Sports-Style Broadcast
 

I was browsing Youtube a while back and found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irgFdDRT0R8

Have there been any other Regionals that were sort of shown in a sports-like format? I thought i was a neat way to show the competition, gave it a cool feel to it.

Re: Sports-Style Broadcast
 

Something similar (admittedly different though) http://www.theroboshow.net/

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I would love to see this at champs. It seems like the last piece of the puzzle in getting FIRST in the public eye.

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Michigan State Championships does somewhat of the same thing for the finals. It's kinda unfortunate how they did it because it meant that Dave Verbrugge didn't do on field MCing that year.

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First in Michigan does this for the State Championship:

2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llinbKaFIHQ
2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq1Lq_n3Tfc

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Michigan had something 2 years ago I think, where one of the mentors from 217 did commentary. IT was pretty cool because it was sponsored by Chevrolet so they kept saying Sponsored By Chevrolet made it sound real real.

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This is so so cool. We need something like this at SVR and champs.

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That was really good and very professional looking, just what FIRST needs to grab public interest.

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Exactly what I was thinking. If they can get the National Spelling Bee on ABC, imagine the wonders it would do to have the FRC Championships on ESPN or the sort.

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I've been thinking about that for a while. ABC is actually more "open" then ESPN on Saturdays in March/Early April. The only issue is that both ABC and ESPN typically have first round NBA playoff games the Saturday of Championship. It doesn't make sense to have a set of regionals on ABC and the Championship on ESPNU!

Any TV would have to be at no cost to the networks, since all FIRST events are free to the public. The upside is that free "sports" rights usually sound good to a network.

Also, the National Spelling Bee doesn't air on ABC anymore. It moved to ESPN. (Like a lot of other higher profile events. :mad:)

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We are so lucky to have Time Warner Metro Sports provide this coverage of the Greater Kansas City Regional. FRC gets some great exposure in our region. They repeat the broadcast several times through the following week.

Here a segment of the same broadcast from 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzMqw...w7a-gg&index=8

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It's been done in the past: 1996 Championships in Orlando, covered by ESPN.

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You mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8N6lnle1fc

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In the case of FiM and the Kansas City Regional, were these production efforts done by FIRST volunteers or by the broadcasting station (mainly talking about the video editing)?

As more regions move to the District system it would be cool to see more of the District Championships along with the World Championships get productions done like this, even if it's an after-the-fact thing that gets rebroadcasted a month later. Given the number of Regionals and varying quality of play at them it wouldn't make sense to try to do this at every event, but being able to highlight the best of the best with elimination matches from these Championship events would make for good TV. It's not really any different than ESPN highlighting significant high school football games periodically.

Even if you can't get live coverage on ESPN, maybe something like PBS affiliates would do it.

Re: Sports-Style Broadcast
 

The goal of The RoboShow was to produce an engaging and informative broadcast of the Orlando Regional that could be equally entertaining to die hard FIRSTers and people who are not familiar with the program at all.

Our solution was two 'SportsCenter' type shows after Thursday and Friday (although Thursday was more for us to make sure all our tech worked) and then a live webcast for the eliminations. You can see the Thursday and Friday shows on the website ( www.theroboshow.net ) and you can check out the live eliminations show at our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/user/TheRoboShowLive

The crew consisted entirely of FRC Alumni.

We viewed this year as a pilot project and are talking about ways to improve and expand for next year.

I also think FIRST on TV might not be the best option. It requires a large promotion effort for the specific air date and in order to be cost effective for the network it must generate a large rate of views. Producing specifically for the web allows for a constant promotion effort and can be driven by shares and social networks. We could rely more on the existing audience to promote and distribute the show to people they think would like it and allow the viewership to grow more organically.

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The TWC Metro Sports coverage of the GKC regional was produced by Time Warner for their own programming. Their Metro Sports channel covers primarily high school sports, but also regional college, major, and minor league sports. I think they simply consider the FRC Regional unique and worthy of coverage. Time Warner Cable is an active FIRST sponsor, at least in our region.

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MSC, right now!
http://www.dptv.org/programs/robotic...cmpgn=shorturl

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I've been watching this all morning, this is one of the best feeds I've ever seen. Lots of camera angles, instant replay with drawing on the screen, announcer commentary, nice overlays for final scores and which teams are competing in a match. There's even an occasional interview. I feel like their camera crew is a little better at focusing on the most exciting action on the field than the typical FIRST webcast also (thanks for not zooming in on robots just sitting there!).

