How big will FIRST ever get?

[miketwalker]

Unfortunatly, the problem might not lie within FIRST, but more likely lies with sponsors. If you think about it, only a certain number of teams can spawn in a certain area, because of limited sponsors. Also, if you have multiple thousands of teams, FIRST will have to like seperate more than likely and become like normal sports where you can compete up to state, but after that there isn't much hope. FIRST has enough troubles running as many regionals a week as they do (and they work their butts off to do what they do now, ask anyone who works the competitions, they'll say how it is, ask JVN or Ken for example, I know that after 5 or 6 weeks, you get worn out) and it's hard to just get enough participation. As you grow too big, you also lose the value in it as well... unfortunatly there must be a cap... and I think we're pretty close to it, because with many more teams, the overall quality will go down and it'll be harder and less one-on-one interaction. To be honest, if we leveled off around where we are now, we're comfortable, but we'll almost definitly continue to grow, which causes problems as I talked about above. There are only so many sponsors willing to pay the fees, and those areas are quickly filling up or have been pretty much filled up, and FIRST can't handle that many more regionals. Plus, FIRST gives you a nice sense of being able to watch the competitions as it is now, and know a good amount of teams, with that many more teams, you wouldn't be able to keep up and watch multiple teams you know in one match, for example, and teams may not be able to network as easily.