[EricH]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I don't understand. Who would be asked to pay twice as much, and why?

Not in registration, nope. In travel. If teams have to travel extra distance to get to an event they can attend, just because all the nearby events are districts, they've got to either pay the money (read: raise extra money, possibly twice as much depending on distance) or join a district where you'll at least get double the mileage out of that money.

E.g.: A team in SD currently attends Colorado Regional. Colorado, Utah, Montana, and Idaho decide to combine forces for one district system. Simultaneously, MN goes district. Now, the nearest regional is Kansas City... unless, as floated a couple years ago, that area goes district, when it's Vegas, one of the Arizona events, or somewhere farther afield. Basically, when every regional is a 2-day drive, the cost of attendance just doubled (hotel, gas...).

So, the nice thing to do would be for the CO/UT/MN/ID district system to invite the SD teams (at least in certain areas) to join in, so that those 2x attendance costs at least go to 2x events.