Currently there are
783 different teams registerred for a Regional.
There are 210 spots open for pre-qualification. Total, at the championship event there will be no more than 366 teams attending (when you add award winners).
Your chances of attending, if you went last year and don't pre-qualify, are slim. Don't count on it. Less than 50% of the teams will go.
Overall, I think FIRST found the right balance between merit and chance. It's a shame they couldn't increase the attendance numbers further.
Though, they did leave a few questions behind them. Namely, what tier would teams that have never attended a championship fall in? Would a new rookie team fall in the same tier as a 3-year-old team that never went? I don't think this is right. They should add a clause that your tier is based on your number of active years if you have never attended a championship event.
I know it's hard, but as FIRST grows, teams are going to have to accept that the championship event simply cannot continue increasing in size at the same rate. The funding required to make this happen would increase exponentially, because then you need more space, more workers, and make the event time longer (or cut the amount of matches in half, but not many teams want to travel 1,000+ miles to play 4 matches). The Championship event is eventually going to have to follow many of the sports models out there. Does every NFL team make it to the play-offs? No. Some get wild-cards, and some win games and get to the top.
Regional performance affects championship attendance. Makes sense. Throw in a few lottery/wild-cards and welcome to the NFL. Except the NFL doesn't allow attendance to losers. FIRST does.
Either you can make half happy, or nobody happy. Everybody will never be happy.