Preparing for the Town Hall Meeting on the New Championships Format

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by dag0620

For those concerned about the other programs not seeing FRC, you can always have an exhibition tournament at the FLL/FTC championship, and the same thing with FLL and FTC at the FRC Championship. Just an idea at least.

This is what I've been advocating since the announcement. You can do two FLL/JrFLL events without any strife, because winning a championship tournament never was a golden ticket to World Festival. Some years, you are playing for a bid to an Open. So we'll roll with that.

Make one city the FRC Championship, make one city the FTC World Championship. At the FTC site, you hold the Good Guy Frank Invitational with 60-100 FRC teams. Some will opt to do it because it's closer, or the date works better, or they've got FTC teams that want to go, or maybe we invite some teams whose district points bubble burst--but you hold a full-fat, top-flight event there so you've got all four programs represented there. Do the same back for the FRC Championship, and you have an undisputed champion and four healthy programs with room to grow.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Billfred

This is what I've been advocating since the announcement. You can do two FLL/JrFLL events without any strife, because winning a championship tournament never was a golden ticket to World Festival. Some years, you are playing for a bid to an Open. So we'll roll with that.

Make one city the FRC Championship, make one city the FTC World Championship. At the FTC site, you hold the Good Guy Frank Invitational with 60-100 FRC teams. Some will opt to do it because it's closer, or the date works better, or they've got FTC teams that want to go, or maybe we invite some teams whose district points bubble burst--but you hold a full-fat, top-flight event there so you've got all four programs represented there. Do the same back for the FRC Championship, and you have an undisputed champion and four healthy programs with room to grow.

This is actually a reasonable proposal... It ain't great but it does use both venues and could maybe be a solution.

[Kevin Sevcik]

How many teams are you planning on for your FRC-only Champs? You can only cram so many into a venue. I'm pretty sure Houston can host 400 teams in style. 600 teams and 8 divisions would start to get crowded. Any more than that, and I think you're going to be disappointed in the results. I'm pretty sure 600 team capacity is necessary, since regionals this year could generate 336 champs slots. So unless you're eliminating some of those slots, you're going to have to have 600+ teams at some sort of championship event come 2017.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

How many teams are you planning on for your FRC-only Champs? You can only cram so many into a venue. I'm pretty sure Houston can host 400 teams in style. 600 teams and 8 divisions would start to get crowded. Any more than that, and I think you're going to be disappointed in the results. I'm pretty sure 600 team capacity is necessary, since regionals this year could generate 336 champs slots. So unless you're eliminating some of those slots, you're going to have to have 600+ teams at some sort of championship event come 2017.

I'm not directly arguing for the proposal, but isn't 2017 also the deadline to roll out more Districts? I wouldn't expect to have 56 Regionals in 2017, not with Texas, Minnesota, NY, Capitol Region, California (however they do it), etc, switching over. Or is this not happening/not definitive?

I like the Detroit FLL/FTC+Exhibition strategy. I'd actually suggest switching it so this is in Houston, only because that keeps FRC Worlds centrally located in St. Louis a year longer. That means only 3 years of a Detroit Championship are set in stone, not even a full high school career. Just a thought.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Siri

I'm not directly arguing for the proposal, but isn't 2017 also the deadline to roll out more Districts? I wouldn't expect to have 56 Regionals in 2017, not with Texas, Minnesota, NY, Capitol Region, California (however they do it), etc, switching over. Or is this not happening/not definitive?

While at this point I've heard even the most ardent regional supporters are now saying "when" about Districts in Minnesota, whether we'll be in Districts by 2017 has yet to be seen. Certainly there hasn't been a public announcement or any obvious planning.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Siri

I'm not directly arguing for the proposal, but isn't 2017 also the deadline to roll out more Districts? I wouldn't expect to have 56 Regionals in 2017, not with Texas, Minnesota, NY, Capitol Region, California (however they do it), etc, switching over. Or is this not happening/not definitive?

