Team Leaders, the Board of Directors for the MSHSL met last Thursday and decided that there will be a registration fee for the State Championship (https://legacy.mshsl.org/mshsl/ ).  To help ease into this new fee structure, they set an incrementing schedule:

Robotics — Registration fees will be implemented for the 2020-2022 state tournaments as follows, per qualifying team:
2020 — $500
2021 — $750
2022 — $1,000

Some of the feedback I’ve received on this topic centers around why the need to have a fee and what about the contributions schools already make to the MSHSL.  . The reason for the change is that the MSHSL ran at a large deficit last year. Registrations paid for school memberships and the per-sport fee do not generate enough revenue to run the MSHSL organization and events.  The rest of their revenue comes from corporate sponsorships, event tickets, and selling TV rights. In our FIRST Robotics program in Minnesota, only some of the schools with FIRST Robotics teams pay the MSHSL’s general membership fee. Not all of the high schools are MSHSL members. None of the schools pay the “per sport” fee for FIRST teams.  At present, Robotics does not have an additional revenue stream to off-set a registration fee. The event costs for the State Championship are significant.  These include venue rental, security, A/V, EMTs, volunteer food, pipe & drape, awards, etc.  Fortunately for us, the U of MN College of Science and Engineering donates the facility for our use (the U doesn’t do that for any other MSHSL championship).  The major sports, football, basketball, and hockey, have ticket charges and substantial TV revenue.  We tried ticketing one year.  It turned out to be very burdensome and generated little revenue (most attendees were directly associated with a team).  We also had chargeable webcasting for a few years, but that revenue was negligible and our community was upset that there was any fee for viewing.

Robotics was not called out specifically.  Three sports will begin the new revenue structure in the spring.   Next fall and from then on, all the championships/major events will have some revenue stream (tickets, entry fees, TV revenue, etc.).  Taking a broad look at all of the activities that the MSHSL Supports, almost every state high school will be included in this new revenue structure.

If the State Championship registration fee is too large of a financial burden for a qualifying team, Ken Rosen, FIRST MN Regional Director, will work with the team to obtain funding.

Regards, Mark Lawrence
Chairman, MN FIRST Regional Planning Committee