Team CMP Assignment 2017

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by mwmac

Sean, you are correct that reducing team travel costs was one of the stated objectives of the championsplit decision.

While that may be a stated objective the fact is that the amount of time between purchasing the tickets and their travel date has a much bigger influence than the distance traveled when air fare is involved. The popularity, number of flights and carriers serving a particular air port also has a greater influence on the cost than distance in most cases.

For example I did a quick look at costs to travel to Portland OR and Los Angeles CA from Seattle.

Seattle to LAX is showing as "from $205" while the driving distance is noted as just over 1100 miles.

Seattle to Portland is showing a "from $211" and it's driving distance is showing as 166 miles.

Both are based on traveling Oct 14th-18th.

Adjusting the dates for Portland to leave on Thur bumps that price up to $381. No certainly you can find flights to LA that are more expensive than to Portland if you play with dates and carriers to find the flight that is almost booked for Portland and a flight that is still relatively empty for LA on the same day but in general this does represent the fact that distance is a minor part of the cost of travel by air and other factors have more influence on price.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Mr V

While that may be a stated objective the fact is that the amount of time between purchasing the tickets and their travel date has a much bigger influence than the distance traveled when air fare is involved. The popularity, number of flights and carriers serving a particular air port also has a greater influence on the cost than distance in most cases.

For example I did a quick look at costs to travel to Portland OR and Los Angeles CA from Seattle.

Seattle to LAX is showing as "from $205" while the driving distance is noted as just over 1100 miles.

Seattle to Portland is showing a "from $211" and it's driving distance is showing as 166 miles.

Both are based on traveling Oct 14th-18th.

Adjusting the dates for Portland to leave on Thur bumps that price up to $381. No certainly you can find flights to LA that are more expensive than to Portland if you play with dates and carriers to find the flight that is almost booked for Portland and a flight that is still relatively empty for LA on the same day but in general this does represent the fact that distance is a minor part of the cost of travel by air and other factors have more influence on price.

I think the goal has more to do with making it so fewer teams have to fly than making it closer to fly. It is helps if it is now close enough that a team doesn't need to rent a charter bus either.

[Jared Russell]

1. Assign all pre-qualified teams to the nearest CMP

2. For each Regional or District Championship, assign qualification slots to the nearest CMP.

3. All teams are assigned to the first CMP that they qualify for during the season (in the event that a HOF team in the Detroit CMP bucket wins a regional in the Houston CMP bucket, etc).

4. After qualifying for CMP, any team may place their team number on a list indicating a desire to swap places with a team at the other CMP. Teams may add themselves every week if they wish as long as they haven't been swapped, but once a team has been swapped, it is no longer eligible to be swapped back.

5. Once a week, all of the teams on the shorter of the two swap lists are switched to the other CMP. An equal number of teams on the longer list are drawn at random to be switched back (so if the numbers are equal on both sides, all teams get swapped).

6. (Optionally) If wait lists are still a thing, each non-qualified team can choose their first and second choice CMP (which might just be one event if the team cannot reasonably travel to the other, etc.) Teams are drawn (how doesn't really matter) from the wait list and assigned their first or second choice depending on availability until all spots are filled. Alternatively, wait list teams can be "drawn and swapped" according to their preferences if there are leftover teams that wish to be swapped to the other CMP.

This system maximizes cost reduction out of the box, guarantees equal numbers at both championships, allows teams to change their CMP for any reason (or guarantee that their CMP is fixed and therefore book travel), and treats all teams as equals (early qualifiers do have more opportunities to switch championships, but this helps to make sure there is enough "liquidity" for later teams to have someone to switch with...and with districts, the majority of teams qualify in the final week anyhow).

[Thad House]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

We fly and rent a van.

Thank goodness for split champs.

Now we'll get to fly and rent a van.

-Mike

Wow. What an improvement. That's going to save so much money. /s

For split champs to be an improvement at all, any team outside of a 15 hour drive to the event HAS to be assigned to the later event. Once you are outside of 15 hours, it is more efficient to fly rather then drive, and the later the champs are, the tickets might be slightly cheaper.

In the US, the only areas further then a 15 hour drive from either champ are the tip of Florida at 16 hours from Houston, and then basically anywhere North or West of the line between Phoenix and Denver. I remember somebody did the math when they announced that, and it was about 700 teams. Unless some of those teams explicitly want to go to the other champs, they should always be assigned to whichever one is later.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Thad House

Wow. What an improvement. That's going to save so much money. /s

For split champs to be an improvement at all, any team outside of a 15 hour drive to the event HAS to be assigned to the later event. Once you are outside of 15 hours, it is more efficient to fly rather then drive, and the later the champs are, the tickets might be slightly cheaper.

In the US, the only areas further then a 15 hour drive from either champ are the tip of Florida at 16 hours from Houston, and then basically anywhere North or West of the line between Phoenix and Denver. I remember somebody did the math when they announced that, and it was about 700 teams. Unless some of those teams explicitly want to go to the other champs, they should always be assigned to whichever one is later.

Here are some numbers Andrew Schreiber ran in another thread:

Teams within 600 miles:
Detroit: 1482
Houston: 260
STL: 1049

FIRST HQ will likely assign a majority of those 1482 teams (which is about half of FRC) to the Detroit Half-Champ (within bus/driving distance). Therefore, it is likely a majority of teams going to Houston will be flying to the event.

Luckily, Houston is the later Half-Champ, so we can all save on airline trav-... Oh wait, nope.

-Mike

[Lil' Lavery]

We've seen it repeatedly in district discussions as well, but there seems to be a conflation of "this will save FRC team [in general] money" with "this will save my specific FRC team money." It does raise an interest point of emphasis, regarding measures taken to help teams that don't help ALL teams.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

We fly and rent a van.

Thank goodness for split champs.

Now we'll get to fly and rent a van.

-Mike

Why the van? I definitely see the need for 1 rental car since it can save a bit of money for the team food-wise, but big vans are expensive.

Maybe I'm spoiled since we've stayed within walking distance every year.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Why the van? I definitely see the need for 1 rental car since it can save a bit of money for the team food-wise, but big vans are expensive.

Maybe I'm spoiled since we've stayed within walking distance every year.

Yes they are! Especially when you need 2 or 3 of them every year for each FRC event we do. This is after we get killed by airfare expenses to get to the rental car facility.

[InFlight]

Since we are stuck with lovely Detroit, and Houston. FIRST should have some captive area (teams within 600-800 miles by road distance) that are automatically enrolled in those events. Those qualified teams outside the captive areas should be able to select which city to attend based on travel costs/logistics/attractions/and safety considerations.

The remaining non-qualified openings could then be awarded on a space available basis in the two cities. (The Pseudo Championship Experience)

[Rangel]

Why not have enough slots for champs reserved for teams that are within driving distance of the event to be able to go to their close championships but also give them the option to give up that reservation if they really want to go to the other championship. Then allow teams that are far from both championships to pick which one they go to. Or to keep things balanced, have the regional winners pick their preference and assign the teams based on that. If too many pick one championship as their preference, the system will try and balance it out based on captain/1st pick/2nd pick to keep it simple unless they are already on a rating system like districts.