I’ve only ever done regionals, but recently there has been some talk about districts however I still don’t understand them. So here it my request: Can someone explain how districts work from the beginning or point me to a place that has it already explained?
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Teams pay the same amount of money, but it actually goes to the people running the local events. Teams then get twice as many plays for their dollar. Sounds awful, I know.
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You earn “district points” from quali ranking, alliance position, playoff performance, and awards at district events. After all district events are played, the top teams ranked by overall district points are decided via a threshold determined by the desired quantity of teams for the district championship. Teams also earn district points at the district champs through the same criteria.
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and then the teams ranked highest by district points get to go to worlds, with the amount of teams sent to worlds based on district population.
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My summary of how I remember regionals vs districts;
Regionals were a big 64 team spectacle. We’d play at sports arenas, with lights and sound production. The 2006 Boston Regional showcased the Blue Man Group (it’s been many years, but pretty sure that’s what I remember).
For comparison, New England is now a district. Our same registration fee gets us two 32 team events, hosted by local high schools and/or colleges. District points are based on your wins and awards. For many years we have performed in the middle of the pack and qualified for District Champs. There’s a lot less pressure when things go wrong, or you don’t seed, or have to face a tough alliance.
I remember the years of playing one regional, 10 qual matches, probably not getting picked, and that was it. It’s less flashy, but getting twice as many events with more qual matches is a trade off for districts that I would take every time. Not feeling so pressured by every win and loss is a huge relief. Knowing our season doesn’t end after one event, and having the chance at a District Championship is a lot of fun.
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The initial registration fee gets your team 2 events instead of one. Each event is smaller (usually about 40 teams) and lasts 2 days - you lose most of the practice day found at regionals, accounting for the length difference. You can compare a Regional and District schedule. Because the events are smaller, they are typically held in smaller (and cheaper) venues - think high school gyms instead of university stadiums.
Past the individual district events, there is a district championship. Teams earn points (similar to the MSHSL State Tournament ranking system your probably familiar with, being an MN team), with the top X teams getting offered spots. See section 11.8 of the Game Manual for details on the point system. Teams earn additional points at their district championship to form an overall district ranking after week 6/7.
Advancement to the World Champs is based on the final ranking within the district, with the top X teams (based on the number of teams in the district, as a percentage of teams across FIRST as a whole and the number of spots available at champs in any given year) being given championship invites. You can see the number of spots available for each district last year in this blog post - we do not yet know what the numbers will be this year, I expect we’ll find out in about a month and a half.
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I would like to see Missouri go to districts but with most of the population being on the borders with Illinois and Kansas makes it tough. It is like we would have to go to 2 districts MoKan and IlMo splitting Missouri. I know there seems to be a preference for a state being a district but we have broken that with Peach Tree. Some people make the argument setting up a district takes a lot of money and the state usually funds part of that, but I don’t know what costs more about starting a district than running regionals.
How about awards like Impact in the district system? From what I understand, winning the District Impact Award grants you entry to your District Championship and then your team’s Impact Award submission is judged again to find the District championship Impact Award winners that advance to the FIRST Championship.
This is very subjective, but would you say the result is more like being selected as a “finalist” for the Impact Award at the District and winning the “regional” award at the District Championship? Or is it more like winning the “regional” award at the District and winning it again at the District Championship?
Stated another way: is the Regional Impact Award more or less “difficult” to win than the District Impact Award and the District Championship Impact Award?
Things like this are hard to quantify and depends on the specifics of who else is submitting at your event, but you could probably consider winning Impact at a regional event to be more challenging than a district event and easier than a district championship event.
In terms of qualification, winning Impact automatically qualifies you for the next level of competition, be it district championship or the world championship. A district can hand out multiple Impact awards at the district championship. The exact number typically depends on the number of teams in the district as is announced along with the Championship slot allocation.
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I amAndyMark confused by you bringing up Peachtree. Previously all of Georgia was in PCH and now all of Georgia and South Carolina are. Never has any state been split by PCH.
The only state that is not all 1 or the other is Pennsylvania with Eastern PA being part of FMA and Western being regional and have been this way since 2012 when FMA was founded.
Couple of points about the difference in experience between the two.
-Get very close with teams in your district due to relatively small size. Doubt this is the case in some of the larger districts tho. Makes it really easy to strategize and work with other teams because you know, and typically, develop close, trusting relationships.
-See the same teams year after year. It can get stale but one of my favorite things to see is teams who have historically struggled a bit have a successful year. Again, more close bonds in a smaller district.
-More plays (12 quals) and more events (2) for your money.
-District Champs is essentially a regional but with more placements for Worlds. Anything can happen and teams who won both districts have still not qualified for worlds bc district champs points are multiplied by 3. Still high stakes like a regional.
-Pace. Absolutely night and day different. We will typically have 1-2 3 or 4 match turnarounds in any given event. This is incredibly exciting and frustrating depending on the condition of your bot after the first match. Worlds was, and this is probably a hot take, kind of “boring” in terms of pace. Not enough time to confidently explore and too much time to stay focused on the next match.
