[Dominick Ferone]

A lot of these points were covered last year in the other New York Districts thread.

Champs on long island or the city would be more expensive than say an area just north of the city. Say poughkeepsie (im not sure if it has an actual venue that would work) as it is not far by Amtrak. Teams in the city can go home at night and its just far enough out of the city teams can get good rates on hotels.

The big thing hurting teams in downstate NY is they never really have to travel much for competition. Upstate has been used to traveling because before Tech Valley, to attend a second regional you had to head to Canada, Ohio, Pittsburgh.

With that being said it obviously would be in everyones benefit to have the least amount of travel possible. But some teams will get screwed over. I'm pretty sure 229 has come to terms with always having to travel.

Another problem as others have said is venue costs. As I noted with Champs maybe even some schools just outside the city can be used to host districts.
Cost and Volunteers is the biggest factor stopping NY from going to districts.

As it is currently SBPLI is having trouble still continuing. It's lost some big sponsors over the years and as i recently learned, they get a huge discount when it comes to running the event. It in one of the cheapest regionals in terms of set up and running costs.