Indiana going to Districts for 2015

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

While good for Indiana, this is yet another district area surrounding Ohio that permits flow of district teams into our state while locking our state's teams out from competing at events formerly open to them.

Ohio is in the initial stages of organizing for a district push, but in the meantime, Ohio teams are going to feel even more pressure from insurgent district teams from MAR, MI, NE, and now Indiana who feel like taking some of their extra cash and throwing it at extra chances to qualify for the CMP at Ohio regionals. Ohio teams are finding it increasingly difficult to find reciprocal opportunities via the attendance of reasonably close out of state regionals. I am not a fan of this "poaching" activity and would like to see additional protections installed to ensure that in state teams and other non-district teams get the first crack at attending Ohio events - perhaps require district teams to wait until open registration before being permitted to sign up for non-district events. I seem to recall some kind of restriction being in place last season but am not certain of how extensive it was.

District teams can't register until Open Registration as per 2014 rules. I'm not sure what other kind of protection you want. The teams from MAR who can afford regionals have to work just as hard as you do to find other events to attend.

[M. Lillis]

So I ran some of the numbers based off of the usfirst.org 2014 directory.

FiM has .005662 teams per Sq Mile
MAR has .003164 teams per Sq Mile
PNW has 0.001237 teams per Sq. Mile
NE has 0.003302 teams per Sq Mile
Indiana has 0.01758 teams per Sq Mile

FiM has 21.9 teams per event
MAR has 24.4 teams per event
PNW has 20.1 teams per event
NE has 23.0 teams per event

If I were to guess, I would say that Indiana will have 3 district events. This would be 21.0 teams per event, keeping it in line with the other regions.

Also, MAR is weird because land area in not easily accessible for Eastern PA, so I used all of PA. This was also true for finding teams in PA, so I just used all of PA teams. I also included the 1 regional in PA, making the "event" count for MAR 7. This may be why MAR's teams per event is slightly higher than other regions. PNW's teams per Sq Mile is so low because both of those states are huge, while Indiana's is so small because there are only 63 teams.

Link to data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[dodar]

Originally Posted by M. Lillis

So I ran some of the numbers based off of the usfirst.org 2014 directory.

FiM has .005662 teams per Sq Mile
MAR has .003164 teams per Sq Mile
PNW has 0.001237 teams per Sq. Mile
NE has 0.003302 teams per Sq Mile
Indiana has 0.01758 teams per Sq Mile

FiM has 21.9 teams per event
MAR has 24.4 teams per event
PNW has 20.1 teams per event
NE has 23.0 teams per event

If I were to guess, I would say that Indiana will have 3 district events. This would be 21.0 teams per event, keeping it in line with the other regions.

Also, MAR is weird because land area in not easily accessible for Eastern PA, so I used all of PA. This was also true for finding teams in PA, so I just used all of PA teams. I also included the 1 regional in PA, making the "event" count for MAR 7. This may be why MAR's teams per event is slightly higher than other regions. PNW's teams per Sq Mile is so low because both of those states are huge, while Indiana's is so small because there are only 63 teams.

Link to data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

21 teams/event doesnt give you 8 alliances of 3(24 teams).

[M. Lillis]

Originally Posted by dodar

21 teams/event doesnt give you 8 alliances of 3(24 teams).

I just did straight division of total teams by total events. I did not calculate for teams who run their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th event. Just double the numbers and it will be closer to the actual count, but this still would not account for team who do 3 or 4 district events.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by dodar

21 teams/event doesnt give you 8 alliances of 3(24 teams).

Remember Districts includes two events per team-- the offered statistic isn't how many teams will be at each event, which is different from how many total teams there will be per event.

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by M. Lillis

So I ran some of the numbers based off of the usfirst.org 2014 directory.

FiM has .005662 teams per Sq Mile
MAR has .003164 teams per Sq Mile
PNW has 0.001237 teams per Sq. Mile
NE has 0.003302 teams per Sq Mile
Indiana has 0.01758 teams per Sq Mile

I just ran the same numbers for Texas. Assuming the rumors of Texas going to the District Model in 2016, and assuming the number of ACTIVE teams in Texas remains flat at 245, you're looking at:

FiM has .005662 teams per Sq Mile
MAR has .003164 teams per Sq Mile
PNW has 0.001237 teams per Sq. Mile
NE has 0.003302 teams per Sq Mile
Indiana has 0.01758 teams per Sq Mile
Texas will have 0.00091139 teams per Sq Mile

Go Texas.

-Danny

[Boe]

Originally Posted by Danny Diaz

I just ran the same numbers for Texas. Assuming the rumors of Texas going to the District Model in 2016, and assuming the number of ACTIVE teams in Texas remains flat at 245, you're looking at:

FiM has .005662 teams per Sq Mile
MAR has .003164 teams per Sq Mile
PNW has 0.001237 teams per Sq. Mile
NE has 0.003302 teams per Sq Mile
Indiana has 0.01758 teams per Sq Mile
Texas will have 0.00091139 teams per Sq Mile

Go Texas.

