Are 8 play regional reasonable?

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by dradel

I will say this for districts... It does give teams that may not have the experience, tech resources, or $$ to be competitive. From my one year in regional experience which was our rookie year the regionals were overly dominated by teams that way outclassed most of the other teams. Districts still has the top notch teams from the area but it seems to be a bit more level of a playing field.
As a mentor there is not much that is more disheartening to see the defeated look in your students eyes before they even play their first match. Again districts makes it so the lower tier teams can be picked for elims or maybe even captain an alliance which both can be very inspiring!
One thing that concerns me regardless of regional or district model is sustainability. At some point costs to register are going to jump up, and when you figure in the current budget shortfalls most states are facing programs are going to be cut, and I fear for the teams that are super dependent on their school system for funding.

This is very true and can be evidenced by certain states. Ones that have taken advantage of the FTC competition structure to improve team quality have seen improvements in merit qualifications to world champs. Meanwhile, those same states that stay in the regional systems send a lower percentage of FRC teams to worlds.