Districts are going to sweep across the country in the coming years from what i've been seeing and hearing. Virginia, the Capitol Region, Minnesota, even Georgia and North Carolina have been in talks of transitioning over in the next few years. I feel like the transition to districts in so many more regions may be enough to circumvent any overpopulation issues at championships.

[EricH]

I've got a "different" proposal. I'm not going to discuss 2 Championships with 800 combined teams, or 1 with 600+ teams.

I'm going to counter with: "When (not if) does this become 4 Championships, with a combined 800+ teams, with/without a single World Championship Final Event? And, what does that look like?"

I'm early, I know. But if you really want to make things "easier" on teams, why go north/south when you can go east/west (or even all 4 directions)?

So let's think about this a moment. Say you have 4 championships. North, South, East, West. South is (generally) held somewhere in TX/LA/FL/Ga. North tends to migrate towards MI/IL. West is somewhere on the West Coast (we do have a few venues out here big enough); East is, obviously, somewhere on the East Coast (but biased towards the Northeast). Each championship is fed by teams from a defined area, by some defined set of qualifiers. (For simplicity: the standard 6 teams/event will do, at least for discussion.) Each championship gets at least 200 teams, probably more (200 is too small and too big to work with what's next).

As a side note, you should be able to get a 400-team event into any of those regions, somehow. For a 2-championship system, this allows some rotation between cities--and said rotation offers a different batch of teams a better chance to slide in as volunteers or spectators if they don't make it.

Per championship event, you will have either 2 or 4 divisions (leaning towards 4, each with 60-70 teams, rather than 2 with 100). See "previous years' championships" for play style. Each event will also have a feed from the other championship events for viewing. At the end, you send all the winners and certain other designated teams to one location--let's just say about 60 teams in all, to St. Louis, because we can. And then... they play for the World Championship. (For some reason, venues that can handle a 60-team event are much easier to find than venues that can handle a 400-team event...)

Or you come up with some other way of naming a World Champion--computer simulation, FRC Top 25, highest total points, best win-loss record as an alliance...

[gblake]

Folks it's almost amusing to see just how deeply many of us are stuck in the rut of thinking that FIRST Championships (now that there are going to be more than one) will only occur in North America (a few years from now).

Discuss ...

Blake

[EricH]

Originally Posted by gblake

Folks it's almost amusing to see just how deeply many of us are stuck in the rut of thinking that FIRST Championships (now that there are going to be more than one) will only occur in North America (a few years from now).

Discuss ...

Blake

Where are the vast majority of teams and events located currently?

Or rather: Name the 4 official regionals that have taken place outside of continental North America in at least one year. (Hint: Brazil Pilot Regional only lasted 2 years; the other 3 are going strong.)

That being said, I can see in the far distant future having one or more outside of North America. Exactly where is an open question, though...

[gblake]

Originally Posted by EricH

Where are the vast majority of teams and events located currently?

Or rather: Name the 4 official regionals that have taken place outside of continental North America in at least one year. (Hint: Brazil Pilot Regional only lasted 2 years; the other 3 are going strong.)

That being said, I can see in the far distant future having one or more outside of North America. Exactly where is an open question, though...

Eric, your post just happened to be the one before mine. Mine wasn't written as a comment about yours in particular.

My counterpoint to your specific points quoted here is that I'll bet a cold Mountain Dew that China jumps into FRC with both feet very soon.

Regardless, how long do you suppose it will be before there are 100 to 200 decent teams in a cluster somewhere on Earth, who make a good case for not having to travel halfway around the planet to participate in one of the multiple North America Championships? And instead justify having one of their own?

If you want to plan for the future, it makes sense to include that scenario in the possible futures you assess.

Blake

[EricH]

Originally Posted by gblake

My counterpoint to your specific points quoted here is that I'll bet a cold Mountain Dew that China jumps into FRC with both feet very soon.

