[jblay]

My feeling has always been simple, I want districts for my team as soon as possible. The reason FIRST exists is for students to learn, if you play 8 matches a year, you aren't going to learn much and that unfortunately is the case for so many New York City teams.
For my team, we pay more than teams in districts for less matches even though we attend 2 regionals. Something about that feels wrong to me. The fact of the matter is that if tomorrow you told me that 694 was folded into MAR and that we had to take a 2-3 hour bus ride to our events, I would be ecstatic, because it would mean all the advantages of being in districts including unbag time, getting to attend 3 district events at a lower cost, getting to have a district championship, weekend events so that more students and mentors could attend, and much more that I am currently forgetting.
We don't even need to have that many events in NYC for districts to be worth it for our teams, 1 or 2 districts and teams have to travel a bit for the other ones they attend and they are already getting way more matches, way more experience, and way more learning.
As for the international teams, there are still plenty of regionals for them to attend, NYC just happens to do a good job getting them to come. If they did do a different event that is more inland the expense would probably be less because hotels in NYC are a nightmare and they would probably get a better experience from being exposed to fiercer competition.
I don't have all the answers, but I think the main issue is that not enough people want this yet. Once enough people want it, I think it will be easier to make happen.