I am not sure if we will ever know. Maybe someone like Gail can shed light onto amount of teams we intially get registration for, how many teams FIM calls to beg to come back for 2022, etc but I am not sure we will ever get a good number.
We do know that out of FIM’s 458 teams last season, 8 teams never competed and I believe 3 teams only competed at one tournmanet.
2018 we had 508 teams, 3 only playing once and 2 teams never playing.
2019 we had 542 teams, 1 only playin once and 3 teams never playing.
Pre-covid, the plans were to expand MSC and I can only assume that FIM wanted to continue growing the level of teams or staying near 550? With almost a 100 team drop from 2019 to 2022 (Yes I know the pandemic has a large part in this), and then we are sitting at ~410 teams for 2023 thus far. Maybe we add another 40 teams…maybe we don’t.
Do we stay around 400 teams as FIM moves forward or do we grow back to pre-pandemic 550+?
Do these new teams start from old team numbers or does FIM offer the 6k rookie money to restart them and pump up numbers? If rookie money is still 4k first year and 2k second year, that could be the potential of ~900k going to new teams again. This is where I am advocating we don’t try to push for more FIM expansion again but rather to distribute these funds that could be going to new teams to existing teams to help sustain their program and grow. I admit that I am not sure if these funds come from FIM, state of michgian, and/or HQ but the logic applies to the funds regardless of the source. I am 110% not advocating that teams like mine get this money either. I would rather it go to programs who are less established, low income areas, etc. There are a million topics to discuss around how you could do something like that but I believe it is beneficial to talk about. None of this above accounts for the story I shared earlier of a group bringing multiple teams to a comp (Some rookie, some older) to compete as they share students from team to team, grab students who don’t actually want to drive, etc. Those programs maybe don’t need to have 10 teams but rather 4-5 would be better for them.
As to STEM/STEAM equity and inclusion, I disagree that FRC is the best foot we can place forward. Financially, FTC-VEX-FLL are all better for the goal of reaching more students if your goal is the largest blanket you can cast. Lots of the top programs in our state have amazing outreach in their neighboring communities when it comes to expanding these other programs to reach more students and engage them into STEAM. With more money going to existing teams like yours, maybe you could expand these more financially viabl programs into your community and reach more with your net.
As to being passed by other states/winning more, I think this is a product that comes with raising our level of competition and existing teams. I believe students may not have a goal of winning (or you) but when they do win, those moments are inspiring. Having almost 30% of our state below the 10opr threshhold from above can’t be inspiring to all of those students. Its hard for me to believe that providing more resources (money) and mentors to these existing teams we wouldn’t see positive returns in student retention, mentor retention, and team/program retention.
-Ronnie