LAS VEGAS REGIONAL... terminated?

[Scott_4140]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I think what we should be focusing on here is not what the Vegas planning community can do to raise more money (they seem like they know their stuff and are working on it), but rather the rationale of cancelling an event that in theory is profitable.

There are lots of potential behind the scenes motives. We will never know unless FIRST decides to share.

To be efficient FIRST needs to manage all the events like a business. This appears to be the main factor here. Low performing "stores" get closed, so you can open at a different location just a block away. So the block here, is in anther state. Case by case handling sets a precedent they may not want to deal with.

If you look at the CA District angle, this is one more incentive to push CA into the District model. Forces CA to get it done! It's in their best interest to if Las Vegas might go away.

This is only 2 of dozens of potential motives.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Scott_4140

If you look at the CA District angle, this is one more incentive to push CA into the District model. Forces CA to get it done! It's in their best interest to if Las Vegas might go away.

NO. No it's not.

Hurt teams (who mostly have no idea about these goings on) to force a point?

I know that can't possibly be FIRST's motive.

[JB987]

Thank you Adam

[sanddrag]

FWIW doesn't Autodesk host their annual "University" in Vegas?

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by Scott_4140

There are lots of potential behind the scenes motives. We will never know unless FIRST decides to share.

To be efficient FIRST needs to manage all the events like a business. This appears to be the main factor here. Low performing "stores" get closed, so you can open at a different location just a block away. So the block here, is in anther state. Case by case handling sets a precedent they may not want to deal with.

If you look at the CA District angle, this is one more incentive to push CA into the District model. Forces CA to get it done! It's in their best interest to if Las Vegas might go away.

This is only 2 of dozens of potential motives.

The real customer is the teams. If regionals competed with other with entry fees, Las Vegas would be at the top with the highest demand. What we have is that a highly demanded product but it gets money from other sources. Teams love this regional, its a shame there are not enough sponsors to help. If team demand translate to more money for the regional, this regional would be fine but the business model is not set up that way.

To be fair most Californians would consider Nevada part of our community and vice-versa. Especially those in So Cal, Las Vegas is a second home. A So Cal Joke is that Las Vegas (Clark County) is part of the Greater Los Angelas Area. I am pretty sure a lot of California teams want to keep going to Las Vegas even when California has Districts.

In regards to the slow process of California getting districts I just wanted to add to Eric's point that a lot of high schools in California only have one gym. Almost every sport is practiced outside in California. If there is a school assembly, its held outside. School dances often happen off campus. Cafeterias are extremely rare in California. So typical California high schools only have one large building on campus.

[Scott_4140]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

The real customer is the teams. If regionals competed with other with entry fees, Las Vegas would be at the top with the highest demand. What we have is that a highly demanded product but it gets money from other sources. Teams love this regional, its a shame there are not enough sponsors to help. If team demand translate to more money for the regional, this regional would be fine but the business model is not set up that way.

You need to get inside FIRST's head as to what "performing" might mean in this context. Certainly they are financially motivated, but that's only part of the formula.

As someone else posted, FIRST is trying to implement a culture change. Growth is most important. There are many ways to measure this growth. Number of teams, number of students, number of volunteers, number of sponsors...

If a regional can't pull in the sponsors needed to support it, that's going to be a red flag for FIRST. We've already established that Las Vegas is not an Engineering focal point.

FIRST also has criteria for new regionals based on the number of local teams. Does Las Vegas meet this criteria? If not, it's another red flag.

If CA is the main supplier of out of state teams for Las Vegas then any new regional in AZ or CA nets FIRST the same money.

MN organizes regionals a little different than most. We have one group that does all 4 MN regionals. If Duluth was organized on it's own, I don't think it would have the success it does today. Maybe Las Vegas needs to partner with one or more of the CA regional planners. The combined support of those CA companies that want to support the CA teams may save Las Vegas.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by Scott_4140

You need to get inside FIRST's head as to what "performing" might mean in this context. Certainly they are financially motivated, but that's only part of the formula.

As someone else posted, FIRST is trying to implement a culture change. Growth is most important. There are many ways to measure this growth. Number of teams, number of students, number of volunteers, number of sponsors...

If a regional can't pull in the sponsors needed to support it, that's going to be a red flag for FIRST. We've already established that Las Vegas is not an Engineering focal point.