Regardless, how long do you suppose it will be before there are 100 to 200 decent teams in a cluster somewhere on Earth, who make a good case for not having to travel halfway around the planet to participate in one of the multiple North America Championships? And instead justify having one of their own?

I would suspect that it might be quite a while. Other than possibly China, nobody's been able to field more than about a dozen traveling teams to North America, and certainly not for long (China has a bunch of rookies right now; we'll see how they go next year). Brazil folded, mostly, as far as events and most of their teams. New Zealand/Australia is probably the leading candidate in my mind--before Australia got going, NZ was seriously considering having a regional but dropped out. They also happen to be "relatively close" to China and Hawaii (who also have a long trip regardless of where they go--logistics are a touch easier to the U.S. as far as "still in the same country" goes).

Once that happens, I would suspect that for the World Championship, you'd simply redistribute the numbers per Region Championship to include the "International" Championship. (Something like the Little League model, give or take a few stretched analogies.)

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Billfred

This is what I've been advocating since the announcement. You can do two FLL/JrFLL events without any strife, because winning a championship tournament never was a golden ticket to World Festival. Some years, you are playing for a bid to an Open. So we'll roll with that.

Make one city the FRC Championship, make one city the FTC World Championship. At the FTC site, you hold the Good Guy Frank Invitational with 60-100 FRC teams. Some will opt to do it because it's closer, or the date works better, or they've got FTC teams that want to go, or maybe we invite some teams whose district points bubble burst--but you hold a full-fat, top-flight event there so you've got all four programs represented there. Do the same back for the FRC Championship, and you have an undisputed champion and four healthy programs with room to grow.

This is my favorite proposal so far. One event is the undisputed FRC Championship with 600 FRC teams, as well as an FTC Open Tournament and an FLL Festival, and the other is the undisputed FTC Championship with however many FTC teams, with an FRC Open Tournament and an FLL Festival.

This is not a perfect proposal whatsoever- teams with world class qualifying FRC and FTC teams have to choose which of their programs deserves the true championship, and which gets the lower tier Open tournament.

However I think this is byfar better than both programs getting a lower quality championship.

[grstex]

Originally Posted by Billfred

This is what I've been advocating since the announcement. You can do two FLL/JrFLL events without any strife, because winning a championship tournament never was a golden ticket to World Festival. Some years, you are playing for a bid to an Open. So we'll roll with that.

Make one city the FRC Championship, make one city the FTC World Championship. At the FTC site, you hold the Good Guy Frank Invitational with 60-100 FRC teams. Some will opt to do it because it's closer, or the date works better, or they've got FTC teams that want to go, or maybe we invite some teams whose district points bubble burst--but you hold a full-fat, top-flight event there so you've got all four programs represented there. Do the same back for the FRC Championship, and you have an undisputed champion and four healthy programs with room to grow.

I know this is a popular compromise being discussed, but but please consider how this will be perceived by the host cities. They (along with the FIRST sponsors based in those cities) likely spent lots of time and money bidding to an FRC Championship. I suspected that all cities bidding to host championships also knew there would two championship events. Suddenly changing course and giving one city the FRC Championship and the other and FTC/FLL championship with an FRC invitational is not what these cities bid for.

If you were in their shoes, and invested time, money, and political and business connections attract such a big event, and got something very different than what was promised, would you not be upset? (Honestly, in typing this, I realize this is likely what many commenters feel has happened to them with this announcement.) To be blunt, reshaping this agreement and awarding only one city the championship that both cities were promised will leave the other city snubbed.* That will ruin the reputation of FIRST, and make it that much harder to negotiate with other cities in the future (if you don't think this type of thing would be spread by mayors, tourism chiefs, etc., you're wrong).

I really think allowing qualifying teams to opt in to a "swap lottery" has a lot of potential. It allows for cross pollination, gives qualifying teams a special privilege that they earned, and would protect against stacking one Championship at the expense of the other. The host cities involved would also likely welcome a more diverse pool of teams traveling to their cities.


