[Jon Stratis]

Yes, having so many teams make it from a district that the championship is worthless is a problem... but perhaps more of a problem is for the areas that aren't districts.

Minnesota, for example, is probably going to have about 200 teams next year. As a state, we have 4 regionals... which means 24 slots at champs. Sure, a few teams travel to out of state regionals, but even more teams from out of state come to our regionals and win slots. What it ends up meaning is that, as a state, the number of teams we send to champs is essentially a constant, and not comparable to the number districts send, as a proportion to FIRST population. We don't grow as champs grows - if we want more MN teams to make it to champs, we have to hold more events. The same isn't true for the districts, which creates, in my opinion, a severe imbalance across FIRST.

FIRST needs to come up with a system whereby they can support both the district and regional model while allowing proportional representation from every distinct area. Picture something like drawing up district lines across all of FIRST for Champs participation, but the method of entry for each individual region could be different - The district model could use the point system with a district championship, while the regional model could pull X teams from each regional, based on the number of teams needed for that area (with each area designed to have a minimum of 6 teams attending). For the regional, you could use a point system for the event, or base it on awards, or whatever.