Regionals on TV?

[notaPINKtruck]

Originally Posted by dlavery

The reason is simple - $$$$

Every year, NASA (and every other sponsor) has to make decisions about how to allocate available resources, which are finite. This year we had to decide whether to use some of those resources to provide NASA TV coverage of a regional competition, or to provide financial support for three additional teams via the regional challenge grants. Was that the right choice? It can be argued either way. The three teams that received the grants obviously would think so. But all the teams and communities around the country that might be exposed to FIRST if we were able to broadcast the regional competitions might see it differently. It can be argued that the potential long-term benefit that could come to the entire FIRST program outweighs the potential short-term benefit of three additional teams in the 2008 competition.

We will face the same decision regarding allocation of (limited) resources next year. Should we make the same prioritization that we did this year? We would be interested in hearing any (constructive) comments and input.

-dave

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I know this is sort of a non-answer to the question allocating a finite resource, but I think the solution is that NASA needs to give more money to FIRST...and Congress needs to give NASA more money in general.

Not that I'm biased or anything...

That being said, since broadcast time is so expensive relative to bits, I think more focus should be put on improving the scope and quality of the already existing webcast system. If we could get every competition webcast in high resolution, we would provide a mechanism through which FIRST teams around the country could participate in the action throughout the season, rather than just at their competition. Imagine a FIRSTtv internet broadcast system that ran during competition season each year.

What's more, if local teams could convince local public TV or cable access to air the competitions, a high quality webcast would be sufficient for porting to broadcast (the current artifacted 320x240 just wouldn't cut it, but smooth 640x480 would be fine for OTA or cable).

Just my $0.02.