What FIRST spent on entertainers they could instead put towards registration grants in a similar fashion to how other sports have scholarship prizes for a half-court shot for instance.
You have your team mascot enter the Simon Says challenge and last 3 mascots standing get $1k towards registration for each of their teams next season or something like that.
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I do agree getting to see exhibition matches can be fun to watch but you cannot have matches with the teams competing on Einstein without having to add more breaks inbetween matches to give teams 15 mins interval period. So using exhibition matches wouldn’t be a good filler for time. They do it in FIT champs and it always takes a super long time to run the finals.
This is technically slightly off topic but wasn’t sure it would be worth creating an entirely separate thread about; I was really disappointed they didn’t do the usual tunnel run out this year. I always look forward to watching that on Einstein, it just feels like such a magical moment and gives every single drive team + pit crew a few seconds in the spotlight that has always felt to me like a pro sports moment. Having them all stand together in the center just doesn’t feel like it has the same gravitas. You could certainly line them all up together after they each run out if you really wanted that photo op, but I think unless there’s a good reason not to they should bring back the Einstein run out.
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I noticed this too. At champs at least, they had two fields per division and there was a lot less downtime as a result. FRC still had two fields for Einstein, but there was still a heck of a lot of downtime.
Karthik is such a draw at the competition. Have him do something - talking to his favourite teams not involved in Einsteins. Talking about the strategies they’re seeing play out.
Humans playing the game would be interesting.
Ri3D teams playing a match just to show HOW FAR teams have gone compared to the cool stuff we saw in the opening days of the comp.
Showing off the FLL and FTC highlights and those teams accomplishments at worlds. FRC often does overshadow it but having a couple of commentators talk through what the winning alliance went through to win this year would be a solid tribute and promotion of those platforms.
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I second having RI3D bots playing, especially so we can see how the archetypes developed over the course of the season.
Honestly, I’d even be okay with sponsor ads. Not like a prerecorded “look at how cool our company is”, but more of a “here’s what we’re doing, let’s show you new products/cool things”. Have Haas bring out the car they had this year and talk about it. Demo new supplier products. Qualcomm can talk about their Snapdragon thing. That would be easy-ish for FIRST to pull off and I bet the sponsors would be happy, plus it doesn’t cost anything. Of course human/RI3D matches would be more interesting, but at least sponsors are relevant.
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Seeing a lot of requests for Karthik to be more involved. I’ll go a step further. In general, it would be great if the Robosports Network crew could just run the whole show, both for the in-person audience and the livestream. Karthik & the RSN folks really know what they’re talking about and do such a great job with their stream throughout divisions. Why stop there? Let 'em keep it going at Einstein!
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YES! They’re an incredibly knowledgeable group who do a great job of sharing insights that are accessible by both hardcore FRC fans and casual viewers alike. I could also listen to @IzzyThalman for hours!
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as much as i would love to see the sf-25 at worlds, champs usually always lines up with a race in the middle east
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Do a full 8-alliance human bracket with different types of volunteers, so you have like the FTAs vs the CSAs vs the RIs vs the Refs, etc. It would be super funny and I think it would be a nice perk of volunteering at CMP, and a nice break for volunteers that are hard-working the entire week.
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That would be an opportunity to sit down, preferably quietly.
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This idea is not getting enough attention. Not sure I agree with having people compete in this way for the scholarships, but generally giving out scholarships at CMP.
Imagine the good this money could do if we saw it going DIRECTLY towards students, LIVE. That would be an AMAZING use of the large sum of money we pay to FIRST every year while celebrating the students who receive those scholarships at the same time. That would surely pull more people to attend and be a part of the program than any Simon Says master, or some randos making music with blenders.
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Having got to see Recycled Percussion for both FLL and FRC, it was so much cooler in FLL where you could actually hear the music they were playing in person. Still enjoyed the actual drum line more though
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Unless this is already a thing it’d be really cool if scholarships were given to dean’s list finalists and winners. Maybe even let the woodie flowers finalists choose to give a scholarship to a student on their team that they feel deserves it (though that last bit might be prone to some ugly favoritism so I’m less sure of that).
