It’s nice to see the price drop from $4K to $3K for additional regional plays:
It would be even better if the price wasn’t still so inflated compared to district teams, but hopefully more 1-and-done teams will be able to take advantage of playing a second time.
I suspect local Regional availability will start to be the major constraint for one-and-done teams. I know that’s already a major problem for a lot of teams in Minnesota.
That’s true. We had an abundance of regionals in our part of the country in 2020 and were able to register for three, but before it was hard to get two. I’m not sure there is a good way to predict what the landscape will look like in 2022 given that some teams/events probably didn’t survive COVID (and our long-time regional venue got turned into sound stages for a TV/movie production studio.)
If i’m reading this correctly, does the $3,000 additional regional only apply for teams in the regional format or does it also apply to teams in the district format?
I think that will certainly be true (or at least a major constraint) in 2023 and beyond. I’m very curious to see patterns in 2022 as the program tries to grow back to where it was pre-pandemic and schools continue to decide what extracurriculars look like on this side of Covid.
Only in regional format. Go to the link and scroll down and it says “Addtl. district plays”
District teams can register for regionals as well (but aren’t eligible for certain awards). So the $3000 applies to district teams competing at a regional event.
Thats what I was looking for, thanks.
You love to see it. Thanks for making FRC more accessible, FIRST!
Sorry, misread what Connor was asking.
This, to me, is a huge change. Keep in mind that future metrics that evaluate the effectiveness of this change should factor in a team’s desire to compete in multiple events.
I have met many teams that are happy with being a 1-and-done team. They usually have multiple factors other than just funds which prevent them from competing at multiple regionals.
$1k isn’t likely to be make-or-break for teams deciding to do a second or third regional, but it’s a nice step in the right direction. Also, having another $1k to work with can certainly enable an off-season project and/or outreach.
I could see it allowing more teams to do 3 regionals, now that the cost of two additional regionals is $2000 cheaper in total. I would probably sooner spend $3000 on a CNC or something instead of a third regional, but if we already had one or had extra money specifically designated for registration, two more regionals for only $1000 more than the first one doesn’t seem like too bad of a deal.
The downside to this in my mind is it makes any push for revenue sharing in regional systems more difficult.
This may make it more likely that regionals in already underserved regions become less viable given the expectation of sponsor dollars being tighter in the short term.
Please elaborate. Who would be sharing what revenue?
Currently registration fees go entirely to HQ in regional systems.
I would like to see revenue sharing with the regional organization to help offset the costs of actually running the regional.
For what it’s worth, this does already happen in some cases. Generally speaking, regionals do fundraise to cover the costs of their event, but when they come up short FIRST steps in to help cover the costs. I know of two events that perennially struggle to cover themselves, and have often had FIRST help cover the costs because of it.
I’m aware of this. But that is in no way revenue sharing.
An HQ sponsored bailout of a region is the opposite of what I’d like to see.
Allowing a regional to share in the registration fees provides a certain amount of support to all events not just the ones in locations that HQ has, in some cases, wrongly decided need to be propped up.
Something to keep in mind, sometimes sponsors want their funds to be used on the area they orginally sponsored. in that case revenue shareing does work.
So, send money to events that don’t need it? It seems to me that encouraging wide-spread, local fundraising if a better way to diversify and increase funding sources. Remove the incentive for a region to continue searching for funding past a certain point, and you’ll end up decreasing the funding FIRST receives from those sponsors overall.
Consider how a more centralized funding model works. Instead of getting RD’s and RPC’s to raise money for their local events, which can come from a larger number of smaller sponsors, now we’re relying on larger donations from major sponsors being spread out over a large area. And when that doesn’t cover it, what’ll happen? The easiest solution - increase registration cost to cover the difference.
Personally, I’d rather have the RD’s and RPC’s raising the funds than relying on increased registration costs to do so.