FIRST also has criteria for new regionals based on the number of local teams. Does Las Vegas meet this criteria? If not, it's another red flag.

If CA is the main supplier of out of state teams for Las Vegas then any new regional in AZ or CA nets FIRST the same money.

MN organizes regionals a little different than most. We have one group that does all 4 MN regionals. If Duluth was organized on it's own, I don't think it would have the success it does today. Maybe Las Vegas needs to partner with one or more of the CA regional planners. The combined support of those CA companies that want to support the CA teams may save Las Vegas.

You're not making any sense... so you're saying that FIRST should focus exclusively on the areas that already have a lot of willing sponsors and engineering support? How is that causing any culture change?

[Scott_4140]

Originally Posted by bduddy

You're not making any sense... so you're saying that FIRST should focus exclusively on the areas that already have a lot of willing sponsors and engineering support? How is that causing any culture change?

You need to play some strategy games! It's about resource management. You can't win every battle you enter. You need to focus you energy/resources/influence where it will net you the largest return. As your influence increases, and the culture changes, it's easier to win over areas that you could not win before.

And no, there's not just one factor. There are no "exclusives". Sponsors and engineering support are only part of the equation. If there were 25 teams in the area, Las Vegas would probably get more time and money from FIRST. They'd still probably get a deadline for being self sufficient. As it stands, 8 teams and continued lack of support puts the regional at risk. There are probably many more factors like volunteer support, strength of the planning organization, and venue.

I think the minimum number of local teams for a new regional is 12. So even picking up 3 more teams wouldn't qualify if it was a new regional trying to come online.

What's the actual formula? No idea. FIRST obviously has one. I doubt its arbitrary. The formula also changes over time. Otherwise, there never would have been a regional in Las Vegas to begin with. The bar is always moving.

Growing the number of local teams has got to help. Getting more financial support obviously helps. If they can't get the financial support the level that FIRST wants, is there a combination of other factors that will buy them another year? Probably.

[Chief Hedgehog]

The conversation in this thread concerns me. I know that Las Vegas is a completely different nut to crack - but how is FIRST looking to hedge their bets against something like this happening in other areas?

Obviously the District format is preferential in areas that have many established FRC teams. But those are not spread evenly across the country. My concern (selfishly) is - what happens in Minnesota? If this can happen in LV, this could happen in a place like Duluth, MN.

The reason I state this is because LV is dependent upon tourism, conventions, etc. Now that it is 'safe' to have conventions in LV again, a lot more money pours in from entities that can out-spend FIRST. I don't know if this is the case, but I do know my wife's company is holding a convention back in LV after a 5 year hiatus. And there is no way that FIRST can outbid my wife's company.

Take that to a smaller scale - like Duluth, MN - if tourism takes an upswing as the economy stabilizes, what happens to FRC events that took advantage of low cost arenas that can now claim a premium? Now companies and conventions have the capital to take advantage of low cost arenas and outbid FRC events.

I do not wish to see MN lose regionals - and we are not ready to go to the district formula (even though we now have 186 teams). We don't have the volunteer levels to support districts. Maybe a move to St Cloud or Rochester is in order?

[James3245]

I think FIRST should be careful. If only from a core-relations-with-their-most-ardent-supporters point of view. It's a pretty smart and savvy community of people with proven brainstorming skills.

I detect amidst the FRC community, especially among some of the most core community members, an uneasiness about the financials of the whole system. Occasionally it flares up here or there, such as in this case, but mostly it is background, felt mostly while going through the fundraising efforts to make a team, or region or district's books balance for the prescribed FRC franchise formula.

The inescapable truth (someone show me otherwise!) with Las Vegas is that it is needed by many teams, it delivers prescribed FRC event quality, and it turns a big profit for HQ. The driver it seems is that the big profit is not big enough.

It leaves me with a very different feeling about FIRST, and it gets me started thinking creatively about alternatives.

For $20 K our region could get one of the new Andymark fields, one time cost, and start doing "in-season" second regionals. Yes it would be challenging to replicate the full experience but we would not try to, exactly. It would not have been very hard to build and run the basic field of this year. (2013 pyramids would have been harder) We could even run our own, probably unsanctioned, state championship. All we would need to do to fill out 80%-ish of the "full experience" would be to convince IRI or another highly-competitive off-season event to accept our teams so that a team or two could go to a championship-type of event.

