Some of these ideas sound like Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. All these teams fighting for the same amount of resources, some live
and some don't! 
One thing is for sure, any sport would love to have a "flat" growth curve at 13%. Imagine what would happen to baseball if the number of tickets sold increased by 13%, or the number of major/minor luge teams increased by 13%.
My prediction is that by the time that the high school class of 2004 has children (10-20 years) FIRST will have become mainstream, just like high school baseball and football.