I love nearly everything about districts but most importantly, it’s all about the people running it. You have to have a collective group of special people and Indiana definitely does.
*Background: Drive coach in Indiana for 5 total seasons. My “regional” experience is worlds. Definitely biased towards districts.
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One of the big behind-the-scenes changes with a district is the financial responsibility. With the regional system, HQ is effectively running the event. RDs are paid a stipend by HQ, and if there’s some sort of financial shortfall in finding local sponsors to pay for an event, HQ is stuck with the bill.
You can think of districts operating more like a franchise model; there is now a local organization that is financially responsible for running all the events. This also includes the purchase of field perimeter(s), warehousing and transportation for these, payroll for any staff, event production, etc. District organizations also need to find revenue to pay these costs themselves, as the majority of registration fees still go to HQ.
On a per event basis, districts certainly cost a fraction of what a typical regional costs, but there’s definitely substantial upstart costs with starting a new district.
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I can see where that is confusing. I was referring to being 1 state 1 district but Peachtree added SC. Yes there aren’t any split states. Missouri could go on it’s own but it would hurt Kansas . There could be MoKan and Illinois would do fine by itself but the district events would have to be over a larger area to cover St Louis teams and Kansas teams. Missouri is problematic.
CHS, FiT, FMA, NE, PNW and PCH are all multistate districts.
FiM, FIN, and FNC are the only single state districts
White ONT is single province and ISR is single country
So in the US it is more common to have multistate districts then not.
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I like what we did in Kansas CIty, we moved from one really large regional event hosted in an arena to 3 smaller events hosted in High School Gyms. Districts would be great but maybe this is what our regional committee decided to do as a stepping stone to get there.
I feel like there are 50 or so KC area teams and that would fill a large regional on its own. Splitting allows for some great local mix with an influx of a few teams from outside the area.
Most of the teams like the smaller events in the fact they get to play more matches. It opens a chance for some low resource teams to do a second nearby event. We get to avoid arena food costs. Plus, we still get a chance to visit some teams outside of area.
I am not sure of the costs of splitting it this way; if it costs the same to run in 3 high schools verses the one arena event. I am sure it is a struggle for volunteers but area KC alumni and teams have really stepped up I feel. I love the volunteers here.
A solid run-down of districts Jon. Just a few of additions that might help our OP with their question:
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You get many more matches in a district system, even if you never make it to the district championship (that’s the DCMP you often see referred to.) Generally, because the events are smaller, you get 12 qualification matches per event rather than the 10 that you usually get at regionals, times 2 since you get two district qualifying events. You get even more if you make the playoffs at one or both of your events.
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With DCMPs, generally the winning alliance and a couple of the overall (i.e., at DCMP) award winners get automatic Worlds qualification, regardless of district point totals. In FNC, for instance, it’s the winning alliance, the district Impact winner, two EI winners (because NASA pays for these) and the Rookie All-star winner. After that, the remaining teams are awarded slots based on district points, including what they gain at DCMP. My team qualified that way in 2022, because we ranked 3rd in the district by points (we led the finalist alliance at DCMP) and the district had 14 slots for Worlds, which left seven to be awarded based on points. Obviously, some of the top points teams were also in the list of automatic qualifiers (two of the teams on the winning alliance, for instance) but that just means that the points slots move on down the list until they’re filled. This also often gives a team an automatic ticket to worlds that they probably wouldn’t have had otherwise (especially the second pick of the winning alliance.)
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The smaller events are variable in size depending on the venues available. In NC, they tend to be between 30 and 34 teams each due to the size of most available spaces. Some are at high schools (my own will be hosting the Orange County FNC event this year) and some are at other venues, including university gyms and arenas (both UNC Asheville and UNC Pembroke host events here.) Our DCMP is always at a university because it’s too big for a high school to host (at ECU this year, like last year, because it’s 40 teams.)
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Because of the known nature of the event schedule and locations, event selection for districts is a lot less chancy and fraught than for regionals (at least for most teams.) You’re basically guaranteed your two district events and you know the area you’ll need to travel within to get to them, so planning is relatively easy.
There’s a reason many of us rush to defend the district system if we’re lucky enough to be part of one. It has so many advantages for teams that most of us would never want to go back to having to attend regionals again.
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I’d also tend to class ONT as “single state”, it’s just that the Canucks call their states “provinces” for some reason.
There’s been some joking discussion in the past that California should be 2 districts, the only question being exactly where to draw the line, but odds of that happening are slim.
California seems to have also gone for the “more and smaller” move with their regionals. We can only hope.
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I wish they were jokes. I wish odds were slim.
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Because a “state” is supposed to be a synonym for a country? (* prepares for language war *)
[edit] less jokingly, your states were way more like loosely federated separate countries in the beginning. We went with a strong federal government and weaker provinces because we got started just after watching your plan go badly for a bit.
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Hey, man, we all speak English! (Even Quebec, as much as they prefer French).
Which explains why we can’t understand each other at all. 
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