Haven’t seen this posted yet, so here you go:
As HQ said, it’ll be a premiere rather than a live broadcast. Bookmark the link, do whatever you need to do to make sure you have it ready for Saturday. (I usually see a button to get a notification when premieres start, but I don’t see it here. Maybe it’s because this video is set as “made for kids”? Weird.)
Almost certainly because the video is marked as for kids
Which also means no live chat on the premiere (you’ll just have to find your own place to do so). I don’t understand why this would be marked for kids per YouTube policy.
Once I subscribed to the channel and the future broadcast showed up on my homepage, it gives me the option to be notified.
Potentially because the live chat has historically been an unmoderated mess. I’ve seen many mentors request that the chat be disabled.
Not disputing if they want to turn off the chat function, but by placing it on YouTube kids this hits a completely different algorithm which is intended for audiences under the age of 13. You can turn off the chat function for a stream when you setup the stream.
K-12 IT Director here. I get it.
A lot of schools have content filtering on YouTube to only allow content made for kids, as it’s a lot easier than filtering by category, keyword, and content. It’s the lazier approach, but also it’s the right combo of effort and safety many schools/districts are looking for.
If FIRST wants to make sure that teams will be able to watch this broadcast live on their school computers/networks, this distinction makes sense.
This seems to be a decision to make sure teams can view the broadcast over getting a larger public audience, which seems like the right choice.
Having worked in K12 IT with about 5 different web filters, same. I also highly recommend those that will be using school computers to watch submit tickets ASAP to make sure the kickoff video is unblocked. Just because its set for kids doesn’t mean its allowed on the filters (there is a ton of junk on YT Kids)
As someone unfamiliar with the in’s and out’s of YouTube/modern day streaming, does a “premier” effectively work the same way as a live stream in the sense that you can’t fast forward while it’s happening?
To clarify, when the “premier” starts at noon EST, will the whole video instantly be available and teams can just skip along to the game animation, or will we need to sit patiently listening to Dean before the game animation is shown?
Just like a livestream, we will be able to rewind backwards but not skip forwards.
As far as I understand, there isn’t much difference between the two kinds except that a premiere is recorded ahead of time while a livestream is streamed live.
rip to broadcast twitch chat. live comments turned off for this premiere.
maybe its the brain rot getting to me but kickoff twitch chat is one of the most fun things to be a part of
this may be a hot take, but I think no chat is probably for the best. for teams who have sponsors/parents watching the stream, it may weaken the experience watching the chat, or if vulgarity is used could damage their FIRST impression.
plus, i’m sure there will be discord channels where you can watch live chat (if you are watching from home) or you can just talk with your own team.
overall, I’m excited for the stream to be moved to youtube. our district is pretty strict in blocking livestreams and twitch, so if FIRST moves to youtube we may have an easier time watching events at school.
Hopefully kickoff being on YouTube means events will also be streamed there 
I’ve noticed some competitions were streamed to both YouTube and Twitch last year, but having it be standardized that way would certainly be a major improvement.
additionally about the yt for kids thing theres a whole maze with COPPA and CIPA which makes this a legal nightmare to deal with so i think first just decided to err on the side of caution
I think those were just district events (which run their own A/V). Regionals were still Twitch-only
Premiere is live!