Question: Championship Divisions

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schuetze

Hijacking this thread a bit here, so why would other high FRC team number states not want to adopt this pilot program for their state? Michigan has 132 teams, New York 122, California 145, Texas 91 ...

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What are the con's for adopting the Michican district model?

California has more regionals than MI did (4), but all the teams are concentrated in 4 places (2 for all you folks who don't know CA geography very well--they're farther apart than you think): Los Angeles, San Diego, the Silicon Valley, and Sacramento. There are pockets in other areas, namely the central coast, home to 973 and 1388, and the desert areas. (Not sure if 399 goes with the L.A. grouping or the desert grouping...)

However, the teams already play each other almost exclusively. L.A. doesn't get many out-of-state teams (other than 188, 1726, and 69--the only repeat out-of-state teams I know about in recent years), but is always full. SVR and Sacramento are more of the same. SD gets more, but not very many. To put it frankly, you'd pretty much be doing the same thing as normal.

The question is, where are you going to put the districts? If you split each regional into two, you get 8 district events in 4 areas. And then you get the MI UP dillemma: Do you leave the district zone and go to Vegas (or Oregon, or AZ), or do you travel to your closest district event (which requires staying overnight)?

The only way to make the district system work in California would be to also include Nevada and Arizona. This is to avoid the MI UP dilemma (as now Vegas is in the district area, and AZ, which supplies many teams to Vegas, is as well) and give a bit of a "buffer zone". But now you need more districts, maybe about 10-12, and that increases costs. And where on earth do you hold the "Zone" championship? How about the number of qualifying teams?

Con #1, though, is the district system is still "buggy" in some respects. The point system is the notable one, though that seems to be working (mostly). But, before the district model goes nationwide, I for one would like to see the pilot program run for one more year with changes to verify that any bugs are out.

It may be that the district model only works in MI, but certain aspects like event format can work elsewhere. I'd like to see the parts that work implemented nationwide, but the parts that don't work removed.