Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

How do you figure? The DMV area has 5 very well defined population centers of teams and an operative 6th geographic center of Roanoke in the western part of the Commonwealth.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I don't if there is a bug, but I think a number of team in the UP of MI should be yellow markers (teams from 2011-2013) instead of blue dots.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Oops, my bad. That was a typo in the range bands on my end. Should be resolved now. The team number is also now a link to TBA.

Hoping I can find a quick way to redo all the geocoding tonight so I can redo this and actually style it in a less ugly way.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Thanks, looks correct now.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Quote from Jim Zondag's Paper on the District System.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

That's definitely an opinion you're stating and not one that everyone shares...there are some districts I've been to/seen on webcasts that definitely look like they would not be worth the travel for...

I find that the "smaller atmosphere factor" while isn't necessarily harmful, is something that often gets overestimated when discussing districts;I personally don't mind it/don't see much of a difference, but I've heard just as much of the opposite.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Agreed. I apologize for making blanket statements about high school events, as my experience only concerns MAR and my opinions are based soley on my experiences at these events.

And again, I'm specifically talking about 2015, and therefore I'm only discussing the four district areas we have now. I'm aware that some district teams are closer to other regionals than their own districts and would benefit in that way if that area went to districts and allowed for interdistrict play. The closest thing we have to that now is New England and MAR, which for some is a reasonable distance, for others, not so much.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I don't think the other places, states (except maybe california?) Have a travel time of 7-8 hours from one end of the state to the other. That's the issue with NYS. Majority are teams in the NYC area, with Rochester (FLR) next biggest with about 30 teams. ( 6 hour drive to NYC)

I think the FLR regional at RIT would be an excellent spot for state champs.

Also, there have been talks about districts going on...

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Before Escanaba got a district this year, most teams in the UP had a 6 or 7 hour drive just to get to their nearest event in Traverse City. Then if I'm remembering correctly many of these teams used the Western Michigan district (in the Grand Rapids area) as their second event, which is an 8 or 9 hour drive. If they wanted to do a Detroit area event we're talking upwards of 10 hours. So while it isn't fun, it is possible.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Texas travel time is far longer than most other states.

El Paso to Houston is 10+ hours. If Houston hosted the state championship some teams would need to make that drive. Even if it was some place more central like Austin it would be 8+ hrs for them.

I want to go to districts as fast as possible but we would definitely have to do something to lessen the burden of travel for some of these teams.

Another issue is funding since Texas basically has regions with in it self and sponsors may want to keep their money closer to home instead of giving it to the entire state.

The last and probably biggest problem is our lack of team growth.
Until we can start growing teams it's going to be hard to sustain districts, no matter how much work we put in. Districts may help by providing a true State Championship and having more play per team but it still won't be easy.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

The problem with that is RIT has traditionally donated the space, which is why the timing of FLR fluctuates. It used to always be week 1, now it's week 5. The venue is so good it might be worth paying for, though.

I know Code Red has thrown around the idea of hosting a district, if NY were to go District - we have the proper facilities (either in the High School, at Cornell, or Ithaca College) and a nice central location between Rochester, Albany, Buffalo and NYC. The thing is, we're not connected to the powers that be in organizing such a thing. Just some food for thought, I have no idea if the current team leadership/school district would be up for it.

Personally, I would love for NY to go district, or allow NY teams to join other districts. For us, both events require hotel stays (Rochester is a 2 hour drive, our second regional is usually a 6 hour one). I imagine capital region teams feel the same way about NE events. So why not allow a team to "check into" a district for a full season. They would pay the district registration fee, and go to say, MAR events for the entire season, and if they qualify, they get to go to MAR CMP, just like a MAR team would.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I will note that the 6-7 hours really only applies to the western UP (857, 2153, 2586) - Escanaba, the Soo, Marquette are closer to TC. Before districts, a popular choice for us was Milwaukee (~6 hr). Now, Duluth is ~4 hr.

Anyway, 857 has used as events in MI: TC+Troy, TC+GVSU (x2), TC+St. Joe, Esky+TC. Fun fact: we went to St. Joseph via MI->WI->IL->IN->MI.

And, MSC is 10+ hours (GMaps tells me it's less, but it's wrong especially if you ever have to stop).

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

RIT is way too far for NYC teams and Long Island teams to travel. My suggestion would be the Syracuse Carrier Dome or the Times Union Center in Albany.
Much more centrally located than Rochester is.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

So time to throw my hat in to the Florida Debate:

Combining this:
And this:

If Florida were to go districts as Florida only 3 teams who have only ever competed in Florida would have to find new homes (3998 in Georgia, and 4707 and 4091 from the Dominican Republic) but not the main point

If we were to host 4 districts and we would stick them in population dense areas they would be:
Fort Lauderdale
Tampa
Orlando
and The Merrit Island/Melbourne area.
And Orlando would most likely host championship

So teams such as 2556 would have to travel 5 hours to it's closest district(s).

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

California's L.A. to Sacramento time is a good solid 6 hours, depending on how much traffic you hit going through the L.A. area. I've had that one several times. San Diego is another 2-3 hours south of L.A. For anybody north of Sacramento, toss in another couple hours--not that there are all that many teams up there.

For all practical purposes, 8-9 hours end-to-end, in good traffic. Hit downtown L.A. at rush hour, or central Orange County at about the same time, or worse, Valencia (northern L.A. county, but rather busy in terms of slow traffic) at a bad time, and you may as well stop and eat for an hour or more because you'll spend at least that long in the traffic. In other words, anywhere between 8 and 10 hours depending on how skilled you are at avoiding rush hour traffic.



Now, consider this: I've traveled bit around the Midwest, though more in the northern Plains region, and to/from there from California. To get from one major city to another major city is typically about a long day (10-12 hours total); from regional hub to regional hub tends to be about 4-6 hours (depending on size of regional hub--smaller tends to be closer, larger tends to be farther). Someone from the Northeast, where all the states are smaller (I believe that the entire New England area could fit into Texas with room to spare!) wouldn't necessarily find that part easy to grasp. So, for those of you thinking that the other states don't have an end-to-end drive that is that long, imagine going from New York City to somewhere in central Maine, by way of Boston (bonus points for going through in rush hour). That's probably pretty typical for an end-to-end west of the Mississippi.