[Official 2008 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas

[Cory]

Eliminate half the practice rounds on Thursday at the Championship Event.

All teams have competed in at least one, with a decent percentage in two regionals. Everyone should be able to pass inspection by the end of lunch. There would probably be more of a sense of urgency to get inspected if you knew you had less time to do so as well, speeding up the process.

After lunch, start the qualification rounds. Run then from 1 PM to 7 PM and close the pits at 8 PM. All teams should be able to get at least 2-3 more qualification rounds, which would be huge, considering you're only getting 7 right now. It would give teams more value out of their $5,000 and make the event more competitive overall.

This is the only solution I can see that gives teams more matches, without requiring more fields, more days added to the event, or FIRST needing to find more volunteers to staff the event. It would require that the referees and scorekeepers all work an extra day, but they're all at the event on Thursday already. They'd just be forced to complete their training earlier in the day, and they wouldn't be able to do two jobs at the event (ie: referee and inspect).