Or it could be "Real life: I'm a geek"....And show everyone how fun being a geek could be...

Actually Battlebots never had a problem with that. I really don't see why it should be a problem with FIRST.
The reason why they have reality shows is that people watch them.
Actually from what I remeber TLC all ready has had a robotics show on and it got cancelled. It also was the least violent version too. It was push the obstacle, get through the obstacle, and then push the robot out the ring.

Yes, I agree. Discovery or TLC would be the best choices. They alreday have stuff like this, and FIRST is somewhat of an educational thing (not it's purpose, but a side effect in some ways). It's the kind of thing they would like.

OK Normally i will not get mad at something someone may say that is not 100% true and incorrect, cause you know everyone make mistakes, but this is a mistake that doesn't stand well with me. F.I.R.S.T., The organization so many of us love and some of us spend year round working to have something that everyone likes to see and talk about here, IS most definitely meant to be educational. The main goal of F.I.R.S.T. is to Change the future of our world, today. And it has been said and shown that the only way to change generations here now and those to come is by education. I do not think that F.I.R.S.T. would be here still, in our schools, homes and communities if it wasn't educational. I know that it says even on the website the following:
"Our mission: FIRST designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology and engineering."

I think that is enough for me to know that F.I.R.S.T. is meant to be educational...

~Michael Dessingue

[*Note*]: I am sorry if this came off like a flame toward anyone but this is something that i hold true in my team and with all the people i work with through FIRST, that this is not just to have fun, but also to learn things from.[/*Note*]

Actually, the mission statement to which you are referring implies that the acquiring of knowledge is a healthy "side effect" (perhaps not the best choice of words) of their goal to "motivat[e] young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology and engineering." I think you may have just lashed out at something not a big deal.

Anyway, I agree with the fact that a TLC or Discovery special would be well received by many of the people who watch those channels. It should be noted, however, that if we are seeking to do more than broadcast FIRST on a channel more commonly available (than NASA TV), then we should not limit ourselves to Discovery or TLC. But for now, we should see the serious problems the nature of the media creates for our "sport of minds:" what ever boosts a channel's ratings can stay, otherwise, "buh bye." Airtime on Discovery or TLC is a realistic max at the moment, not (as I said earlier) a limit. I'm all for it.

Yup, TLC and/or Discovery looks like our best bet

Adam Y. I remember that show on TLC as well, it's called Robotica.

i have to agree with joel there airtimes are maxed out and something prob hard to come by. They have alot of shows that are doign great tthat will stay on the air till the ratings arent good (example. while you where out, american choppers, monster garage, monster house, and junk yard wars are a few) NOw what i was thinking about espn. They have alot of time spots they could fill. I mean they have games like Beg, borrow, and deal. and as i watch tv in the afternoon and when baseball is on they have something like fishing or huntiing or something. NOw honestly who watches those shows.

I didn't say TLC and Discovery's time slots have become filled; rather, I said getting airtime on TLC or Discovery would be a realistic max (for FIRST) at the moment. I'll take blame for that confusion, though. Carry on.

Now i want to make a point out in all of this, what station would be "best" to have FIRST on... Now i am not sure how many of you remember but i think it was the 1999 or 2000 season, ESPN did show FIRST, and did broadcast some competition(s) [please correct me if i am wrong] and that only lasted that one year. I think it was partially because of WDW's 100 anniversary and they may have shown some of Nats that year but i am not 100% sure as i never saw it...
~Mike

Many moons ago, ESPN covered FIRST annually. I think that they started coverage in '93 or '94, continued for a few years and then ended coverage in '98. The last broadcast was definitely 1998. That year, the agreement between FIRST and ESPN concerning what was being covered was a fiasco, if I remember correctly.

Here is the story from what I recall:

ESPN was at Nationals, covering many matches and interviewing many teams. Our team won Nationals that year, and I remember shoving our kids in front of the camera for ESPN (boy, does that seem like a looong time ago). Obviously, our team was very anxious to see the ESPN broadcast. After a few months of waiting, we started to call the team relations people at FIRST (Lori and all), and they said that there was a major disagreement between FIRST and ESPN.

I heard that ESPN did not like showing all of the logos, flags, banners, and decals for the team sponsors during their 30 minute broadcast. They edited their show so that these logos and such were either not seen or they were blurred out. They showed this edited version to FIRST. FIRST, of course, refused that version. After months of "negotiating", ESPN finally aired a version with logos in the fall of '98.

After that, ESPN never came back to FIRST. I suspect that feathers were ruffled over the "negotiations".

Being a sports nut myself, I decided at that point that ESPN was very hypocritical. They often show billboards at sporting events or on race cars... but they wanted to blur out FIRST sponsors. It looks to me like they were looking for a way out.

Also... there are many threads which discuss this topic. Here is a good one, but it is short: FIRST Marketing thread from 2001

Andy B.

