I spent far too long reading, rewriting, and then re-reading my reply…
Reading the policy like this is how I feel like it was meant to be interpreted, from my experience with contracts and clauses:
“FIRST is not responsible for any Event cancelations[sic]”
“FIRST is not responsible for […] the inability of a team to travel due to weather, threat of terrorism, Act of God and other events beyond the control of FIRST”
The first section is exactly what you’re worried about, which is absolving FIRST of refund liability if they cancel. However, the second section is more about ensuring that FIRST themselves are protected against a team attempting to use the “act of God” clause, aka a Force Majeure against FIRST to attempt to get a refund… As someone who’s worked with contractors, and been contracted, I’ve heard stories about people trying to get absolved of responsibility of a contract by pulling an FM. It makes sense to include this, from my point of view.
Anyway, your concerns are valid, and FIRST could absolutely cancel champs. It could also be cancelled by another group, organization, etc. without much interference possible from FIRST themselves. I believe the best option is to wait, as previously stated, but… How long will it take to get an official statement, if any? I would give FIRST the benefit of the doubt, and assume that if champs were to be cancelled, there would be some form of reimbursement. It’s just that they do not legally have to.
To directly answer your question, as someone who’s more or less a third party (not a mentor, not actively participating in FIRST);
“If you thought there was a 10% chance of it getting cancelled, would you risk the $5,000 of your team’s money?”
Well… Yes, I would. Although it’s a hard question that I believe heavily varies team to team, your values, as well as the scarcity of that money (obviously). There’s no way you can put a percentage on the chance of champs occurring or being cancelled. Nobody knows, not even FIRST themselves. With that said, I think paying and assuming champs will occur as normal is the way to go for teams that can comfortably afford it. If you don’t pay, and champs happens as usual, I feel like there’s a potential massive morale drop… Especially to those who sunk countless hours and worked their absolute hearts out for this season… I feel like after seeing the amount of work they’ve gone through, they’d feel like the rug got pulled from under them.
Understandably, that money could be saved and put toward something else. An additional cnc router, new equipment for PR or controls or really any other myriad of things… $5,000 is not an insignificant amount of money by any means. However, if you’re really considering not paying due to the risk of cancellation, I feel like the entire team (or at least your team+subteam captains) needs to be present and able to air their thoughts about this. When any team’s morale drops, it can be very hard to get it back to normal again. I believe it’s only fair if everyone gets to participate in the conversation, as they spent all that time building the bot to be eligible to go to champs in the first place.
tl;dr - Just because it’s impossible to put an exact percentage on whether or not champs is going to be cancelled, I think the best idea is to pay for it, if your team is comfortably able to do so. Yes, that money could be saved. Yes, it’s not an insignificant amount of money, and it could go toward improving further years. The problem is, nobody knows what’s going to happen. I think there are other issues that are also to take into account, rather than just the virus itself (such as what @Chief_Hedgehog mentioned with game pieces, etc).
