How big will FIRST ever get?

[Bob Steele]

Our team has been competing in BEST for the past two years.
All I can say is that the students have gotten a great deal out of it.
It has only cost us travel expenses and next year we are going to start an Indiana HUB. This way we can help many of the schools around us get the robotics experience. Of course the robot is less complicated, and smaller.
But an entire hub's projected cost is around $30,000. That is the money necessary to purchase EVERYTHING for 25 teams to compete!!

This already has prize money built into it for the winners to help them go the Regional (National) competitions...

Sure, the trophies are less glitzy... the competitions look more like high school athletic competitions and not the FINAL FOUR..., but there is a lot to be said for not having to worry about where the extra money is going to come from when FIRST raises the bar (oops I mean...raises the COSTS..) AND they require money in advance...

I have hesitated to bring up BEST on this forum... I have found the people that run it amicable and they are ALL volunteers... BEST has only one paid employee..

If anyone is interested just send me a message...
Don't get me wrong I love FIRST and what it does... but we, along with many other teams are feeling the pinch... not only the pinch of our sponsors pulling out...or reducing their contributions ... but the pinch of the team advisors having to continually be on the search for more money.. its always more... more to FIRST.... more travel expenses... more equipment to be competitive... more more more...

enough, I will get off the soap box...
I would love to see FIRST in every high school but it will NEVER happen given the costs we see today...

thanks for reading

yours in robotics....

Bob

[KelliV]

FIRST can eventually be in every high school. Some others here have mentioned that it could eventually be like football and in the schools, others have mentioned that the cost would be a large problem, which it would but take a moment to think about this.

The average football team has about 25 kids on it. The personalized football helmets cost (with padding and upkeep) $75.00 a piece, pads run around $75.00 also, then you have shoes $50.00, practice gear (jersey, pants) $30.00. Right now it's $230.00 a kid. Multiply that by 25 and get $5750.00 a team. Our school (Rolling Meadows High School in Illinois) has five teams (Frosh A, Frosh B, Soph, JV, Varsity) That is $28750.00 for the football program in a high school, and that does not even include the field upkeep, announcing equipment, or bus fees for away games.

Yes some of these pieces of equiptment can be used for multiple years but so can some of the parts FIRSTers use to build robots.

With $28,750 spent on football programs I am sure a school can afford to start a FIRST team.

FIRST will eventually become big in this country. I see it doing great things for people and making the US a world leader in science and technology.

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by KelliV

FIRST can eventually be in every high school. Some others here have mentioned that it could eventually be like football and in the schools, others have mentioned that the cost would be a large problem, which it would but take a moment to think about this.

The average football team has about 25 kids on it. The personalized football helmets cost (with padding and upkeep) $75.00 a piece, pads run around $75.00 also, then you have shoes $50.00, practice gear (jersey, pants) $30.00. Right now it's $230.00 a kid. Multiply that by 25 and get $5750.00 a team. Our school (Rolling Meadows High School in Illinois) has five teams (Frosh A, Frosh B, Soph, JV, Varsity) That is $28750.00 for the football program in a high school, and that does not even include the field upkeep, announcing equipment, or bus fees for away games.

Yes some of these pieces of equiptment can be used for multiple years but so can some of the parts FIRSTers use to build robots.

With $28,750 spent on football programs I am sure a school can afford to start a FIRST team.

FIRST will eventually become big in this country. I see it doing great things for people and making the US a world leader in science and technology.

You missed one big thing that football teams have an advantage over any other groups or sports: sales.

Time and time again football teams have walked over all other teams by getting equipment that isn't needed, or things that are just wasteful. Why? They bring in the money for the school through concession sales, ticket sales, and other sales. It's as simple as that. While it could be argued that robotics teams could charge admission, the problem falls back onto the founding principals of FIRST and it's mission.

If you do a search on the forums you will find many examples of what I have described, where leaky roofs and other things go the way-side as football teams get that nice new bus, or other things.

*end rant*

This wasn't meant to be aimed at you as an attack, so sorry if you feel that way, but I'm getting more than a little tired over the football teams. Of course, Sparky has won more awards the past 6 years than our football team has the past 12.

[Bill Beatty]

I have been raising this very point for years. Schools spend huge amounts on sports, but seem to have difficulty spending much on a FIRST program.

