Sorry Florida.
An outline for FIRST South East (FSE)
In light of all of the heatmap threads flying about, I wanted to do some analysis of the states in the US South East, a collection of states that can be a bit sparse with teams but when combined form a reasonable district.
Considerations
There are a few things I want to knock out from the top:
- When laying out this district, I decided to exclude Kentucky. There are currently no regionals in the state, and most of the teams are in the northern half. In my opinion, I think it makes more sense to pair them with northern states like Indiana, Illinois, or Ohio
- Florida is a beast of its own. With 70~ teams, they would almost double the size of the proposed SE district. Moreover, they’re not really geographically co-located. To me, it would make more sense to spin them off as their own single-state district or loop them in to PCH. I do recognize that if they stay as in regionals when FSE forms, their nearest regional is in Cincinnati.
- All data was scraped by hand, so please let me know if I missed anything!
- If cities spanned multiple counties, I took the first county alphabetically. Go figure.
FSE District Map
FSE Current Team Apportionment
As of 2024, the district has 99 teams:
| State | Total Teams | Rookie Teams | Revived Veteran Teams |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 14 | 2 | 1 |
| Arkansas | 13 | 3 | 1 |
| Louisiana | 32 | 9 | 0 |
| Mississippi | 15 | 6 | 0 |
| Tennessee | 24 | 2 | 1 |
I don’t have the skills to accurately find how many teams we’ve lost since 2023. If someone pulls that data, I’ll add it to the table!
Highlights
- The most densely populated county for FRC are Knox county, TN (9 teams, home of the Smoky Mountain Regional)
- The New Orleans greater area (St. Tammany and Orleans parishes) hold another 9 teams and are co-located to the Bayou regional in neighboring Jefferson parish
- Arkansas is the most sparsely populated state, with only one county having 2 teams (3937 and 9067 in White County, home of the Arkansas Regional)
- Mississippi is the most spread-out state, with the only multi-team county being within striking distance of NOLA. Interestingly, the Magnolia Regional didn’t have a team in its county until this year.
- Tennessee holds the largest city in the district (Nashville), but Nashville only has one team (that’s us, 7525!) with one neighboring team in Williamson county. Otherwise, teams are largely concentrated in the northeast and southwest corners (Knoxville and Memphis respectively)
Current Regional Events
| 2024 Regional | State | City | Week | Capacity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocket City | Alabama | Huntsville | 6 | 52 |
| Arkansas | Arkansas | Searcy | 2 | 29 |
| Bayou | Louisiana | Kenner | 6 | 58 |
| Magnolia | Mississippi | Laurel | 3 | 46 |
| Smoky Mountain | Tennessee | Knoxville | 2 | 34 |
Highlights
- We’ve currently got 1 event per state, which is great!
- The maximum distance between these events is Bayou to Smoky, which is just under 9 hours
- Most teams should be able to get to 2 events within 6 or so hours (I have no math to back this up, sorry)
- Northern Arkansas teams currently have the furthest drive for a second event
- Rocket City is one of the largest events, is centrally located, and already slotted for week 6. This makes it a great candidate for DCMP.
Additional Events
With 99 teams, 6 districts would be the sweet spot for everyone to get two good plays. Outside of a situation where a venue hosts two back-to-back events, the contenders I’ve identified for additional districts are:
- Memphis, TN - Memphis was actually slotted to host an event in 2020, which didn’t happen because of the pandemmy. Shelby county has 4 teams this year, including a rookie and a revived veteran. This makes it one of the most populated counties in FSE. However, Memphis is pretty close the the Arkansas regional, just under 2 hours away. This means it’s not perfectly located, but not too bad.
- Nashville, TN - Nashville is the largest city in FSE and has multiple venue options. However, the team density in the area is very low, and Nashville is only 2 hours from the Rocket City Regional.
- Montgomery, AL - Montgomery is tied for the most populated county in Alabama (with Huntsville). It is about 3 hours from Huntsville, and would be a great option from MS and southern AL teams.
- Baton Rouge, LA - Baton Rouge is only an hour-ish from NOLA, but would help service the most densely populated area in FSE and give another district event to teams in general. There may be venue issues though, because LSU is often busy with March Madness.
There you have it! It’s been fun to explore the data here (thanks to @pandomains for bouncing ideas with me). I think that this is a reasonable geographic bound for a new district, but adding two new events to be comfortably viable is certainly a big ask. I’d love to hear other peoples’ thoughts 
P.S. I tried to draw “sensical” districts for every state in the union. It really falls apart in some places, but here you go…
