[Donut]

Without commercials, FIRST will never get aired on anything other than NASA TV, or another non-profit station. End of story.

If they were willing to allow commercials, it has a much better chance of being broadcast, and if FIRST let them broadcast it for free, it would sell even better (since TV stations have to pay for many of their shows and programs, a free event that could potentially draw a good number of viewers would be appealing). Realistically, FIRST would be better suited to start by being broadcast during a "slow" time for TV viewing (afternoon on Saturday or Sunday would be good, these are generally the times where alot of stations broadcast movies that have been out for 20 years or arts and crafts shows).

The biggest thing is that it would be difficult to get anything other than the playoffs aired on national TV (whether or not these playoffs were just Einstein or included divisional playoffs is questionable). FIRST is not about spreading fame for "winning" teams, but due to time and trying to keep anyone other than FIRST families intersted, it would be impractical to air many of the qualifying matches. Let's face it; the average American will not want to watch 6 semi-decent robots attempt to score about 30-40 points in a match, no matter how touching the story of making that robot and getting to the competition may be.

I think their's a chance FIRST could get the Championship on national TV (ABC seems easier than the others), but it would require some major sacrafices of the whole competition, and would take a number of years before FIRST would even have a shot at a "prime-time" slot.