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Could one of the guys involved in Gameday put this feed into it?

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It helps that Dave Verbrugge, probably the most FRC-knowledgable man in FIRST in Michigan and possibly the world, is doing color commentary. Very well done - I'm glad it's live this year.

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Probably, possibly? Make that definitely. Dave is the man. :cool:

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This was shown after the competition on the local cable sports channel. They were edited by professionals here in KC.

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Dave's strategic insight is priceless. It is a huge asset to the viewer, it makes the whole game make so much more sense.

I also love that they are explaining what is going wrong with the robots when people are frantically fixing them. Breaking is big drama for the teams, but it often doesn't really get out to the audience as they are busy doing the Cotton Eyed Joe or Cha-Cha slide.

Re: Sports-Style Broadcast
 

I couldn't agree more!

The only thing that I found surprising was how fast the teams were willing to give up their strategies to the LIVE viewers :ahh: !

A quick text to the opposing alliance and the strategy that was supposed to win could easily turn into the factor that makes them lose! :yikes:

Teams may "trick" the viewers as well, anticipating this. (Creating a whole new meta-game within strategy).

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"We are going to try and stop 67." I'm pretty sure 67 knew that, given that 217 was in the process of putting on their pool noodles. :rolleyes:

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I mentioned it in the MSC thread, but I wanted to do it here too. This broadcast from Detroit Public TV was definitely the best live feed of an event I've ever seen. I'm gonna make a list because I feel like it deserves it:

• Great quality video stream with no ads
• Great commentary and analysis, educated me about the Michigan teams and filled in the time between matches
• Instant replay
• Split-Screen Autonomous view
• Interviews with team members gave better insight into what was going on than actually being at the event

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Teams and organizations should ask for a tape of the recording (shouldn't be that hard, it's public TV) and shop it around to various local stations (your PBS', Fox/Comcast SportsNets, etc. to gauge their interest in broadcasting events like this. Local stations, I think, would like to have access to engaging, original content they just have to produce and not pay out for licensing.

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Best of all, Detroit Public TV has already archived all of the footage and put it up for viewing. Definitely going to send this out for the rest of my team to watch.

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If/when a broadcast like this is brought to live tv there is actually built in ad time during elims. Long stretches of elims were silent today. It actually kind of made for boring stretches where ads would have added some distraction. As for ads during quals they could easily do a quick recap of matches in between live matches, or use them as fillers for those moments of silence we heard in the broadcast today. They could even reserve ads for times when the field is down (cause that problem is clearly never going away:yikes: )

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Anyone know of cost/resources list that went into the MSC taping or who to contact?

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Gail Alpert, President of FIRST in Michigan negotiated all of that. She would be the person to talk to if you are interested in bringing something similar to your area. This was a full scale production by DPTV. There were 8 different cameras recording the live feed, plus a roaming documentary camera, plus the sideline interview camera. The live feed was being mixed in the truck with a director who has experience directing NBA games. While there were silences in between matches, when the final product is cut together for broadcast, it should have really high production value and be great for the FIRST brand.

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I was just happy I didn't have Ustream ads jumping in during Finals 3. :D

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AMEN!!!

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I originally wanted to write something about how if FIRST decides to add somebody to it's leadership brass, it would be wise of them to add someone with Sports and Broadcasting experience... This thread and the broadcast yesterday sort of suffice for my points on that idea.

Watching the DPTV feed yesterday during the elimination rounds was absolutely amazing. It truly did add a level of excitement to the competition. I remember in 2008 when GTR was broadcast online by Discovery Canada. I thought those were good broadcasts. The MSC broadcast yesterday ran laps around that.

I think getting FIRST on a major television network would be the major challenge. not just because of making it marketable, but also because of scheduling. The NBC Universal channels are usually locked down with College Basketball conference tournaments in early March and deal with the NHL playoffs right around the time for CMP. CBS has the Masters, NCAA tournament and other college basketball conference tournaments taking up the time needed for Regional broadcasts. FOX has baseball, which means that broadcasting CMP would be an issue. ABC has the same thing, but with the NBA Playoffs. Finding commentators who are likely to know their stuff shouldn't be as difficult as many people think it would be.

I think there are three options that FIRST can take if they really did want to get on TV.

