# of Divisions at Championships

[bobl]

I read the announcement concerning the 2 Championships and that up to 400 teams per site will qualify, but has anyone seen whether or not there will be 8 divisions at each site.

Not a big fan of 2 Championships, however having 8 divisions and 400 teams means 50/division and many more qualifying matches.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by bobl

I read the announcement concerning the 2 Championships and that up to 400 teams per site will qualify, but has anyone seen whether or not there will be 8 divisions at each site.

Not a big fan of 2 Championships, however having 8 divisions and 400 teams means 50/division and many more qualifying matches.

As far as I know they have not announced how many divisions there will be yet.

There seem to be 2 camps on this though:

4 divisions
Allows for more high caliber teams per division which means better alliances in eliminations

8 division
Allows for over double the qualification matches which should provide for better rankings.

I'm in the 8 division camp. I'd prefer to have more qualification matches. With 4 divisions you will see 40% of the teams on the field compared to 150% of the teams with 8 divisions.

4 divisions math
750 matches / 100 teams = ~8 matches per team
8 matches * 5 other teams per match = 40 teams

8 divisions math
750 matches / 50 teams = 15 matches per team
15 matches * 5 other teams = 75 teams

[Jon Stratis]

I'm leaning more towards the 4 division camp, just from the perspective of volunteers. Doubling the number of divisions would greatly increase the number of necessary volunteers (refs, queueing, scoring, field reset, just to name a few), and I'm not sure FIRST will have enough for it with the split championships - many, if not most, volunteers that attend champs will pick one, not do both.

Personally, I'd love to find a way to split the difference and run 6 divisions. That would make playoffs a lopsided mess, but I think they could probably get enough volunteers for it.

[tim-tim]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

As far as I know they have not announced how many divisions there will be yet.

Currently shows 8 divisions at St. Louis 2017,same for Houston.
Source, click on each of the championship events.

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

4 divisions math
750 matches / 100 teams = ~8 matches per team
8 matches * 5 other teams per match = 40 teams

8 divisions math
750 matches / 50 teams = 15 matches per team
15 matches * 5 other teams = 75 teams

Why not have two fields per division and get the "best" of both worlds? More matches and more teams in a division.
Using 50 teams/division as the talking point for now, this would mean that 32 of the 50 move on to eliminations, or 64% of the teams. At what point does it take away from the "championship" experience?[size="1"]*SIZE] Most teams dream of making it champs and playing Saturday. We should continue to make it a position to strive for; versus, if we make it to champs we have a good chance of playing in eliminations. Each milestone in the season should be more challenging to accomplish. Most of this goes away of the divisions are more than 50 teams, but then it opens up a whole different story. 75 teams/ division, 600 teams per champs, 1200 teams between the combined champs; but I digress.

*Yes, I understand that the experience is already taking a hit by splitting to two locations; but there is nothing we can do about that at the moment.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by tim-tim

Currently shows 8 divisions at St. Louis 2017, same for Houston.



Why not have two fields per division and get the "best" of both worlds? More matches and more teams in a division.
Using 50 teams/division as the talking point for now, this would mean that 32 of the 50 move on to eliminations, or 64% of the teams. At what point does it take away from the "championship" experience?[size="1"]*SIZE] Most teams dream of making it champs and playing Saturday. We should continue to make it a position to strive for; versus, if we make it to champs we have a good chance of playing in eliminations. Each milestone in the season should be more challenging to accomplish. Most of this goes away of the divisions are more than 50 teams, but then it opens up a whole different story. 75 teams/ division, 600 teams per champs, 1200 teams between the combined champs; but I digress.

*Yes, I understand that the experience is already taking a hit by splitting to two locations; but there is nothing we can do about that at the moment.

If you can double the number of matches run you would get back up to the 75% coverage we currently have. I'd be fine with that solution. 6 divisions would also work out to be about the same, but obviously a new Einstein playoff bracket will need made.

[Chak]

Originally Posted by tim-tim

Currently shows 8 divisions at St. Louis 2017, same for Houston.

dead link

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by tim-tim

Currently shows 8 divisions at St. Louis 2017, same for Houston.



