ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

If what I responded to was not your position, then your's is not being stated clearly.

Please fine anything in my posts in this thread that allude to you dual championship proposal. You attempted to frame my position as "inconsistent" based on an entirely different thread and a position I never espoused in any thread. This isn't me making my position unclearly, this is you attempting to twist the words of multiple independent parties to suit your agenda.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

You say that no one outside of FIRST will care if we have one champion or not. And I've given you proof that it does matter. The fact that we were recognized much differently this year vs. the last 2 years is a strong example. That we get to meet with a key state senator comes from having one champion.

You have given no proof. You were one of four champions this year, yet you still met with state senators. You weren't even the only champion from your home state. Do you think your state senators would have refused your visit if you won the championship in Houston and someone else won the championship in Detroit?

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I blame the fact that there isn't more recognition society wide (which has been the basis of my posts--I've always talked about inspiring cultural change and my point doesn't break down when we go beyond inspiring FIRST teams) on the lack of a strong media campaign by FIRST HQ. I've posted about those shortcomings else, e.g. on the Championship Event Survey thread. We've tried to coordinate publicizing here with FIRST HQ and have heard almost nothing. If no one hears about it, of course it's not going to inspire the wider culture.

The only way that this comment could be connected to this thread is if you brought up the media attention FIRST has received historically. Like, say, the years where FRC was broadcast on ESPN.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Which brings me to lack of celebrity. Yes, eventually we want Flowers to be the type of celebrity (but in fact I think we really want someone not even connected to FIRST itself, but rather groundbreaking researchers and engineers.) However, the idea is that teams can become celebrities. In California, the De La Salle football team is a celebrity sports program. Many sports fans know about them, but most could not name the coach or any of his athletes. DLS has the advantage of being embedded into a sport that has a whole journalist culture built around it. Our team has worked at extending media outreach in Northern California, but we've gotten little help from the FIRST organization. We have 3 teams in the region that have been on the last 2 world championship alliances but there's no coordinated media campaign to exploit this. Instead our team is going to be carrying the ball alone to promote FIRST locally. If FIRST hasn't even tried to effectively communicate the event to the media, how do you know that no one cares.

I have no clue who De La Salle football is, and I'm a football fan.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

And sports/competitions can become suddenly popular with the right packaging. Two examples: poker and ultimate fighting. (OK, not the most wholesome...)

The younger of those two sports dates back to the 19th century, and it's TV popularity has faded dramatically in recent years. Neither of them has a singular championship, either. There is both the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour Championship. MMA has numerous organizations, each with numerous weight classes that are awarded their own championships. Multiple different organizations rank each fighter. So both of these aren't exactly helping your singular championship argument.
But the larger point here is that this isn't about promoting FIRST as a sport, it's about promoting science and technology.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

So I don't know why you want to make it even more difficult to reach the wider audience by splitting the champions? Every other sport is moving towards consolidated championships to increase visibility. Why run counter to what seems to be the collective wisdom? Again, I haven't seen how your rationale leads to a wider reach. Why is having 2 diluted champions a stronger draw? (I agree that having more teams at these events is a plus.) Is it simply "it doesn't matter"?

For the umpteenth time, I don't support the split championship. If you actually read and considered other people's opinions you might realize that. Stop trying to drag every discussion off course. This is a thread about the FRC championship in a historical perspective, yet you're half responding to posts and half dragging them towards a different direction. It's reached the point where you're cross posting your own posts from other championship split threads (that have been countered there as well). If you actually stopped your campaigning to focus on what other people actually think, you might reach a breakthrough.

In response to your argument there, two championships doesn't make it any harder to reach a larger audience. If anything, it makes it easier since you have two local markets to reach with a free event. A singular championship doesn't matter to anyone outside of our own community.