SuperRegionals in 2008

[Dan Richardson]

Originally Posted by Corey Balint

Okay so, from what I have gathered, dang near everyone thinks there favorite event is going to be a super regional, or has thought it was going to turn into a super regional. I've heard kids/mentors from different events saying it. Ive heard the likes of Florida, UTC, and NJ, as well as a few others.
Now, I just wanna know where everyone gets this "Information." Has FIRST directly told any of these kids/mentors?
I doubt it.
From what I'd imagine, FIRST has no idea if there will be another superregional, ever.
This really just is a rant, but I guess the point I'm getting at in general is, don't post rumors as facts, unless you have hard evidence of the rumors being true.


(Sorry if this sounds mean/negative, it is not the intent, I've just heard it for a while now, and noticed someone posting it so matteroffactly in another thread, it kind of set me off.)

Yes on the case of Florida there is planning/fund raising to be a super regional. UCF will be finishing the Convocation Center in the next few months ( to be ready for the 07/08 basketball season which happens to coincide with FIRST ) When this is finished you will have a set up much like Relient Park in Houston. ( however much closer in proximety probably only ( 10 - 20 feet between the buildings ) The old arena will remain standing and act as the pits and the new ~10,000 seat state of the art arena will be the host to the fields.

The problem with set up of the super regional is three fold from what I understand. How do you run it? Do you run it as one large regional with 70-100 teams and just run shorter times between matches? Do you run it as two seperate divisions much like a smaller version of nationals? Or do you extend elims to the top 10? top 12? or top 16 teams? Have to be careful so that teams will still attend and not be detered by the maginitude of the event.

Second Problem is Funding, it is significantly more expensive than a normal regional. Imagine all the additional costs incured in, shipping the second field, unloading the extra crates and dryage, the extra lighting and sound rental etc. I heard a few numbers thrown around this a week ago, mainly by the Florida Committee chair and director of somewhere in the neighbor hood of an additional $70k-$80k.

Third is can you staff the event? There is a great effort for get volunteers to help run the events. With a super regional, you need super volunteers, and almost double the number. This is why at florida this year most every key position was doubled. You heard 4 announcers, 2 mcs.. many additional refs, field crew, robot inspectors, Volunteer Coordinators etc..

All three of these things are huge responsibility and the Florida Regional Committee is working hard to accomplish this goal. They've already announced to the regional that it will take place, now its just deciding the best way how. They have a great committee down here in Florida many of which I've talked with personally and every single one of them seems excited about the prospect of a larger Florida Regional.

Now as for will it happen? Only time will tell. It will be interesting to see come next november ( or whenever registration begins ) how many people will be able to sign for Florida, but I imagine that regardless of how many spots there are it may fill up just as quickly as it usually does.

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by Stud Man Dan

The problem with set up of the super regional is three fold from what I understand. How do you run it? Do you run it as one large regional with 70-100 teams and just run shorter times between matches? Do you run it as two seperate divisions much like a smaller version of nationals? Or do you extend elims to the top 10? top 12? or top 16 teams? Have to be careful so that teams will still attend and not be detered by the maginitude of the event.

Sounds great! I reccomend talking to the Regional Committe up north at GTR. They have done two fields for some time now and it ran smoothly and acutally a lot of fun too!

In 06 I believe they did Elims for 12? and the top 1-2 teams i believe had a bye at the start.

Hmm, sounds like a fun regional i might look into to volunteer.

[Pirate_Nelly354]

Dean Kamen was at the NYC Regional yesterday. So it is true, that the Jacob Javits Center is so huge that there will be two playing field =]

The "SuperRegional" thing, is kind of cool but kind of not. So many teams! It'll be crazy!

There will be more competition there then in other regionals =/
30+ teams in each regional will be fair?

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Maybe there will be a bunch of super regionals next year to accomodate the growing amount of teams.

[Ryan Foley]

How will FIRST fill these super regionals if indeed we can expect to see them in 08? The New England area already has enough of a drain with three regionals, how do they expect to fill a CT super regional, while still having teams for Boston, BAE, and even the New York regionals? Will smaller regionals be forced to shut down so they can fill up a super regional?

As to main question, I also heard about the possibility of UTC being 2 fields. However, is it a smart idea to have a super regional in both NYC and CT? Where are all those teams going to come from? Similar to what Dan said, how would awards work, would there be awards per division, or just awards per event?

As to what Tom said, and what was said at kickoff about FIRST being on the breaking point, perhaps it is time FIRST revamped the event system structure. Others have before suggested in other threads that FIRST switch to a regional (currently existing), then super regional (perhaps one per geographical region), then CMP qualifying system.