FOX Sports Network channels that operate regionally may be a good landing spot. channels such as FOX Sports Southwest and FOX Sports Florida may be interested in carrying an event like a local FIRST regional. The main concern then would be to get a simulcast of the Championship Event, not all the teams would be regional anymore, and that may mean some of these affiliates lose interest in broadcasting this over a college baseball game on a Saturday afternoon.

ABC/ESPN may also have an opportunity to work out; If ESPN gave FIRST the same opportunity that they gave Cricket. We would likely see regional events could be broadcasted on ESPN3 and the Championship Event could be run on either ESPN or ABC (whichever isn't broadcasting the NBA Playoffs). District Championships could also be shown on ESPNU or ESPN2

The major drawback to this would be that ESPN3 doesn't really bother with improving production quality for the events broadcasted online. This would likely mean regional events would be left the same, just a plain webcast similar to the one on the big screen at the event. unless the regional thought it would be important to make sure home viewers have something better to watch rather than the big screen.

FIRST could also settle for a network like HDNet, which does UFC and used to do UFL games.... Come to think of it, one of the investors, Mark Cuban, would be the perfect person to add to the FIRST leadership...

Remember that television is all about ratings, the last time FIRST was on TV, this is what happened.

If FIRST wants to get on TV. I think FIRST will likely have to build some infrastructure to ensure that regionals/district broadcasts are standardized. (ie: they're broadcasted using the same service, same resolution etc.) before a network executive would really take a serious look at putting a competitive high school robotics competition on television.

Again, this was a great broadcast. I'm really hoping to see more of these. But for the reasons i listed above. I don't see that happening for a while.

Re: Sports-Style Broadcast
 

Wow, it's like this thread was created to show this presentation.
Hat's off to Detroit Public Television for this outstanding example.

This is the way to show a FIRST competition to the general public.

Whoever is responsible for this deserves a medal.

Re: Sports-Style Broadcast
 

The only issue with FSN is that they don't have national coverage. I agree that they would do an excellent job covering regionals, but the Championship is another story. FOX and the new FOX Sports 1 could televise some events.

My scenario for ABC/ESPN would be:

• All events (Regionals, Districts, District Championships) on ESPN3 and usfirst.org (ESPN3 isn't available to all internet users. The usfirst.org
• A "Regional of the Week" Saturday afternoons on ABC
• ABC has the SEC basketball tournament semi-finals on one Saturday afternoon in March. A potential resolution to this conflict would be to take that weekend off and televise 2 regionals (most likely an ET/CT regional and Hawaii) another week. A PT regional could also be televised immediately following the basketball games (joined in progess if necessary).
• ESPN televising an additional regional in select weeks (when it doesn't have any other programming)
• MSC on ABC
• MAR Championship (or another future district Championship) on ESPN
• Championship qualification/alliance selection coverage on ESPN or ESPN2 or ESPNU and ESPN3
• FTC and FLL coverage on ESPN3
• Saturday afternoon division elimination "whip-around" coverage on ABC (If FIRST decides to go back to having 2 FRC fields in the pits, all eliminations could be in the dome; leaving 2 fields to "bounce" between, instead of 4)
• Uncut elimination feeds from all fields on ESPN3
• Einstein/Awards Ceremony coverage in the evening (8/7c) on ABC
• ABC currently has an afternoon NBA playoff game the Saturday of Championship. That would have to move to ESPN/ESPN2. EDIT:ABC has the X-Games and not an NBA playoff game that Saturday.

See below.

We can do better than HDNet, especially since HDNet doesn't exist anymore. I don't know if Mark Cuban would be great to add to the FIRST leadership either.

TV is usually about money. Generally ratings = money, but in this case we can be profitable for any TV network, since they won't have to pay any rights fees. High rights fees are the reason why even the undisputed ratings #1 NFL still loses money for the networks that televise it.

The ratings threshold for profit would be very low. And I think we can meet or exceed some of the non-major sports ratings. (The ones that are seen on Saturday/Sunday afternoon broadcast TV.)

I agree, the FMS/house feed needs to be improved and made more uniform across events.

Re: Sports-Style Broadcast
 

x3.

I was watching some of these at work, and invariably I ended up having 2 or even 3 feeds of the same event going so that one went to commercial in the middle of an elim, I wouldn't miss that action.

Re: Sports-Style Broadcast
 

Oh man I can't believe I never thought of that. Will have to remember for next year.