Veteran Status Qualifications

[Browzilla]

So our team is sitting there, looking at the championships requirements. And we see "Veteran teams who did not compete at the 2008 FIRST Championship"

And we think Hey, that's us! Let's do it!

October 2 rolls around. (Exciting drama happens. We briefly consider filming a reenactment and selling it to NBC to air in place of Heroes. It doesn't happen. Irrelevant. It's now a week and a half later.) We sign into TIMS.

Under the Event Registration table, the Championship row reads:
Not Eligible.


Wait, what‽

So. The only way we qualify for Championships this year is through the veteran open registration. (Or, of course, doing well in regionals. But seeing how half our team will be leaving this year without having been, we really want to go. And would prefer solidifying our attendance now.)

tl;dr:

What constitutes a veteran team?