2024 FIRST Championship Updates
Oct 26, 2023 Written by Collin Fultz, FIRST Robotics Competition Senior Director
2024 FIRST® Championship Team Registration Fee
The FIRST® Championship registration fee is increasing for all FIRST programs for the 2024 season due to rising costs for many aspects associated with hosting a large-scale event. For FIRST® Robotics Competition, the 2024 FIRST Championship event registration fee is $5,750.
Number of Teams at the Championship
We are reducing the number of FIRST Robotics Competition teams that will be at the FIRST Championship from 624 (the target we had for 2023) to 600. This change gives more space around the practice fields for human and robot movement and maintains our ability to offer teams 10 qualification matches.
2024 FIRST Championship Advancement
The growing number of FIRST Robotics Competition teams and Regional Events is also necessitating a change to FIRST Championship advancement. For 2024, Regional Events will advance 4 teams to the FIRST Championship. The teams automatically qualified will be the winners of the FIRST Impact Award and Engineering Inspiration Award and the Captain and First Pick of the winning alliance.
The Wild Card system will still be used, and the Second Pick of the winning alliance will be the first team in the order for receiving a Wild Card. We are also expanding the Wild Card list to include the teams from the 3rd and 4th place alliances.
If a winning alliance member (either the 2nd pick or the backup team) or Rookie All-Star winner does not receive a Wild Card, the team will be placed on the Priority Waitlist.
Full details on Regional Event advancement are available on the Championship Eligibility page. (This page will be updated soon with allocation for Districts. Those allocations are not done until after registration payment due date November 13.)
Waitlist registration for the 2024 FIRST Championship opens (today!) Thursday, October 26, at noon eastern.