[Rosiebotboss]

My only thought would be to make sure, if FIRST is going to do a Super in CT, is to space it out away from Boston, BAE and NY.

For us smaller teams without a large travel budget, we stay local for our 2 Regionals. Back to back is tough. If FIRST puts 2 weeks between them I think they would have a better shot at filling the slots.

[wsansewjs]

Other day, I talked to one of my fellow mentors. He mention that back in when the FIRST Nationals were at Epcot and those times, the amount of teams varies from 70-100 was the best excitement and balance he ever seen in a competition espically for FIRST. Maybe, FIRST is trying to set up all of the regionals in upcoming years to bring the old charming excitement back from the old days of FIRST. Perhaps. . . perhaps. . . Only time will tell!

-Josh S.

[Justin]

I have to disagree that more teams by default equals a more exciting FIRST event. For my money some of the smaller events have been some of the more exciting. Take an event like BattleCry tons of excitement, incredibly intense competition and their are few enough people there that you can meet up with friends, make new ones, etc. With a large event, say the Nationals @ Epcot things just get to unmanageable you have to worry about which field your team is on when, it makes it harder see all the teams you want to see at an event, etc. I've always felt the part of the "charm of the old days of FIRST" that is missing is the intimate social feel you get from the smaller events of old like the DEKA New England Regional. With so many teams now it can become unwieldy quickly to keep track of them all, meet people, etc.

My $0.02,

Justin

[Sgraff_SRHS06]

Chesapeake can also very easily expand. It's been mentioned a number of times in the thread that 70-80 teams are absolutely no problem on the site. From going in Halsey Field House itself, in my opinion, it seems barren with 50-65 teams (in other words, it's not crowded enough). And a second field can easily be supported.

The other thing I would love to see happen is a Super Regional at College Park in either the Comcast Center or Cole Field House, depending on whether the Terps play in the NCAA or NIT. I know there are tons of huge shows over at Cole Field House, so it will certianly not be a problem. The advantage is that it is just a relatively short walk from a potential team social site (Terp Zone). That could probably support 100-120 teams on 2-3 fields.

I'm pretty sure you could get the Dean of Engineering, Dr. Nariman Favradin; or even our president Dr. Mote (a mechanical engineer himself who's done a whole lot to improve Maryland). The only problem is hotels. I would reccomend staying away from college park, mostly because of the crime there.

[Doug G]

"SuperRegionals" absolutely makes sense to FIRST. I sit on the Davis-Sacramento Regional Planning Committee and it is tough for some of these regionals to raise the needed money to hold them. If you double the number of teams, the costs of putting it on do not double!! It's simply more economical. I was told by FIRST regional directors last year that they really wanted to figure out a way to increase the capacity of our Davis event to 50-60 teams by moving the pits to the third level of the event site. This type of vision has been in place for years and whether or not we'll see a big change at Davis, I bet we see the growth of some of the regional events real soon maybe next year

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Sgraff_SRHS06

Chesapeake can also very easily expand. It has been mentioned a number of times in the thread that 70-80 teams are absolutely no problem on the site. From going in Halsey Field House itself, in my opinion, it seems barren with 50-65 teams (in other words, it's not crowded enough). And a second field can easily be supported.

The other thing I would love to see happen is a Super Regional at College Park in either the Comcast Center or Cole Field House, depending on whether the Terps play in the NCAA or NIT. I know there are tons of huge shows over at Cole Field House, so it will certianly not be a problem. The advantage is that it is just a relatively short walk from a potential team social site (Terp Zone). That could probably support 100-120 teams on 2-3 fields.

I'm pretty sure you could get the Dean of Engineering, Dr. Nariman Favradin; or even our president Dr. Mote (a mechanical engineer himself who's done a whole lot to improve Maryland). The only problem is hotels. I would reccomend staying away from college park, mostly because of the crime there.

I don't think it will, or it should. There simply aren't enough teams at the moment to fill out 2 or 3 fields at any DC/Maryland venue. VCU drains too many teams, especially given the budget of most teams in the area limiting them to 1 or 2 events. This same problem applies to both the NYC and UTC regionals. There is no way without either directly closing other events, or draining them of teams, to fill a super regional. Closing ANY other event to create one larger event is almost always a bad idea, and I would not be happy to see NJ, VCU, Chesapeake, NYC, UTC, Boston, BAE, Peachtree, Bayou, Long Island close to support a "Super Regional" in NYC, Hartford, or Florida (or any other site). More teams doesn't mean more fun.