Role of Sponsors at Competition

[DavisC]

Hello,

I wanted to share a story from the Virginia regional that just really made me think about the role of sponsors at a competition.

In 1 of our qualification matches our alliance (spoke with every member on the drive teams) had a whole plan set up (planned in queue line), which was for nobody to do an autonomous ball because each of us knew our robots wouldn't score it. We also knew it would be a close match.

However, when we set up the robots on the field, 1 of our partners set up an autonomous ball. We of course asked why and if it would score. He said "the robot is most definitely going to miss in autonomous". We of course asked for them to take the ball out and expressed our feelings of not wanting to deal with a leftover ball.

The driver of that team then said "we have to put it in" so we asked, why? And he said ,"our sponsors are basically forcing us to load an autonomous ball".

The ball of course missed and we loss the match by only a few points... Are these sponsors one's that truly embody the ideals of FRC? Also should teams continue their relation with sponsors that act this way?