MaxPreps and Competitive High School Robotics

[ChuckDickerson]

At least in the South, high school football is king. It’s all about Friday night and everyone (at least around here) keeps up with team schedules, scores, rankings, and highlights through websites like MaxPreps. I assume MaxPreps is popular elsewhere.

My question is should “robotics” be covered on MaxPreps like football, baseball, basketball, soccer, etc.? If so, how do we get MaxPreps to include competitive high school robotics? I would love to see a MaxPreps version of The Blue Alliance type stats and team data for scouting, etc. I would also think getting competitive robotics stats listed on MaxPreps would be a big step toward making FIRST/FRC/FTC/VEX/Best/etc. as recognizable as other mainstream high school sports nationwide. I know there is always a heated debate on Chief Delphi on whether “robotics” is a legitimate “sport” or not but MaxPreps currently covers cheer, dance, drill, and speech as co-ed “sports” so why not robotics? I would assert that in my experience with FRC, competitive high school robotics is at least as much of a sport as any of those.

[Chadfrom308]

I think it would be very hard to do. You have like 80 matches with 6 robots and to keep track of "maxPrep" style data (I am assuming you want things like autonomous accuracy/goal, teleop stats, endgame, ect) would be a very difficult thing to do. And MaxPreps is notorious (at least in my area) for coaches fudging stats (for individuals who they really want to look good at least). (and also not to say that any FIRSTers would fudge stats)

I think that the blue alliance is the best solution that we are going to get. I would love to see MaxPreps stats, but I don't think that it is going to happen.

[Dunngeon]

Originally Posted by ChuckDickerson

At least in the South, high school football is king. It’s all about Friday night and everyone (at least around here) keeps up with team schedules, scores, rankings, and highlights through websites like MaxPreps. I assume MaxPreps is popular elsewhere.

My question is should “robotics” be covered on MaxPreps like football, baseball, basketball, soccer, etc.? If so, how do we get MaxPreps to include competitive high school robotics? I would love to see a MaxPreps version of The Blue Alliance type stats and team data for scouting, etc. I would also think getting competitive robotics stats listed on MaxPreps would be a big step toward making FIRST/FRC/FTC/VEX/Best/etc. as recognizable as other mainstream high school sports nationwide. I know there is always a heated debate on Chief Delphi on whether “robotics” is a legitimate “sport” or not but MaxPreps currently covers cheer, dance, drill, and speech as co-ed “sports” so why not robotics? I would assert that in my experience with FRC, competitive high school robotics is at least as much of a sport as any of those.

I think pursuing Maxpreps isn't the right way to garner mainstream acceptance. Maxpreps exists to satisfy a demand, and the demand for top-tier high school sports news is significantly higher than the demand for high school robotics news.

When I look around, I see higher quality content coming out of the woodwork everywhere. LookingForward gives insight to each week of competiton. GameSense has some really interesting content. The Blue Alliance catalogs results and ChiefDelphi covers everything else. The biggest problem I have with all of this content is that it isn't covered in a single place. Most of it is run through CD which IMO isn't the easiest to navigate, and which ends up burying useful resources under the sands of internet time.

I think a platform resembling Maxpreps would be useful for FIRST Robotics, an organized central hub of information, but I don't think that Maxpreps integration would really change anything since our competition changes each year


Also, take a look at the other sports Max-Preps covers besides football. Only the most popular sports in the country get real press time. I don't think Robotics can hold a candle to the national enthusiasm for those sports yet.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by ChuckDickerson

I know there is always a heated debate on Chief Delphi on whether “robotics” is a legitimate “sport” or not but MaxPreps currently covers cheer, dance, drill, and speech as co-ed “sports” so why not robotics?

While these sports are on the MaxPreps website I would hardly say they are covered by it... the drill section has 7 teams all in New Mexico and 99% of the teams in the speech area are from Nebraska. Looks to me like an individual state is using the MaxPreps website to track some of their information and it isn't well updated. I would argue that if robotics is going to get on the MaxPreps website there are a lot of other well established competitions (choir, marching band, chess...) that should be also and aren't.

I think we've got the content of MaxPreps elsewhere, it just needs to be more organized.

[Chief Hedgehog]

I would think that the most logical step for a state with a large FRC base is to get in contact with your High School League. Here in Minnesota the Minnesota State High School League has been hosting the MSHSL FRC State Championship Tournament - I believe it is the first of its kind in the FRC community.

If you can get your state athletic/activity board to recognize FRC as one or the other - you will go a long way to getting it recognized by MaxPreps. But MaxPreps is just one of a multitude of prep sport media.

Here in Minnesota, Football is king. And in our town, football is by far the predominate sport. Yet our Robotics team is gaining traction and we have had a lot of crossover from athletes into our program - and I truly believe this is a part of why we have had some success.

It isn't about selling robotics as a sport, but it is selling robotics as a competitive team that can open doors. If you can get a teacher or coach on board that can be a great ambassador of robotics a team can grow quickly. Success helps, but allowing the students opportunities matters even more so.