When looking at the events in FIM for 2023 on TBA I noticed that there are only 327 teams listed compared to 476 in 2022. I’ve never really paid attention to this number before, but it surprises me how much lower the number is. Does anyone have any insight to why there is such a drop-off in the total number of teams? Is this an accurate number, or are teams still likely to register and raise this number up significantly? If it is an accurate number, do you think it’s due to Covid? Did teams struggle during the Covid seasons and then find it difficult to function in 2022? I’m personally aware of one team that folded after last season due to lack of interest from the students. Their rookie year was 2019 so they didn’t have a long history prior to Covid striking. Are other states seeing the same kind of decline? I’m hopeful that it’s just a matter of teams not registering yet.
Yes, 2022 was down for everyone compared to the Before Times.
That said, I wouldn’t exactly panic right now just from looking at public data. Teams on waitlists won’t show right now, and there are always some teams slower to register.
I know we’re on the event wait list so our team wouldn’t show up on your search
Thanks. It didn’t dawn on me until I saw the first couple responses that TBA is just showing the teams that are officially “registered” for an event. Someone had sent me the link and I just assumed that it include all the teams that were part of FIM. It makes sense that as more teams get placed into an event, the number will rise.
There’s also a number of teams that register late each year. You can see a graph for previous years in this thread. Registration 2020
If you look at teams on the FRC events site, there are currently 372 FIM teams listed. I would assume that these are all the teams that have paid and are either registered, waitlisted, or missed round 1. It might be something else, this is just a guess. 5090, who has indicated on this thread that they are waitlisted, appears on this teams list.
I expect this 372 number will grow some, but it should be much closer to what the final count will be compared to the 327 teams currently registered.
Glad to know we are listed then. Figured we wouldn’t be listed since we aren’t actually assigned to an event yet
Not Everyone, but almost everyone 
There were a couple places that remained stable or slightly grew IIRC.
Look at the good side…FIM has needed to work on quality, not quantity, of teams for awhile. I hope we get back to 3-400 range of teams instead of growing towards 500 so our state can get back to competitive FRC when it comes to the world stage. That said, we will probably get late registrations as FIM goes around to beg school districts to come back by throwing a little money in their face until the school board accepts… 
-Ronnie
You don’t have to be paid up to appear on that list. It does include every team that has registered for an event. It may include every team that has submitted a preference list, every team that is waitlisted, and/or every team that is paid up, but I’m not sure what combination or if those categories still miss some teams. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a formal set of criteria for who appears on the list.
Nice. Way to pull the ladder behind you.
I don’t think Ronnie is opposed to teams getting funding. What he’s saying (and what I agree with) is that fim teams that aren’t trying to stay alive and also not wanting to stay alive often get money thrown at them by FiM until they accept. This causes a disservice to those teams who might be better served by other robotics programs in the name of “An FRC team in every school”
How did you get that out of getting “back to competitive FRC when it comes to the world stage?”
Sounds more like “if we have less scrubs we’ll have more elite teams.”
@Brian_Gray Anthony is spot on to my message. I would rather see Fim at 3-400 teams filled with mentors who want to do this and don’t feel burned out. Pair these mentors with programs (School districts?) and students who want to do this program or show interest. Lets funnel money and energy to sustaining these teams instead of going around handing out 5-10k here or there to start these new teams in areas there is not much interests but school districts take the money to show they have STEM/STEAM. I am a huge advocate for quality over quantity, especially when it comes to better serving the existing student base.
-Ronnie
I am going to respond to this assuming we have different views on what raises the competitive floor and opportunity for students in FIRST.
My view is that the more competitive we are as a state on the world stage (Comparing us to California, Texas, etc), the higher the FIM floor will raise. I believe that this will open the door for students learning faster and harder, school districts adopting more STEM chiriculum that allows students to work on these things more, and a mentor base that is not stretched as thin (providing more value to students per hour mentored).
It is not a secret or speculation that FIM has dropped off the map when it comes to being competitive with world class teams. Our leadership have continously shown that they care more about quantity of teams than the quality of teams we field. I believe this has:
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Spread mentors thin trying to serve more teams
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Made school districts take on something they did not intend to support like they should so it casts a negative image to that student body and drives them away from FIRST/robotics
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Lowers the floor (and ceiling) so our student body (All of FIM) do not learn nearly as much as lets say students on 1678, 254, etc who are constantly pushing because they know their entire state will beat them if they don’t
I have been apart of lower resource programs with low mentor count and well as apart of high resource programs with high mentor count. I can tell you that knowledge is way more attainable to my students on high resource teams. This is the privilege of resources (money) and a short answer on why I believe we need to raise the competitive field of FIM and provide more resources to less teams VS. less resources to more teams.
-Ronnie
I’m not sure this is as definitive as you make it sound. The last world championship where Michigan didn’t have like 5 days between MSC and CMP, 50% of the alliance captains and 1st picks that made Einstein were from Michigan.
So, trickle down STEM, then? Supply side robotics lol.
My view does diverge a little there from the follow-up post. I think the resources that currently go to those teams could be better served by providing strong Vex/FTC teams to those areas (Yes, I know FTC doesn’t exist in high school for FiM at the moment). There are brilliant students on every team, but FRC is an expensive program (I’m sure you know this already as a mentor), and not every team is able to provide for their students the experience that is so inspiring through competitive robotics. If we put half of an FRC registration fee into these alternative programs for these schools with mentor/student burnout due to lack of resources, it could be a well funded, well resourced team in an alternative program.
This was split champs. Look at data from Houston compared to Detroit. Most of all our Detroit winners or finalists (my team included) would have been fairly easily beat. 2022 was the first time to see how we shake out. I don’t think any of FIMs top 3/4 teams 27,67, 3538/2767) get better with double the turn around time…maybe very small amounts but I don’t think we start doing shoot on the move or 5-7 more balls a match on average.
-Ronnie
What is your solution? What side of the fence are you on? Do you want to see FIM continue to push more FRC teams via dangling carrots for school districts greedy pockets or would you rather get a few more thousand a year from Michigan to expand your program, engage more students, and grow your teams outreach?
FIM doesn’t want to acknowledge VEX exists. They only want FTC to be middle school. Is this the FIM peak? Do we just sit back and let other states pass our students up?