Why not have two fields per division and get the "best" of both worlds? More matches and more teams in a division.
Using 50 teams/division as the talking point for now, this would mean that 32 of the 50 move on to eliminations, or 64% of the teams. At what point does it take away from the "championship" experience?[size="1"]*SIZE] Most teams dream of making it champs and playing Saturday. We should continue to make it a position to strive for; versus, if we make it to champs we have a good chance of playing in eliminations. Each milestone in the season should be more challenging to accomplish. Most of this goes away of the divisions are more than 50 teams, but then it opens up a whole different story. 75 teams/ division, 600 teams per champs, 1200 teams between the combined champs; but I digress.

Not sure if the links are broken but they are giving me an error.

Honestly I think four divisions makes the most sense. 2014 proved that it is entirely possible to give every team 10 matches, and it will not water down the elimination rounds as much. However, I wouldn't mind taking an idea from the VEX playbook in doing a 5 division system, with a round-robin Einstein tournament. 80 teams per division would be okay too.

[wjordan]

12 divisions of about 66 would probably the best compromise for number of matches (12) and playoff representation (48%); However, a single-elimination bracket decided by 3-match series for 6 teams would be impossible without play-in matches. You would either have to do a complicated double-elimination bracket, or a round-robin with the best two records facing off in a championship series.

[Lil' Lavery]

Regarding tournament formats and Einstein:

A 5-alliance round robin (best of 1) requires 10 matches.
A 6-alliance round robin (best of 1) requires 15 matches.
A 5-alliance round robin (best 2 of 3) requires 20-30 matches
A 6-alliance round robin (best 2 of 3) requires 30-45 matches
A 4-alliance single elimination tournament (best 2 of 3) requires 6-9 matches
A 8-alliance single elimination tournament (best 2 of 3) requires 14-21 matches
A 4-alliance single elimination tournament (2015 style "heats") requires 8-9 matches
A 8-alliance single elimination tournament (2015 style "heats") requires 16-17 matches

It's also worth noting that round robins can result in scenarios where the Champion is known prior to the last match. Did you think Einstein ending on a tie was anticlimactic? Knowing the winning before the last match would be even more so. Moreover, there will be scenarios in which teams have nothing to "play for" aside of being spoilers (they've already been eliminated, but their opponent still has a chance). Additionally, the closest to a "best of 1" format we've seen in FRC eliminations was the 2015 bracket, and even that was a hybrid formula between an elimination bracket and a round robin (at least in the semi-finals).

Granted, you can tack on an elimination tournament or finals match to the back-end of a round robin, but that increases the matches required and still doesn't solve concerns regarding "best of 1" and spoiler matches.

[Cory]

8 divisions would result in truly awful "Einstein" alliances, especially at south half champs.

I pray that doesn't happen.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by Chak

dead link

Those links rely on header information or a cookie (forgot which), which is set by this page: https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index....=FRC&year=2017

Go there and click the event links from there, should work.

[Chak]

Thanks!

Looks like they're keeping the same division for both half championships, which doesn't make sense for me. That makes me think that this site isn't entirely accurate right now. I'd prefer to believe that there isn't 8 divisions for each championship anyways, until the announcement comes out.

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by tim-tim

Currently shows 8 divisions at St. Louis 2017, same for Houston.



Why not have two fields per division and get the "best" of both worlds? More matches and more teams in a division.
Using 50 teams/division as the talking point for now, this would mean that 32 of the 50 move on to eliminations, or 64% of the teams. At what point does it take away from the "championship" experience?[size="1"]*SIZE] Most teams dream of making it champs and playing Saturday. We should continue to make it a position to strive for; versus, if we make it to champs we have a good chance of playing in eliminations. Each milestone in the season should be more challenging to accomplish. Most of this goes away of the divisions are more than 50 teams, but then it opens up a whole different story. 75 teams/ division, 600 teams per champs, 1200 teams between the combined champs; but I digress.

*Yes, I understand that the experience is already taking a hit by splitting to two locations; but there is nothing we can do about that at the moment.

I like this idea of 2 field divisions. Another thing you could add into this is to make the divisions run as Octo-Finals with 16 alliances, it won't fix the depth of field issues but I think it would help.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by RoboChair

I like this idea of 2 field divisions. Another thing you could add into this is to make the divisions run as Octo-Finals with 16 alliances, it won't fix the depth of field issues but I think it would help.

It does do a subtle to not so subtle difference if you are the #1 ranked team coming out of qualifying.

[PayneTrain]

If it's really 8 divisions of 50 per event, you'd be better off saving your money on the registration fee and going to some second rate regional.