This is ESPN level stuff! How come we can’t do this at every regional event? Oh my God that would be a huge boost to our sport.
Watch FIRSTinspires21 with me on Twitch! Twitch
Who do I need to pay to get these guys to do Einstein? Incredible analysis and explanations-really inclusive for outsiders that don’t know much, while keeping it engaging for the more involved audience. Amazing.
The only thing that I see can be improved much is having a static camera during the matches themselves, that would make it easier to follow. in this case the dynamic view is executed pretty well, but still would really like to see more of the match at a time
Edit: didn’t even mentioned the interviews and replays, strategy analysis between matches and technical explanations. This is by far the most professional production of a FIRST event I’ve seen and is definitely how FIRST should go about presenting the organization. Definitely the way forward
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Seconded. I’m hoping this sets the standard - the accessible, professional format is one of the best ways I think FIRST can “make it loud” going forward.
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One thing I noticed - and some might argue whether it’s good or bad (I think it’s good) - the commentators don’t use the game-branded terms for everything. i.e. “game pieces” and “go to hang” vs CARGO and HANGAR, “10 point bar” and “15 point bar” vs HIGH and TRAVERSAL - I think this is important to getting a wider/“drop-in” audience, rather than having to define all the terms to the viewers over and over.
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What I’ve been doing is running both the casting stream and the full field stream at the same time to get the best of both worlds.
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And now you’ve met Dan Kimura, ex 469 drive coach and mentor. There’s a reason they were SO good. His insight is remarkable.
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When this gets archived please post the link.
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I’ll add one more point to this argument:
A very simple scorebug and teams identified by their schools or towns, as opposed to their official names. The FIM broadcasts have recently gotten better about mixing in the team names and logos as well in some contexts, but I think leaning into a framing that makes FRC look more like a “typical” high school sport where school = team is a good thing for drawing in a wider audience.
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I’ll actually disagree on focusing on locales first - teams put so much work and history into their chosen team image that I think that should still come first. If you want to do locales secondary or dig into it on sideline reporting, that’s cool with me though.
I know the FIM broadcast is supposed to be more of a “state school sports” thing, so it makes sense for them. For wider FIRST/FRC I do not think it would be appropriate.
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This production company actually does do productions/events for ESPN like college basketball and stuff. This same team did the 2019 MSC broadcast that was carried on ESPN3.
Dan is perfect for the analyst role “in the booth”. His combination of experience being a coach of an elite level team as well as his experience as a head FTA allows him to give commentary on what is happening on field breaks, etc.
They definitely are also making a huge effort to make it resemble high school sports as much as possible. This carried over from the RoboZone broadcast that used to exist, where they also made an effort to use school names as much as possible.
Overall, I think this shows how great of a broadcast can happen, only major thing to still improve is how to deal with long field delays and how that could be dealt with if this was to be broadcast on a cable channel or something.
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Oh I don’t disagree on that point. It’s a matter of knowing your audience. For the type of broadcast that FIM wants to produce, I think it’s completely the right way to go, but it’s not going to change the in-arena experience in any way. And like I mentioned, they have done better recently at using both schools and team names. Early on (I think 2013 was the first year that MSC had this production), they probably leaned too far away from mentioning any team identities, but in the match previews and reviews they do show both now.
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How would one get ahold of this production company?
I’m sure if you talked to Gail or one of the FIM board members at championship or emailed/messaged them they would be happy to talk more about it with you.
Probably not my place to share any specifics I know about companies and stuff.
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I will note that FiM has their own TV program called RoboZone, where they do an in depth analysis like ESPN, but for robot events and matches.
I remember watching it in Detroit, in a restaurant near the venue.
This is probably the same people, TBH.
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It is not the same people.
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I think the scoring display is also a stark difference in professionalism with the FIRST display looking “cartoonish” by comparison. You be the judge:
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Indiana had a similar production crew for their District Championship this weekend, which did a fantastic job as well!
It doesn’t seem “cartoonish” to me as much as sports graphic design vs tech graphic design, and we’re seeing the overlap. Another example from the other way around is a baseball score bug from NBC and a baseball score bug from Apple:
I think that both of those look significantly more polished than the FIRST scoreboard.
Look at the top one for example is has shading and seamless boxes and nice color transitions, comparing that to the FIRST display where everything is just “flat” matte colors.
I am by no means a graphic artist, but I know there are people / students that are or want to be. That is why IMO there should be a contest for designs for both this and the on camera audience display.
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Once he left the team they slowly declined to where they are now?
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