I highly doubt MN will go to districts, the leadership of the state doesn't seem to like the idea. My guess is that they'll continue to add regionals in the larger areas out-state, such as Rochester, St. Cloud, La Crosse/La Crescent, Fargo and Thief River Falls. Followed by MN teams and sponsors complaining about the cost per regional match vs. district match. That will force them to try to reduce costs for teams, which could be done the following ways;
- Finding additional sponsor money so all teams can afford a second regional. This is doubtful, as there are only so many large companies in Minnesota.
- Negotiating a reduction in cost for teams attending a regional, to align more with districts. This would be complex, as it would have to go through FIRST and it would affect all areas with regionals. My assumption is that FIRST wants all areas to move to districts and Israel/Austraila would have issues with this as they are single regional countries, making transportation to a second regional uneconomical.
- Moving to districts. From the posts on ChiefDelphi, this seems highly unlikely.
Overall, it seems that things will continue how they have been in Minnesota with an increase in the overall number of regionals. Perhaps with more regionals, team counts at the event will go down and this will allow for more matches. Only time will tell.