Let's not stop with CBS

[themagic8ball]

Guys CBS is great, but I think we need to get our national competition broadcast on ESPN. They broadcast the national spelling bee for newton's sake, I think people would love to see a bunch of competing robots and get excited about FIRST. I know NASA broadcast's the competition but nobody I know gets the NASA channel and people will only go on the web if they know about it. If we can get on ESPN, FIRST will be advertised on the TV Guide channel and everyone will see it and have a chance to get interested.

I think if we can get a lot of people (the CD members) to contact ESPN we may be able to get somewhere on this subject. So who's with me?

EDIT:
Upon further reveiw, it doesnt appear that ESPN will take ideas from anyone unless they are affiliated w/ ESPN. So either we need to get ESPN as a sponsor or lets try to get on as many channels as possible. I say we try to get FIRST to officially help us try to get on a Basic Cable channel or even a regular broadcast channel (NBC, CBS, etc..). The only thing we have to compete w/ at the end of april is basketball playoffs, so other channels need something to combat that.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I'm in... but it might take a lot more than us to get ESPN to consider it. Besides... I don't think they would cover the Championship b/c it's 2 full days of action. That would be 9-5 for two days. Maybe we could get them to cover the elimination rounds. Or maybe tape it then edit it. But I'd rather see NBC cover it like they would a football game or a NASCAR race.

[Justin]

Many of you probably know that FIRST was broadcast by ESPN in the early 1990s I know they did 1995 and 1996 I'm not sure about other years. Typically their broadcast would be several months after nationals in June or July. I think that we are there when Brian Williams reports live from Atlanta on the evening news. Or when Google puts us on their logo. Does anyone else feel like we got cheated by Google? A robot relay...come on...if Google were serious we would be on the logo. Or when we get a front page story on CNN, which we were pretty close to this year.

As far as TV goes I think FIRST missed its chance to be on TV as a dedicated show back when Battlebots was on. I mean every network had a robot show, if we couldn't get on TV in that climate I question whether it is ever going to happen.

Justin

[Qbranch]

It shouldn't be too hard to get ESPN to go for broadcasting the FIRST competitions. They've already resorted to televising rock paper scissors championships, cup stacking, etc.

So, since they're scraping so hard for content already, I think we have a good chance of doing this.

Does anyone have an e-mail address for ESPN we can send to? also, I think that this thread should be put on the portal page, if we end up doing this for real. It worked for CBS, it should work of ESPN.

-Q

[themagic8ball]

I think if we got everyone on CD to petition a company about this they would have to listen sooner or later. There are a lot of families that aren't able to come see their son's and daughter's compete but would watch at home if it were on normal television. 9-5 on a weekday and a saturday isn't even prime time. I think before we do anything we need to get some direction and then do this "petition" as formally as posible, but I agree if we have this on the portal page a lot of people will see it and probably help as they did with CBS.

[Tetraman]

ESPN use to televise the whole chapionship some time ago. It was easy when there wasn't a whole lot that ESPN did televise. I think what you need is people who can go to ESPN and say, "we can do everything, the cameras, the announcers, the inverviews, everything and we can do it professional and worth while, you just need to put it on TV."

[Tazlikesrobots]

What about talking to Discovery networks (discovery, TLC, etc.) or the science channel? It would be in line with their programming and I think that a live broadcast of the championship finals would have decent ratings.

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by Tazlikesrobots

What about talking to Discovery networks (discovery, TLC, etc.) or the science channel? It would be in line with their programming and I think that a live broadcast of the championship finals would have decent ratings.

You know...I bet you they would love to host FIRST rather than ESPN.

[Rohith Surampudi]

even better, lets open up a FIRST channel, we can show around the clock footage of old matches, interviews with technologists, scientists, enterpreneurs, inventors, and lastly, live footage of what is going on in Dave Lavery's office

on a serious note, im sure if discovery networks was approached in the right manner, by the right people, im sure they would love to broadcast the matches

[petek]

My perspective on this:

Way back in the Dark Ages of televised motorsports (late 70s), almost all races were tape-delayed, pre-empted by golf or a local flower show and generally not a very interesting TV show. Most of the networks weren't interested in showing cars going round and round and most people weren't interested in watching these shows. A good crowd at most NASCAR races was probably one-tenth of what they draw now.

So what changed all that? NASCAR made some effort to appeal to a broader audience, but in my opinion, one event had the biggest single impact. In 1979 (I think), somebody at CBS took a risk and put together live coverage of the Daytona 500, complete with multiple camera coverage of the whole track and multiple in-car cameras - something rarely attempted and never done very well before that. The show was sensational, at least by the standard of the day, and it got really good ratings, at least for a non-ball sport.

That event showed both the viewers and the networks that this show could be exciting and make money. So, I think the questions we should be asking are:

How do we show Big TV that FIRST will draw more viewers and make them more money than the rock-paper-scissors championship?

Anyone here know how many viewers it takes to make sponsors notice?

And maybe, as was asked somewhere on CD recently, do we want to make the changes necessary to make the competition TV-friendly? I'm not sure that it would be a good thing, myself. Personally, I thought the racing was better before TV and NASCAR fell in love.

[aallen88]

I know this is a kind of random and out there thing, but I'll be attending University of Hartford next fall and am planning on being a part of their television program that broadcasts weekly on ESPN 2. Does anyone know any teams in the Hartford, CT area?

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by petek

My perspective on this:

Way back in the Dark Ages of televised motorsports (late 70s), almost all races were tape-delayed, pre-empted by golf or a local flower show and generally not a very interesting TV show. Most of the networks weren't interested in showing cars going round and round and most people weren't interested in watching these shows. A good crowd at most NASCAR races was probably one-tenth of what they draw now.

So what changed all that? NASCAR made some effort to appeal to a broader audience, but in my opinion, one event had the biggest single impact. In 1979 (I think), somebody at CBS took a risk and put together live coverage of the Daytona 500, complete with multiple camera coverage of the whole track and multiple in-car cameras - something rarely attempted and never done very well before that. The show was sensational, at least by the standard of the day, and it got really good ratings, at least for a non-ball sport.

One important item missing in this story is that there was a huge blizzard in the Northeast that weekend and many people were snow bound. At the time there were only 5 channels in most markets so this was the event every one watched. The blizzard was the real factor in bringing out the popularity.

I can try to float this to people I know who work at ESPN. (I live in CT and most of us here know some one who works at the Bristol office.) However I would rather see if we could get PBS live coverage. It would be garunteed to be in HD everywhere that way and I think they would see a pay back for the broadcast.

[George A.]

Well I know Cold Pizza (an ESPN morning show) already did a little segment on FIRST, and we had an article in ESPN the magazine...so the interest is already there...now we just have to seal the deal and get them to notice us hardcore.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by aallen88

I know this is a kind of random and out there thing, but I'll be attending University of Hartford next fall and am planning on being a part of their television program that broadcasts weekly on ESPN 2. Does anyone know any teams in the Hartford, CT area?

Here's all the teams within about 20 minutes of Hartford: 155, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181, 195, 228, 571, 809, 1124, 1373, 1524

Edit: This is my 555th post.

[Pavan Dave]

How bout email every big news company and sned them a story of FIRST and have them stay stuff about FIRST and how to contact a nearby team???? That would get interest sparked..(oratleast in my area cause nasa is big here)

Pavan