Yes, a bit wacky to try to build a hybrid experience that tries to be FIRST/non-FIRST at the same time. And I know I'm overlooking a ton of technical details related to field management. (however, if you unleash say $2000 from 20 teams plus thousands saved by doing it smaller scale) But for those of us who are relatively isolated, it starts to make sense financially as regions, (even financially viable ones) start being pulled by HQ.

it has been interesting, to feel the transition in my own thoughts/feelings over this past few days evolve from to "what? this is really bad, for us and for others" to "how could this happen" to "Hmmm...now I think I understand what's going on and I don't like it" to "this whole operation may not be what I thought is was" to "time to think creatively about alternatives".

There's a point where it makes more sense to take the time and energy of chasing down sponsors for venue and related costs and sponsors for one's individual teams and pour it instead into one's own event. I've never been to an off-season event but my impression is that they can be done very well.

I don't think my musings will likely end up with some kind of fundamentally different model that somehow challenges FIRST, but brainstorming can be powerful and disruptive, as we preach to our own students.

[Scott_4140]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

The conversation in this thread concerns me. I know that Las Vegas is a completely different nut to crack - but how is FIRST looking to hedge their bets against something like this happening in other areas?

Obviously the District format is preferential in areas that have many established FRC teams. But those are not spread evenly across the country. My concern (selfishly) is - what happens in Minnesota? If this can happen in LV, this could happen in a place like Duluth, MN.

The reason I state this is because LV is dependent upon tourism, conventions, etc. Now that it is 'safe' to have conventions in LV again, a lot more money pours in from entities that can out-spend FIRST. I don't know if this is the case, but I do know my wife's company is holding a convention back in LV after a 5 year hiatus. And there is no way that FIRST can outbid my wife's company.

Take that to a smaller scale - like Duluth, MN - if tourism takes an upswing as the economy stabilizes, what happens to FRC events that took advantage of low cost arenas that can now claim a premium? Now companies and conventions have the capital to take advantage of low cost arenas and outbid FRC events.

I do not wish to see MN lose regionals - and we are not ready to go to the district formula (even though we now have 186 teams). We don't have the volunteer levels to support districts. Maybe a move to St Cloud or Rochester is in order?

FIRST needs to keep a long range "strategic" plan and let the Regional Planning groups worry about the short range "tactical" issues. FIRST is aware of the fact that there are a limited number of venues and dates available to support the regional model. Their "hedge" is the district model. Smaller venues that are more plentiful.

MN FIRST Regional is well aware of the venue issues. They work very hard to secure them well in advance. Institutions like the University of MN have a vested interest in STEM, so are less likely to pull a venue out from under FIRST.

The DECC on the other hand exists to bring money into the Duluth economy. That's not just facility rental. That includes area hotels, restaurants, tourism, gas station sales, airline sales,... At some point could MN FIRST get bumped? Absolutely. Could it get bumped to a different week? That may already be happening.

MN is already looking ahead towards a future 5th regional. Could be Rochester, St. Cloud, or wherever they can find a suitable venue with enough infrastructure to support a regional. As more areas around MN close off with districts, this will be a bigger concern. Just like CA, the options for 2nd tournaments get crunched.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Scott_4140

There are lots of potential behind the scenes motives. We will never know unless FIRST decides to share.

To be efficient FIRST needs to manage all the events like a business. This appears to be the main factor here. Low performing "stores" get closed, so you can open at a different location just a block away. So the block here, is in anther state. Case by case handling sets a precedent they may not want to deal with.

If you look at the CA District angle, this is one more incentive to push CA into the District model. Forces CA to get it done! It's in their best interest to if Las Vegas might go away.

This is only 2 of dozens of potential motives.

This is not true. CA was getting a 7th regional regardless of whether or not the Las Vegas Regional exists. There is no way this was an either or proposition, where CA could come up with the money, and NV could not.

[Scott_4140]

Originally Posted by Cory

This is not true. CA was getting a 7th regional regardless of whether or not the Las Vegas Regional exists. There is no way this was an either or proposition, where CA could come up with the money, and NV could not.

My intention with the CA Districts angle was not to whip up the conspiracy theorists or the anti conspiracy theorists. It was an attempt to show how varied and potentially compounding the motives might be. I regret clouding the issue.

Without additional insight from FIRST, attempting to determine their reasons, is going to be little more than a guessing game.

What's known, is that if Las Vegas gets the funds together, all is good.