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I’m not sure if this is the best way to phrase it but I think the core of the problem comes down to having two separate groups that have different needs and wants from the broadcast. I think that things that generally work well for maintaining a high energy atmosphere for the in-person crowd don’t translate well to the people who are tuning in remotely. I’ve both been to champs in person and watched remotely. Honestly, when I was there in-person I really didn’t mind all the party breaks and side shows as much. Largely I think they were beneficial for the energy level in the audience. But when watching the broadcast, it feels like more dead time that I don’t care as much about.
While I don’t think a professional sports game is a perfect analogy, I do think that there may be some potential to learn from and borrow some elements from sports more for the crowning moment of the season. If you think about the experience you have when watching a sports game in person vs the broadcast, they are catered to different audiences. Sports games take a ton of time to do random audience interaction things and challenges or related stuff, but the TV broadcast usually doesn’t show that. The broadcast usually gets filled with commercials or you get talking head analysis of what is going on.
I know this is basically asking to run two separate but related shows in parallel but I don’t really think there is one thing that would make everyone happy here because what works well for the audience doesn’t work well for the broadcast and if you just played more analysis and talked about matches more I don’t think that would work as well for the in person audience either. It can be hard to hear what is being said with how loud it gets in the crowd.
Personally, I would really like to see more interviews with the teams during the broadcast. This is the crowning moment of the season, and I do think we should be celebrating all of the students accomplishments as much as possible.
Also to be 100% clear this is not a completely original idea. I’ve talked about this with a few other mentors and some alumni friends, some of this is a take that stuck with me and I’ve made some adjustments to based off things that were brought up with them and a little of this thread. now back to lurking for several months and enjoying the inevitable summer CD threads
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This is spot-on! I help produce professional sports broadcasts in my day job, and this is exactly how we plan it out.
In-arena moments are planned separately, to keep the energy levels high for the folks in ticketed seats - simultaneously, the TV broadcast throws to the desk for something to keep the home-viewers in their seats and engaged with the games (not flipping channels or missing ads).
This could be any number of things in a given game:
- Analysis desk (‘talking heads’)
- Video content & features that are pre-recorded and showcase the story of the game / teams you’re watching.
- Interviews with coaches & players (Einstein does this, but in a limited capacity)
- B-roll taken earlier in the day at the game
- Partner features (event or league sponsor videos / interviews)
They already do a LOT of this, if in a slightly altered format - and I think there’s absolutely a world where HQ does a split production; but as you mentioned - it is more expensive for them to wrangle, as you’ve functionally got two productions at that point. (This is how we do it at work - there’s a show-caller/producer in-arena and another in our broadcast truck, and they’re very separate technical layouts!)
There’s also the important caveat that there are fewer breaks in a sports broadcast; just a couple of ad breaks & between-period intermissions, whereas FIRST events are “three minutes of intro & match, then 15 minutes of breaks” - truly the inverse of what those production teams are typically working with.
I am not saying it’s “easy” or simple for FIRST to do this; just mentioning that it would bring both audiences a better product that meets their wants & needs (IMO).
The great thing is, FIRST already has a desk & analysis expert in RSN. I sincerely hope they utilize that for Einstein in the future; whether they ‘split’ the interludes or not - their product is just as good as the teams I have the privilege of working with in my “real job”, and creates genuine connections with the FRC audience that keeps the show memorable and entertaining.
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Can confirm that this is all 100% true, my real people adult job is sportsball production, specifically soccer, volleyball, and basketball.
While it’s possible to share production teams it’s a bit of a pain and neither production turns out well.
If I’ve learned anything over my last 10+ years in sportsball it is that sponsored breaks are 100x more engaging than non sponsored. When folks have skin in the game they tend to come up with something of better quality than a group that’s showing off their band/dance team/misc talent. I’d love to see some suppliers come up with cool ways to showcase their products.
Can also confirm that Simon Says is just as cringe when you see it at a sporting event, but somehow better than local circus schools riding unicycles.
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You’re right we should do skills matches for the best robots on each division that didn’t make Einstein. One robot on each side going all out no interference.
With ear protection in place.
Complete tangent, but do you know how broadcasts/productions develop a soundtrack for their sport? I know a lot of the themes we think of come from the networks they’re broadcast on and not from the sport, but some sports do develop their own instead.