The rationalization is that sports programs bring in revenue. This is a complete myth. The small amount of ticket sales is a drop in the bucket when comparing the cost of a football team. You must remember to include all the equipment, the salaries of the coaches, managers, trainers, etc. as well as the cost to build and maintain the field etc. I would bet that the cost of an average size high school team is in the hundreds of thousands when figuring "all" the costs.

I am all for high school sports, but as Dean continually preaches, we sometimes are not putting enough emphases in the right places.

[George1902]

Originally Posted by Bill Beatty

The rationalization is that sports programs bring in revenue. This is a complete myth. The small amount of ticket sales is a drop in the bucket when comparing the cost of a football team.

You are seriously underestimating the revenue that the football program brings in.

I can't speak for everywhere, so I'll just describe how South Fork High School was at the time I graduated.

Ticket sales for games were huge. Admission was five dollars per person, and an average home game would have 2500 people attending (more or less depending on how many of the opponent's fans traveled with them). We had five home games that year. Our rivalry game was home also, but I mention it separate because everyone in the county came to it. We easily had 7500 attend that game. That's about $100,000 in revenue. However, only half of that went to football. The other half went to the general sports account.

Another soource of revenue is the football booster's club. They're main job on Friday nights was selling merchandise. The rest of the year, they got sponsors for things the team needed. We had banners for local buisinesses hanging all around the stadium. If a buisiness had donated a particular item (golf cart, score board, etc.), you'd know it because their logo was on that item. They also sold programs for two dollars each. And they sold ad space in those programs. Each football player and cheerleader was required to sell an ad.

This isn't including concession stands, because the band runs those. They get to keep whatever they make.

Originally Posted by Bill Beatty

You must remember to include all the equipment, the salaries of the coaches, managers, trainers, etc. as well as the cost to build and maintain the field etc. I would bet that the cost of an average size high school team is in the hundreds of thousands when figuring "all" the costs.

Our head football coach got paid $5000 per year for coaching. Assistant coaches got between $500 and $1500 for the year. Our managers were students who either didn't want to play or who couldn't due to injury. We didn't have a full-time trainer on staff, but someone with a local practice came in every afternoon. I imagine they paid her something.

Building the field was a one-time cost that the school incurred over fifteen years ago. It is also used by soccer, track, and other sports throughout the year. The school's Agricultural Technologies program maintains the football field, the baseball field, the softball field, and the golf course (yes, we had a three-hole par three golf course with a driving range and a practice green on campus).

Football is huge in Florida, so perhaps my school was a bad example. However, I do know that in most Florida high schools, the football program fully funds itself, and highly supplements the entire sports program. Perhaps teams should consider classifying themselves as a sport instead of a club. Maybe they'd be allowed to tap into the money that football brings in.

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by George1083

Football is huge in Florida, so perhaps my school was a bad example. However, I do know that in most Florida high schools, the football program fully funds itself, and highly supplements the entire sports program. Perhaps teams should consider classifying themselves as a sport instead of a club. Maybe they'd be allowed to tap into the money that football brings in.

Same here in Henrico County, VA, although it's just a little smaller.

[suneel112]

I think that money is the greatEST concern to any, and maybe even every FIRST team. Eventually, there will be a point at which donations just can't continue (unless companies give to FIRST instead of local charities, believe me, that is not all good). In addition, it will take a significant manufacturing potential to make, say, 10,000 kits of parts. Furthermore, nationals will be less and less accessible. "Back in the day" it wasn't so hard to get to nationals, but if there are 3,000 , 5,000, or even 10,000 teams, it will get increasingly harder to get into nationals. I am one who says "give the underdogs and rookies a chance to experience the fun of the national event".

Another option is for the national event to change, and have 6, 8, or even 16 separate fields for competition. This may present a problem, but there is no problem in using the outdoors of Atlanta to have a competition. There is also plenty of undeveloped land belonging to Disney World. The Dean Center for Technology??

[phrontist]

The government should be sponsoring FIRST. To some extent, it does already, but if FIRST is really going to become commonplace nation-wide we need government funding. The federal government, could, in my opionion, make no better investment then sponsoring FIRST teams in every highschool in the country, for reasons that all of you are aware of.

That being said, a cool alternative would be FIRST teams designing a building arcade machines, undercutting the commercial operators...

