Indiana going to Districts for 2015

[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.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

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

The post-season "Indiana State Championship" this year was designed as a single-day event with only elimination rounds and no qualifying matches. It wasn't intended to be anything like a competition for World Championship slots.

[Chris Hibner]

BTW, the teams/mi^2 calculation has a 0 missing from it for Indiana. The previous calculations show 0.01758, which it should be 0.001758. Actually, I calculate 0.001428 for Indiana. (52 / 36418)

[Alan Anderson]

All these numbers would be a lot easier to deal with if they were teams per 1000 square miles. Alternatively, square miles per team might be a better measure, depending on what you're trying to show.

[M. Lillis]

I updated my spreadsheet with the frclinks data and added a teams/capita section, which is based off of 2010 census data.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing