A little bitter...

[Nate Smith]

Originally posted by s_alaniz
Hey all.... interesting posts. just out of curiosity, what's the feeling of moving Nationals out of Orlando to a less expensive venue? Or even having two "nationals", one for the East and one for the West? DO we HAVE to have a final FINAL so there is a declared national champ? (I know I know.. dumb question...)

This whole topic is a horse that was already beaten to death repeatedly when FIRST made the announcement about Orlando this year. However, I'm going to just make two points:

1. Re. a split "nationals": As of a couple years ago, the team distribution leaned much more towards the east side of the country. While I know there has been a lot of growth in the past couple years, I have a feeling that this is still most likely the case, looking at the distribution of regionals.

2. Re. moving away from Disney: I've heard this one suggested quite a few times myself, and the one thing that always comes to mind is that, when FIRST made the decision to limit Nationals, it was due to the fact that it was becoming too large to manage well, and we were reaching the limits of the space available at Disney for us to use. While moving away from Disney would solve the space problem, it would only be a temporary solution. With FIRST's current growth rate, in 2-3 years, we would have to be looking for a new location to compete again, if we continue allowing everyone to attend. Also, as has been mentioned on this board repeatedly, FIRST is a non-profit organization with a very small staff (only 20-25 people.) Eventually, a point would be reached where they could not get enough people, between volunteers and staff, to manage running the event. As it stands now, a considerable number of the people working at Nationals are Disney staff who have been moved from their normal job to help at the event "village." If a move was made, all of these people would have to be replaced in some way.