[scottandme]

Slightly educated guess, but CMP will likely be smaller this year than it was last year. It seems that FIRST was surprised by a higher than normal acceptance rate last year, and the end of open registration and the wild card system were an attempt to bring the number of teams back to the mid 300's.

2012 - 400
2011 - 352
2010 - 344
2009 - 348
2008 - 340
2007 - 344
2006 - 344
2005 - 340

Aside from that, the two district systems (FiM and MAR) had their CMP slots adjusted. From what I've heard, FIRST assigned slots to FiM and MAR based on the region population relative to total slots at CMP. FiM has 27 slots for 206 teams, and MAR has 14 slots for 109 teams. Assuming 2550 FRC teams, FiM represents about 8.1% of FRC teams, and MAR represents 4.3% of FRC teams. So for FiM and MAR to have 8.1% and 4.3% of the CMP slots, that suggests 330-340 teams at CMP this year.

Last year there were 100 teams per field, 9 matches per team, and 150 qualification matches total. Dropping to 90 teams per field allows 10 matches per team in the same 150 qualification matches. I would say 350-360 teams total sounds about right for this year. 2010 and 2011 had 10 qual matches per team.

The math for this year lines up almost perfectly with those guesses. As of this post there are 249 teams registered (week 5 qualifiers have until 5PM EST, so possibly add a couple more). There are 12 more regional events for a max of 72 teams, 14 MAR, and 27 FiM. That yields 362 teams assuming 100% acceptance.