North Championship vs South Championship

[AGPapa]

It always seemed clear that the North Super Regional in St. Louis would be much more competitive than the South Super Regional in Houston, but with the announcement of Ontario moving to the district system, I think that the NSR might be even more competitive than the single Championship this past year. The North has more competitive regions than average, and more district regions (which qualify better teams). The NSR will also have fewer waitlist spots than the single Championship had this past year.

Here are the district areas in both the North and the South (including both Ontario and Texas), with how many teams were in each area in 2016.

North    Teams
MAR	122
NE	182
MI	411
CHS	132
ON	137
IN	54
TOTAL	1038

South	Teams
TX	141
PCH	65
NC	57
PNW	156
TOTAL	419

Currently, the proportion of district teams that qualify for a Championship event is calculated simply by dividing the number of teams attending the championship by the total number of teams. So with 800 teams attending a Super Regional, and with last year’s team count of 3130, 25.6% of district teams will qualify to advance. This results in 265 teams from the North and 107 teams from the South. (Note that both the total FRC population and the population in the district areas will increase, so these team counts will be approximately correct).

I also count 18 regionals in the North (counting the new NY regional) and 26 regionals in the South. (Obviously these numbers will change slightly as new regionals get added). As it stands, this is 108 teams from the North and 156 teams from the South.

In total, the qualification spots for both super regionals is approximately shown in the tables below.

North	        Teams
Districts	265
Regionals	108
Hall of Fame	18
Ein Winners	3
E Inspiration	2
Rookie All-Star	1
Waitlist	3
TOTAL	        400

South	        Teams
Districts	107
Regionals	156
Hall of Fame	7
Ein Winners	1
E Inspiration	2
Rookie All-Star	2
Waitlist	125
TOTAL	        400

Not only does the North have deep and competitive regions like Ontario, Michigan and Indiana, but it also sends way more teams from district areas and almost no teams from the waitlist. Meanwhile the South has more waitlist teams than district teams!

FIRST will almost certainly change how districts qualify teams to limit how many teams the northern regions send, but even with those changes it seems clear that the North Super Regional will be far more competitive than the South Super Regional (and maybe even more competitive than the Championship this past year).

[Chris is me]

Ironically, even though the change was made with the guise of getting more teams to the Championship, it might even be harder for teams in the north region to go to the championship to qualify or get in via the waitlist.

Considering this goes against the stated reason for the change of getting every team to the World Championship every four years, this is incredibly shortsighted on FIRST's part and further demonstrates just how poorly thought out the two Championships plan has been from the start.

Seriously, who's happy about this now?

[Billfred]

Two topics that come to mind:

1) Has FIRST announced how district team ratios will be set in the new era? Will it be a percentage of all FIRST teams, or a percentage of all FIRST teams zoned for that event?

2) The South numbers will probably depend a lot on whether Texas goes district in 2017. A state that big flipping would be a game-changer.

[Michael Corsetto]

Coming from a team that has been propelled by the "Competition" in FRC, and is assigned to SSR, this is very disheartening.

I knew it wasn't going to be good, but I didn't know the numbers would shake out to be this bad.

[Jaci]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Coming from a team that has been propelled by the "Competition" in FRC, and is assigned to SSR, this is very disheartening.

I knew it wasn't going to be good, but I didn't know the numbers would shake out to be this bad.

I ran some numbers on all the teams that had attended championships this year.

This is a breakdown of the combined and average OPR of teams attending the North and South championships in 2017/18, using their scores at the championship event for this year.


Here are the same numbers run on ALL teams in 2016, using their OPRs averaged over all events they attended this year.


Take these numbers how you will (OPR isn't the greatest stat ever), but I think they might hold a bit of weight.

[lynca]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

The NSR will also have fewer waitlist spots than the single Championship had this past year.

The unbalance between the North/South waitlists is striking.
A couple ways to balance the waitlists.

• Send Chesapeake to South Championship
• Allow North teams to apply for waitlist spots to the South
  

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Seriously, who's happy about this now?

Houston-area waitlist teams.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by lynca

Send Chesapeake to South Championship

Chesapeake has belonged to the south before; we all know how that turned out.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by lynca

The unbalance between the North/South waitlists is striking.
A couple ways to balance the waitlists.

• Send Chesapeake to South Championship
• Allow North teams to apply for waitlist spots to the South
  

That's literally double the travel distance for CHS teams.

It would be better to send more of the international teams to Houston. Or locations like Nebraska that have similar drive times to both.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

That's literally double the travel distance for CHS teams.

It would be better to send more of the international teams to Houston. Or locations like Nebraska that have similar drive times to both.

Somehow I don't think switching the Championship location of the 0 teams in Nebraska is going to make much difference.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Somehow I don't think switching the Championship location of the 0 teams in Nebraska is going to make much difference.

[scottandme]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

That's literally double the travel distance for CHS teams.

It would be better to send more of the international teams to Houston. Or locations like Nebraska that have similar drive times to both.

In practice - almost all of the international teams are going to attend Houston. The only international regions zoned north have tiny populations to make it appear that international teams were divided evenly.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by scottandme

In practice - almost all of the international teams are going to attend Houston. The only international regions zoned north have tiny populations to make it appear that international teams were divided evenly.

This is definitely true. I'd be surprised if there are more than 2 FRC teams from outside North America at NSR.

-Mike

[Drakxii]

So... What happens when Minnesota switches over to districts? Currently they only having 24 champion slots from their regional, but at 208 teams they would need 29 more slots*. So either some region is going to have to move to the south or north will have to be 420 teams and last years winners with no waitlist.



*At the 25.6% listed in the original post Minnesota would send 53 teams.

[rick.oliver]

I don't recall seeing an announcement concerning the number of teams which will be invited to attend the Championship events in 2017.

What is the source of the 400 teams per event?

The May 5, 2015 announcement states, "The details for Waitlist slots, along with the number of earned slots assigned to each FRC District, each FTC Super Regional event and countries outside the U.S., and each FLL and FLLJr. region and Partner are still being worked out."