ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective

[David Lame]

Someone noted earlier that the two sides are so far apart that they aren't even really arguing with each other. It's true. A lot of people can't even understand what the other side is saying, it seems.

So before I go on to respond to an earlier post, I'm going to start by saying that I don't have a really strong feeling on either side. As First grows, and I think it could easily double in size in the United States, and probably grow by a factor of 10, the current Championship model is unsustainable. Something has to change. But what?

Recognizing that something has to change, one possible way to change it is to give up a world championship and go to multiple championships of smaller portions of the world. For those who absolutely hate the end of the world championship, try to work it out in such a way that lots of people could attend, and that teams wouldn't have to miss a whole heck of a lot of school, and cost a heck of a lot of money.

It's possible to make it happen, but it isn't easy, and there are tradeoffs to every solution.

Now, though, to a response that tends to favor the other side, the "one championship" side.

Originally Posted by jman4747

And why can't the two, not 100, and not ten world events both be valuable on their own? Your answer is lack of one champion and that's not enough to devalue the events significantly for most people.

I disagree. In fact, it's enough to devalue the event significantly for almost everyone.

The majority of people in the world don't know what First Robotics is. The split won't affect very many of those people. A few more might see it because their local school's team is going, but I think the media coverage of two very big events will be less than a single big event that has "world championship" in the name.

For those who know about First, but don't participate, World Championship is a very powerful term. An event that is just as big, but not the World Championship, isn't as "valuable". More people will watch a World Championship than a very big regional championship.

For those who attend, attending a World Championship is more "valuable" than attending a regional championship, no matter how big the region nor how many teams are in attendance. This is especially true of teams travelling a long way. I predict that the split championships will drastically reduce international participation. Do you think teams will travel all the way from Australia to attend anything less than a World Championship? I guess we'll find out.

For those who aspire to attend, it's a bigger deal, even if they don't make it. Would the Olympics be more inspirational (and yes I consider those games inspirational), if there were two of them, each handing out gold medals? I don't think so.

For those who never make it past a district competition, which event is more valuable? Most people want to feel like they are a part of something big. Something grand. The mere existence of a World Championship lends a certain gravitas to all levels of competition.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the only people for whom the event will not be devalued are a small number of teams who do not go the the current champs because of the travel cost, but who would go to one if it were closer. That's a non-zero number of teams, but not a lot.



As for the characterization of the "one championship" side of the argument as people as being the "one champion" side of the argument, it is at best a misunderstanding, and at worst a straw man. I cringed when the survey from the leadership had a whole lot of "what's valuable" questions. None of them addressed what I think is really valuable, but they did have a question about "a competition to pick the best robots". I cringed because it showed that even after the controversy started swelling, it was clear they didn't get it.

The FRC World Championship, as it exists today, doesn't pick the best robots. Everyone knows that and almost no one cares. The alliance system, the serpentine alliance picking system, the random assignment into divisions at championship, these all conspire to make sure that it is NOT the best robots that take home the banners. And that's ok. Indeed, it's good. It creates a very unique system that has its own set of challenges, and tensions, and points of excitement, and yet still culminates in a single, unique, climactic moment where three teams emerge victorious. It happens through hard work, genius, and a whole lot of dumb luck, and everyone knows it, but by gum there is one point in time where everyone knows that the clock is going to tick down to zero and one alliance will emerge as the undisputed, number one, set of teams in the whole darned world.

It's not about finding one true champion, but it is about creating that one magical moment.