indy is not particularly easy and usually requires layovers.

The lack of real public transit is an real hindrance (a temporary shuttle bus is a band aid). Having light rail / subway lines between the airport, downtown, and suburbs greatly improves how people and teams can get around and offers more flexibility in hotel accommodations if hotels in downtown are too expensive / already booked. Every time I go to IRI I spend a fairly large amount of money on taxis; I would much rather spend $2.50 on a train ticket for this.

The weather seems like it would be comparable to St Louis.


Dallas
This was brought up in this thread as an option, but there is no real arena next to the fairly large downtown convention center. There is a mini "arena" in the convention center, but that barely held the double Dallas regionals in 2012. The public transit offering is decent, but doesn't yet connect directly to either Dallas airport (currently you need a shuttle bus from the Orange line to both Dallas Love and DFW airports). The Orange Line is planned to directly connect to DFW in a few years, and they are expanding the downtown Dallas streetcar lines. The DFW airport is a major hub and easy to fly into.

A lot of the attractions (sports arenas, the original Six Flags) are all in Arlington (15 miles west of Dallas) and difficult to get to without a car. The weather here in April is usually nice, but with an elevated chance of strong thunderstorms.

Despite living 45 minutes away from downtown Dallas (gotta love 75 mph speed limits), I think Atlanta is the overall best choice for the CMP location.

[Boe]

the two biggest pulls of firsts cog is probably texas/california vs minnesota/michigan with other small amouts from the rest of the country, with the next biggest group probably being the NE. Iowa probably is most central i would think or maybe nebraska

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by IndySam

The biggest thing is it's just too small, there is no room to grow.


But I think most of you are missing the #1 thing when searching for a new venue, cash. From sponsors, hotels, or wherever, the city that gets the next championship will be bringing money to the table.

With 100 teams in each division, I don't think Champs needs to grow (at least for FRC). The teams want to play more than 8 matches and, short of shrinking the size of divisions, the easy? way to do that is for longer days. Growing to six divisions creates other logistic issues discussed in other threads.

Will cities (or venues) bring cash to the table for FIRST (or any other event)? I think the dollars flow in the other direction. Cities benefit from the revenue generated by the visitors. FIRST pays for the facility. Will a local sponsor will foot the venue cost? Let's see: St. Louis has Anheiser-Busch (NOT gonna' happen), Atlanta has Coca-Cola (Oh-oh, a winner?)

An earlier post mentioned there was nothing else to do in the area. I spent almost every hour in the venue when it was open (Wed pm to Sat pm). I didn't have the time (or energy) to look for other things to do!! That said, the Arch is well-worth visiting (even if you don't ride to the top). City Museum is just a 10-minute walk away and has something for all ages groups. Forest Park (via Metro Rail) has a LOT: zoo, art museum, Science Center).

[JeffersonMartin]

Okay, maybe the Georgia Dome, is young and doesn't need to be replaced, but how amazing would the FIRST championship be in the Pantheon? http://www.businessinsider.com/atlan...led-pantheon-1