[Kevin Sevcik]

I have two points to make. First, expanding FIRST to every high school in America would be a incredibly massive undertaking. There's on the order of 30,000 high schools in the US. Let's assume $10K per team and $125K per regional and 45 teams per regional. We'll assume 15 weeks of regionals (triple the current 5 weeks) We then have:

$300 million in sponsorships to teams.
$83 million in sponsorships to regionals.

667 regionals in a year.
45 regionals a weekend, and thus 45 fields, trucks, and sets of event staff.

Not to mention the production and distribution of 30,000 kits a year. I can't easily estimate the dollar value of parts donations and discounts this would represent.

This is assuming teams only attend one regional, as well, and attend only a nearby regional. With almost a regional every weekend in every state, I think that's a safe assumption. That said, I think it's safe to say that FIRST could not expand to every high school in the US in its current form. Overhead costs and organizational challenges would be very difficult to manage. Not to mention finding that much sponsorship. And note that doubling or tripling the size of a regional would only somewhat mitigate this effect. I beleive that to expand this much, FIRST would have to change to some sort of rolling, year round competition or have groups of teams put on their own regionals or something. It would definitely need a radical organizational shift to achieve this.

My second point. Does FIRST really need to be in every high school in America? It would certainly not be a good fit for some high schools like those that focus on arts or other things that don't really work with FIRST. Some of these high schools are small rural high schools where a team would comprise a large percentage of the student body. I'm sure there are other reasons here as well. I don't think FIRST really needs to extend to every high school to achieve its goal of changing the culture of the US to focus less on sports heroes, etc. I think, patently, it needs to reach a significant enough fraction of America's youth in order to achieve this. A presence in every high school in America is not necessarily vital to this.

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I have two points to make. First, expanding FIRST to every high school in America would be a incredibly massive undertaking. There's on the order of 30,000 high schools in the US. Let's assume $10K per team and $125K per regional and 45 teams per regional. We'll assume 15 weeks of regionals (triple the current 5 weeks) We then have:

$300 million in sponsorships to teams.
$83 million in sponsorships to regionals.

667 regionals in a year.
45 regionals a weekend, and thus 45 fields, trucks, and sets of event staff.

Not to mention the production and distribution of 30,000 kits a year. I can't easily estimate the dollar value of parts donations and discounts this would represent.

This is assuming teams only attend one regional, as well, and attend only a nearby regional. With almost a regional every weekend in every state, I think that's a safe assumption. That said, I think it's safe to say that FIRST could not expand to every high school in the US in its current form. Overhead costs and organizational challenges would be very difficult to manage. Not to mention finding that much sponsorship. And note that doubling or tripling the size of a regional would only somewhat mitigate this effect. I beleive that to expand this much, FIRST would have to change to some sort of rolling, year round competition or have groups of teams put on their own regionals or something. It would definitely need a radical organizational shift to achieve this.

My second point. Does FIRST really need to be in every high school in America? It would certainly not be a good fit for some high schools like those that focus on arts or other things that don't really work with FIRST. Some of these high schools are small rural high schools where a team would comprise a large percentage of the student body. I'm sure there are other reasons here as well. I don't think FIRST really needs to extend to every high school to achieve its goal of changing the culture of the US to focus less on sports heroes, etc. I think, patently, it needs to reach a significant enough fraction of America's youth in order to achieve this. A presence in every high school in America is not necessarily vital to this.

I think FIRST SHOULDN'T be in every school IMHO, but why not aim for the moon? If you fail, you'll land among the stars.

I think more and more non-schools will get involved in the program, more and more teams that have money to use from the government or from individuals that could be spent on more video games or something like that, but instead on FIRST.

[VGMasterShadow]

Originally Posted by JosephM

why not aim for the moon? If you fail, you'll land among the stars.

...and, if you're lucky, try not to hit any of the planets on the way.

[Doug G]

FIRST's target goal this year was 1100 teams (growth of 18%), I hear this is not going to be reached but 1000 teams seems very possible (growth of ~8%). At this current rate of 8% growth it will take 9-10 more years to get to 2000 teams.

I keep hearing talk about FIRST in almost every high school - and honestly I don't see it happening anytime soon. When athletic programs started in high schools ~100+ years ago, not all schools had them, at least not like what they are today. I takes a lot of time for that culture to grow. I hope 50 years from know, Robot competitions will be commonplace in school, and when they are they will be funded locally like athletic programs, because parents will have a fit if they are not, after all, mom or dad were on a team when they were in high school and college and expect it from the schools.