Quote:
Originally Posted by Botsup
That's interesting that only MAR teams are taking up this opportunity. I wonder why? I thought for sure some Michigan teams would want to come out east and show em how it's done.
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That doesn't really surprise me; thirteen MAR teams (out of 121) are competing outside of MAR this year. Ten of them at a regional, one at a NE district, and two at
both (Actually, 11 would be signed up for two regionals if it wasn't for when their school scheduled state testing. They were originally signed up for both Hawaii and South Florida, but then dropped South Florida).
And keep in mind, these teams are all travelling pretty far. Five are going to Florida, two to Canada, one to Nevada, one to Texas and another to Hawaii. The closest regionals that MAR teams are going to are Tech Valley (303) and Queen City (4575).
Meanwhile, there's a regional right across the river from Detroit that
still has open spots with only three Michigan schools attending (okay, so one school is sending three teams. Still, my point is that a regional that close to MAR would be full instantly). Teams in MAR just don't want to stay in district. We always have teams who opt not to attend MAR champs because they already qualified for St. Louis. No other region is like that. Frankly, I don't get it. When I was a student I was always looking forward to MAR champs.
Teams seem pretty happy with the district system. They already get two plays for the same cost as one, and another play is pretty cheap. Why would they pay the travel expenses to go far away? I don't think the question here should be "why aren't other teams going inter-district?" but rather "why are MAR teams paying so much money to play outside of MAR?"