Sports-Style Broadcast

[Abhishek R]

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.

[joelg236]

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

[Marc S.]

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

[CalTran]

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.

[Joe Ross]

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

[popnbrown]

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.

[DampRobot]

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

[themccannman]

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

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by themccannman

just what FIRST needs to grab public interest.

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.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

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.

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. )

[jspatz1]

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

[Tristan Lall]

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

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

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.

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

[Donut]

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.

[James1902]

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.