-Danny

Alaska has 0.00000150761 teams per Sq Mile.

Go Alaska

[who716]

this is indeed a great move im a huge fan of the district model after my first season in districts but, I do have a concern about the number of team that will be apart of this district, 63 team I believe are in Indiana and i would assume there will be close to about 40 teams at a competition and possibly 60 at championships the numbers just don't seem like enough, depending on the amount of events being held you could easily see an event with 25 teams in attendance. I really thing they should combine some states to increase the number maybe Illinois Ohio and Kentucky that would bring the total to about 120ish which is a good strong number

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by who716

this is indeed a great move im a huge fan of the district model after my first season in districts but, I do have a concern about the number of team that will be apart of this district, 63 team I believe are in Indiana and i would assume there will be close to about 40 teams at a competition and possibly 60 at championships the numbers just don't seem like enough, depending on the amount of events being held you could easily see an event with 25 teams in attendance. I really thing they should combine some states to increase the number maybe Illinois Ohio and Kentucky that would bring the total to about 120ish which is a good strong number

Indiana had 52 teams last year: http://frclinks.frclinks.com/t/IN-USA

For simplicity's sake, assume net growth of zero teams. 52 teams each need 2 plays, meaning the district needs to generate 104 plays. 3 events at 35 gives you 105 plays. Then have 36 teams advance to a state championship and you're set. Yes the events are smaller than normal, but it's definitely a workable model, which is easily scaled for growth.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Indiana had 52 teams last year: http://frclinks.frclinks.com/t/IN-USA

For simplicity's sake, assume net growth of zero teams. 52 teams each need 2 plays, meaning the district needs to generate 104 plays. 3 events at 35 gives you 105 plays. Then have 36 teams advance to a state championship and you're set. Yes the events are smaller than normal, but it's definitely a workable model, which is easily scaled for growth.

This is they key point lost on some people.

Rather than have teams continue to pay high registration fees, they pay low fees for more plays in the district model.

Rather than the local organization continuing to run high cost regionals, they are running more cost effective districts.

It certainly seems like it'd be FAR easier to increase the number of teams under this model, and far more cost effective to reach some end goal (X number of teams under the district model).

Also, the cost of switching to districts (fields, etc...) is distributed over the years as the area is currently small. I'm sure this is attractive.

One a certain critical mass is hit (cough, California), it's MUCH harder to sustain teams and much harder to switch to districts.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Rather than the local organization continuing to run high cost regionals, they are running more cost effective districts.

Which begs the question, why can't we ALL run more cost effective events? If we accept the premise that the decrease in pizzaz at districts is an acceptable loss given the increase in availability why do traditional regionals have to cost so much money?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Which begs the question, why can't we ALL run more cost effective events? If we accept the premise that the decrease in pizzaz at districts is an acceptable loss given the increase in availability why do traditional regionals have to cost so much money?

I could be wrong, but I believe the AV and a few other things essentially have a mandated cost floor due to what FIRST requires for regionals. Someone please correct this if not.

California is doing their best to run cheap events, with half of our events essentially run as close to a district as they can be under the regional model.

The bummer of all this though is even that it's great for the events to save money, since none of our fees go to the events, teams don't save any money.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I could be wrong, but I believe the AV and a few other things essentially have a mandated cost floor due to what FIRST requires for regionals. Someone please correct this if not.

California is doing their best to run cheap events, with half of our events essentially run as close to a district as they can be under the regional model.

The bummer of all this though is even that it's great for the events to save money, since none of our fees go to the events, teams don't save any money.

That jives with what I've been hearing. I question if all of those things actually have some value or if they are simply wasted money.

[who716]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Indiana had 52 teams last year: http://frclinks.frclinks.com/t/IN-USA

For simplicity's sake, assume net growth of zero teams. 52 teams each need 2 plays, meaning the district needs to generate 104 plays. 3 events at 35 gives you 105 plays. Then have 36 teams advance to a state championship and you're set. Yes the events are smaller than normal, but it's definitely a workable model, which is easily scaled for growth.

I understand and agree that downsizing at the event will increase play time for teams, and also leaves room to grow, I find it hard to grasp that only 52 plus new team will be in this district, knowing that you still have 60 teams competing at a single events, personally 52 teams would be nice as there will be many more qualifying matches to play if there are less teams at a curtain event, which is always nice.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by who716

I understand and agree that downsizing at the event will increase play time for teams, and also leaves room to grow, I find it hard to grasp that only 52 plus new team will be in this district, knowing that you still have 60 teams competing at a single events, personally 52 teams would be nice as there will be many more qualifying matches to play if there are less teams at a curtain event, which is always nice.

What Karthik is saying, and what will (more than likely) be the case is that there WON'T be events with 50+ teams and around 35 teams per event. And then the state championship will be around 32 teams.


For reference, the current Indiana State Championship has 24 teams competing.