I think done correctly, MTV could be a great way for FIRST to get into the main stream of television. Hear me out,

1) It doesn't have to be live:

This negates any boredom factor, because almost anything can be made to look upbeat and exciting with the right editing, and the right music selection.

2) Focus more on the elimination rounds instead of the qualification rounds:

Although the qualification rounds are great, they do become repetitive and sometimes uneventful. Instead of actually showing matches, I picture more of a "This is what they had to go through to get here" video to impress the audience with the coolest plays and to give them a little bit about what to expect.

3) Follow the 'drama' of the alliances:

If you focus the show more around the elimination rounds, suddenly you can devote individual attention to the repairs, stress and strategy sessions that alliance members have RIGHT before a match. This brings the audience INTO the heart of the competition, ups the excitement for it, and also enables them to become attached emotionally when an alliance wins or loses... and we all know emotion is what drives the entertainment industry.

If MTV were to follow this outline, I am positive they would have a decent show that could pull in decent ratings. That being said... I was also sure about 5 years ago that MTV would be more successful if they actually played music videos :D

OK,
There is a lot of conjecture on how TV works but it isn't rocket science it's just a business. It's about sponsors, even in public television where I work. If you don't have an audience that has a target for advertising, you are unlikely to find a sponsor. Even for a producer to show up at a regional, take a feed from the big screen switched feed and add some wild footage from the pits and interviews, then edit the whole thing together into a one hour show would cost about 50-60 man hours minimum. The producer has to get something out of the bargain and at least needs to get paid for his time, so add another 40 hours onto the show budget. You can see where I am going with this. Put your own figures into the calculation but even at $10/hr plus expenses the bill gets to be several thousand in no time. That sounds cheap I know, but to national advertisers, that is too cheap. They can't afford to advertise a show like that and shell out national advertising dollars. to do so.
Now on to the Discovery channel or TLC or any of the other cable network channels, who are also running a shoestring kind of business. They are looking for shows that already have a sponsor who wants to advertise nationallyand oh by the way, a good audience. More importantly, they want the show for free or nearly free so they can make some money on it. That leaves the producer trying to scrape enough profit to feed himself and bankroll another show. That is why if you really watch some of these documentaries you will see the same video being repeated from show to show. It is cheaper to use something you already own, than to go out and shoot new footage.
Lastly, the ESPN vs. sponsors. I was not involved so I am guessing here, repeat, guessing! If you are televising an event where corporate logos are present everywhere and every sponsor has an equal chance to be on the screen, then there can be no claim that one sponsor got more air time than another. Think Nascar where any vehicle can be seen on the screen. As long as they are still rolling they are going to be in front of a camera at some point. In our competition, that is not the case. Since the event is not broadcast live, editing comes into play and the sponsors would naturally have to compensate for their time on the screen or be "fuzzed out" electronically. Coordinating all that takes an immense amount of time and was probably not worth the effort expended by ESPN.

Our Team Videographer is going to be following us around this season and making a series. We are going to offer it to TLC (The Learning Channel), so far everything is working out and we are still going for it. As far as i know we are going through with it. People are optimistic that TLC will take it but i don't know. We will see i guess.

I think some time in the past CNN covered first, i think that would be something CNN could do. It would be a upbeat story about kids making dreams come true, and that is something that would be nice on tv. As to the music, radio stations do a good job, and i think MTV wouldnt be a bad idea. But we should have a diversity, it would suit everyone. But other than that, we could esentialy get anyone to cover us, its just how much support we show, we cant rely of FIRST for everything, we have to do some stuff on our own!

When I read this, I was really tempted to go off at length on how, as FIRST continues to grow, many teams have lost touch with the core values and philosophy of FIRST. In no small part, this is due to the decreasing frequency for opportunities to hear those messages directly from the people that actually defined them - Dean and Woodie - and the fact that they can't personally sit down with 1000 teams and talk at length about why FIRST was created the way they used to when there were just 93 of us. As a result, many teams are now just making up their own "philosophies of FIRST" to fill the vacuum. And unfortunately, many of them are getting it wrong.

But before I had a chance to get really wound up, another thread connected to this quote from Dean:
We can all help each other a lot by getting back to the roots of the purpose of this organization, and why it really exists. The older, veteran teams can help the younger teams understand the reason and rationale behind FIRST - not by making up their own philosophies, but by getting back to the core messages from Dean and Woodie that drew all of us in the the first place. And younger teams can help by keeping this discussion going and prodding the "old farts" to provide specific references to what FIRST says FIRST is about, and not just our own personal outlooks. Personal anecdotes and success stories are great, but when it comes to defining WHY an organization exists and WHAT it is trying to accomplish, it is always best to go right to the source - in this case, FIRST and Dean and Woodie.

Continue this discussion in this thread.

-dave