Question of the Week!!! (7/11/04)

[Elgin Clock]

I don't believe that we will ever outgrow a "Championship Event", but there should be a return of nationals. As of now, we have enough teams for a canadian nationals event and a USA nationals event.

As more teams come to be, and more countries get involved I believe that we need to hold nationals events in those countries.

I'm not talking in the next year or two, but somewhere down the line we are going to probably have about a hundred teams from each of the contries of Brazil, or the UK, or wherever.

I think it is just fair for FIRST to implement to them a Nationals event in their homeland. (Travel expenses is the biggest concern of mine for them)

FIRST is all about inspiring kids, but as a secondary result FIRST is growing every year.

As Mike Walker said, "... in the past the backbone of FIRST was that EVERYBODY could go to the Championship." While we have strayed from the biggest difference between FIRST and sports in that aspect, why not adopt a format that works for sports events.
As Dean once said (and I'm not going to quote this cause I don't know the exact words) FIRST is all the good things of sports events, without all the bad.

When something works in sports, then why not adopt it to work in FIRST's world.

Nationals for Canada, Nationals for USA, eventualy Nationals for UK, Brazil, etc... when the time is right, and then a final "Championship event" wherever.
Maybe the Championship event could switch countries.
(After thinking about switching countries, I realize that that could be a big logistics problem as far as venue, weather, or teams' individual logistics.)

I think in the end, holding the Championship Event in the USA is best for now, but we should somehow incorporate 3 nationals events soon.

One in Canada, One in the USA, and a last one in possibly NYC for the teams from Brazil and the UK and some US teams too..
I'm not sure about the NYC one.
We shall soon see...

Anyways, those are my thoughts on this subject. Feel free to pick them apart and give myself and the CD community feedback.

[JoeXIII'007]

The FIRST championship is the equivalent of the Superbowl, and shall NEVER be outgrown. However, I see tournament structure changes within the next few years. Here's what the change could look like:

You would have your regionals like you do now. Then, winners of those regionals would compete in an even bigger event like a state championship or geographical region championship. (midwest [I know, we already have a midwest regiona], northeast, southeast, west, etc.) Finally, the winners of those would compete in the Nationals. It'd be a 3-level tournament structure like that.

[Lil' Lavery]

Individual nationals are pretty far off as I see it. I think additional regionals will be added in canada first, like having a west canada regional, and an east canada regional first. Then, a brazilian regional, a european regional(once we get more teams there), and(in a few years) a second isreali regional(there are 12 rookie teams and a regional that are getting founded over there). I dont think we will need "nationals" for a long while, especially if we implement a divisional(or a lower than regional) step for competitions.

[Joshua May]

Like everyone who has posted before, I don't think FIRST will outgrow the Championships, it will simply get harder to qualify.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Individual nationals are pretty far off as I see it. I think additional regionals will be added in canada first, like having a west canada regional, and an east canada regional first. Then, a brazilian regional, a european regional(once we get more teams there), and(in a few years) a second isreali regional(there are 12 rookie teams and a regional that are getting founded over there). I dont think we will need "nationals" for a long while, especially if we implement a divisional(or a lower than regional) step for competitions.

Will that Israeli regional be up for next year, I haven't heard of that yet!