Super Regional spots moving from NSR to SSR?

[BSV]

Missouri/Kansas is moving from NSR to SSR this year. From what I can find, that regional had 8 spots at NSR this year. Since all those teams are moving to South, will their qualifications spots be coming with them? That is, will the total number of teams at SSR increase by 8 (from 72 to 80)? Or will those super regional qualification spots be taken away from the regions already in SSR to make room for MO/KS?

Based on last years numbers, if my back-of-a-napkin calculations are correct, it looks like SSR will be the largest region, with about 30% more teams than ESR, 20% more than WSR, and 10% more than NSR. So it would make a lot of sense to make more spots available at SSR than to take away advancement slots from the other regions that feed SSR when MO/KS join.

Thanks for your consideration.

[BSV]

I never got a response about this, but I've spoken with two different regional partners in the south who both said they lost two spots each (despite growth in both). So I guess that's the (very disappointing) answer.

[hlovett2017]

I don't understand why so many of the Super Regional decisions seem to be "top secret" with regard to number of teams attending/advancing from any region. It seems to me that the staff would save themselves (and the SR planning committees) a lot of pain and suffering if they would just tell the teams those numbers outright. I know that there used to be similar "mysteries" for who would advance in what order. Now, there is no mystery and teams are more relaxed and happy with the system. There is a precedent for telling the teams the advancement information - and they handle it well when you do give them information. Just my two cents...

[BSV]

The current system is a mess. The bottleneck is in advancement from the regional level to the super regional level.

I think that the short-term solution is that the 1st Inspire winner and the WInning Alliance Captain at each Regional Championship should each advance directly to Worlds and skip the Super Regional step. That creates opportunities for a lot more teams to play at the level beyond their Regional and earn their way to Worlds, and make the Super Regionals more meaningful.

The long-term solution is to have more super regionals, like 8-12 of them (4-6 each feeding Houston and Detroit). That would solve a lot of the travel issues -- having a Super Regional within a 6-8-hour drive is way cheaper than having to fly like many teams do now.

Also, earning advancement past the state (regional) level is a Big Deal for kids. There are many more deserving teams than can possibly advance under the current system

[FLARE]

The current system is a mess. The bottleneck is in advancement from the regional level to the super regional level.

I think that the short-term solution is that the 1st Inspire winner and the WInning Alliance Captain at each Regional Championship should each advance directly to Worlds and skip the Super Regional step. That creates opportunities for a lot more teams to play at the level beyond their Regional and earn their way to Worlds, and make the Super Regionals more meaningful.

The long-term solution is to have more super regionals, like 8-12 of them (4-6 each feeding Houston and Detroit). That would solve a lot of the travel issues -- having a Super Regional within a 6-8-hour drive is way cheaper than having to fly like many teams do now.

Also, earning advancement past the state (regional) level is a Big Deal for kids. There are many more deserving teams than can possibly advance under the current system

This sounds like a great solution! For our region only 3 move to super-regionals & they are always some combination of about 5 teams, which have more resources than most other teams.

Over the years, this seems to promote an end-goal of just make it to the regional championship because you are not going to make it beyond that. It's not being pessimistic, but more realistic. Generally we also do not want to go to world's only because we won a lottery either.

[RedfishRobotics]

The current system is a mess. The bottleneck is in advancement from the regional level to the super regional level.

I think that the short-term solution is that the 1st Inspire winner and the WInning Alliance Captain at each Regional Championship should each advance directly to Worlds and skip the Super Regional step. That creates opportunities for a lot more teams to play at the level beyond their Regional and earn their way to Worlds, and make the Super Regionals more meaningful.

The long-term solution is to have more super regionals, like 8-12 of them (4-6 each feeding Houston and Detroit). That would solve a lot of the travel issues -- having a Super Regional within a 6-8-hour drive is way cheaper than having to fly like many teams do now.

Also, earning advancement past the state (regional) level is a Big Deal for kids. There are many more deserving teams than can possibly advance under the current system

This idea was raised last season around this time (likely by BSV ) and it seems to be well accepted by the community, and then faded into the background in part because the season was well underway, and in larger part because JoAnn started discussion about the waitlist structure at the same time.

Our situation here in Louisiana is much as FLARE described... Last season the same 4 resourced/experienced teams made up the winning/finalist alliance in both quals and our regional, and also traded 1st - 3rd Inspire. So yes, while my team was lucky enough to be in that mix and make it to Worlds, I can completely understand and believe there are teams on the sidelines stuck in the "how will we ever beat the Poofs" syndrome.

One challenge with this idea (on the HQ side) is that advancing the top two directly to worlds would likely consume all of the wait-list spots (assuming the same waitlist structure as last season), however, I would argue that it accomplishes the same goal, by advancing the "next two" most qualified teams at each regional to Supers (a wonderful experience in itself), and then advancing roughly half of those teams to Worlds on their merits.

Of course Ken Johnson JoAnn and the fine folks at HQ may have this all worked out, and we're just peering into our own jewel-shaped crystal balls

[BSV]

This has become a really big issue in our region now that all the teams have found out about the SSR spots dropping from 5 to 3. There are unhappy teams who feel that they should have been alerted to the situation prior to the season starting because they would have planned their qualification journey in a different way.

I think that transparency on this issue would go a long way to alleviating a lot of the anger and disappointment I am seeing brewing at the moment. Answers to questions like:

- is there a plan for adding more Super Regionals? If so, when?
- what is the actual distributions of teams advancing from each region and how is this decided? As one coach pointed out, it seems out-of-whack that a region with 20 teams gets 2 SSR advancement slots while a region with 70 only gets 3.
- will there be a lottery system at Worlds again this year, or will more teams be able to advance who earned the right?

are needed, as well as community feedback.

Super Regionals have been added the last few years, the number of World Championships have been doubled, the region is growing, and yet our region saw 40% decrease in qualification slots in one year. From the outside, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Thanks!

[FTC7253]

Interesting how it is a different advancement journey for each area.
Michigan is a single region, and has 430 teams. To advance to states, you have to usually be Inspire 1-2, Winning All Cpt, or Winning 1st pick. Sometimes a qualifier will get another slot.
Most qualifiers (at least after the first week or so) have 36 teams. Teams typically get 1-2 qualifiers. And then states (regionals) is really competitive.