*To be clear, calling an FTC/FLL championship a "snub" is NOT meant to disparage these programs. It's just obviously not what either host city signed up for.

[JesseK]

FTC should have more than 1 Championship, most definitely. FTC itself isn't so competitive on a national level that I don't think teams care which event they go to in order to claim "champions".

Question 1
Could FIRST split up champs with FRC/FTC and FTC/FLL? The FRC-based FTC competition would have the FTC teams which are part of larger programs and/or have older students. The FTC competition at the other event would be for FTC-only programs and/or younger students.

I think this type of split would better-serve the types of teams which would wind up at either event given the criteria above. The teams would probably more likely have more in common from a team management, funding, and goals side than is at the typical FTC championship. It also gives FLL teams something to aim for. FLL teams who have nearby FRC teams are probably inundated with demos already, so I don't think there's much inspiration lost if they attend a FLL/FTC-only Champs. It may also open the event up for even more FLL teams.

Question 2
What data is FIRST looking to gather in order to support any changes? Is FIRST looking for flow and 'feel' of a 600-team champs, are they trying to figure out what the multi-venue split will do this year, etc? Is FIRST looking to gather specific data on alumni, local politics, or other region-centric data which will help them decide geographic boundaries (etc)?

Question 3
As is the case with district implementation, there may be a few fringe cases where it doesn't make sense to do the 'new' thing since it is entirely counter-productive to how the team is managed, located or few-year forecasts the team has done. Will FIRST allow these fringe cases to be handled on a case-by-case basis, or are the boundaries going to be as strict as districts? (Note - my team is not currently and would not become one of these fringe cases)

Question 4
Be honest: is the 4-tier "super regional" still the long-term plan? (P.S. my wife doesn't yet know there are 4 potential events next year under the district system. I seriously doubt she'll get on board with 5 events unless one of them is in Vegas or somewhere tropical. Houston doesn't count, at least I don't think it does. No offense Houston )

[Siri]

Originally Posted by grstex

...If you were in their shoes, and invested time, money, and political and business connections attract such a big event, and got something very different than what was promised, would you not be upset? (Honestly, in typing this, I realize this is likely what many commenters feel has happened to them with this announcement.) To be blunt, reshaping this agreement and awarding only one city the championship that both cities were promised will leave the other city snubbed.* That will ruin the reputation of FIRST, and make it that much harder to negotiate with other cities in the future (if you don't think this type of thing would be spread by mayors, tourism chiefs, etc., you're wrong)...

Yes, and it's worse than that. As has been discussed elsewhere, it's quite possible/likely that the contracts specified FRC, or at perhaps specified requirements that can only be met via FRC. That's one of the (many) reasons we've asked Frank to explain exactly what's going on. Hopefully he can clarify what parts of the press released information is set in stone and what isn't.

And, Re: "Honestly, in typing this, I realize this is likely what many commenters feel has happened to them with this announcement." — hear, hear.

Originally Posted by grstex

I really think allowing qualifying teams to opt in to a "swap lottery" has a lot of potential. It allows for cross pollination, gives qualifying teams a special privilege that they earned, and would protect against stacking one Championship at the expense of the other.

Emphasis mine. I like the swap idea too (not to claim that it does much for the big picture), but I wouldn't count on it preventing stacking one event or the other. In fact, it could well do the opposite. If one event ends up being considered perennially "stronger" pre-swap (which it will*), it's likely that few powerhouses will want to leave it and many will want to come in. (At least if the discussion here and the existence of IRI are any indication.) Assuming there are still some teams at the "stronger" event that want to travel elsewhere, you'll see a net inflow of strength rather than outflow. How large the change would be is unclear. However, one might expect that the more unequal they are and the more they're opened to swapping, the more one of them will attract strong teams and thus the fewer strong teams already there will want to leave.

*This isn't necessarily a comment on team geography, just the statistical likelihood of two quantities like this being equal. However, you can examine the historical geography of Worlds Division finals.