[FRANK(WGH)]

I've been thinking about regionals on TV for a couple of days and I think I've come up with a model for TV stations to grab a hold of. Being that I'm a telecommunications student at Youngstown State University, I know a little about the subject and I know what we would have to do to get FIRST on TV Live. Problem is, you're probably not going to get all of what you want.

FIRST regionals are too long and not interesting enough to devote full coverage. I say that because this is 6 about hours of programming each day of competition. A producer would have to come up with content for between matches, and the station would have to devote a whole production crew for these two days to get the job done. That is why most stations wouldn't show the entire competition.

I do believe that we could get partial coverage of a regional. I'm thinking that a production crew could shoot the full event, then edit together the best matches for a production on Saturday. The broadcast would start around 10 or 11 on Saturday morning and then go live once eliminations start.

I think that many more stations would grab a hold of that idea.

Discovery Canada did a great job with GTR last year and I think it was great that they did the entire weekend. I would love to see more stations do that, but perhaps we should start them off with a simple alternative to get them interested.

Unfortunately, I'm a little to late for this to happen this year, but I'm hoping to get Fox Sports Ohio or SportsTime Ohio to shoot buckeye next year.

Webcasts are a really great thing and I think that more teams could take over this responsibility in the future. CIA team 291 did in Pittsburgh and it turned out great from what I know. It wasn't cheap, but with a few sponsors on a wrapper page, this is definitely possible.