Could quiz bowl be televised successfully?

[WMKiwi]

anyone heard of It's Academic? We like it here in the DC-B-more area. It might be interesting to pit an adult team against high school students. I know I've gone back to my high school team's It's Ac practices and gotten smashed, not necessarily by the knowledge but by the buzzer speed. Those kids are fast.

Jenny ;p

[IndySOG03]

There's a high school quiz show program called "Knowledge Bowl" that airs Saturday mornings in the Memphis area the local CBS affiliate. It runs throughout the school year and awards scholarships to winning high school teams. One of the better parts of watching the show (aside from the trivia itself) is rooting for your alma mater or your friends if you happen to be of that age. It's also a neat experience for the participants themselves, as they get to be on tv and acheive geek-glory similar to their athletic peers.

I'm not sure if it would work on a national level, however. You'd lose the hometown rooting interest, as well as any sense of the "I know that kid!" phenomenon that you might get on a local program. It would have a better chance on a college level, but even then, the better teams would probably end up being from smaller schools that most fans had no connection to. One idea might be to align divisions up by NCAA conference to see the more well-known rivalries surface (Auburn-Bama, Michigan-Ohio State, etc.) to get more publicity. I like that idea for a far more selfish reason -- it would an easy way to see my alma mater, Vanderbilt, beat up on Tennessee. Come on, we can't let our football players have all the glory this year, can we?

[Rhapsody]

I was quite disappointed when ESPN stopped televising MathCounts, especially because I was at their most recent competition.

However, yesterday, they were showing the World Domino Championships.

If they're willing to air that, then I see no reason why Quiz Bowls couldn't be televised either.

[Ray]

I don't think anyone has mentioned that a big problem with watching quiz bowls is that the viewer rarely gets to hear the whole question being asked. For anyone trying to play along, it is a great frustration.

[Ken Jennings]

I don't think anyone has mentioned that a big problem with watching quiz bowls is that the viewer rarely gets to hear the whole question being asked. For anyone trying to play along, it is a great frustration.

That's usually the big "format" objection given to quiz-bowl-for-an-audience, and I mentioned it briefly in the original blog post.

When I hosted the Minnesota show, I was under strict instructions to take a minute after the fact to explain tossups that were interrupted too quickly, so the audience might be merely annoyed rather than confused. But everyone was surprised how infrequently this was necessary. Maybe the kids were a little rattled by the cameras, or maybe we just underestimated the format, but the buzzes were almost always late enough that the audience understood them...well, at least as well as they would have understood them at the end of the question.

[DadofTwins]

I don't think anyone has mentioned that a big problem with watching quiz bowls is that the viewer rarely gets to hear the whole question being asked. For anyone trying to play along, it is a great frustration.

That's usually the big "format" objection given to quiz-bowl-for-an-audience, and I mentioned it briefly in the original blog post.

When I hosted the Minnesota show, I was under strict instructions to take a minute after the fact to explain tossups that were interrupted too quickly, so the audience might be merely annoyed rather than confused. But everyone was surprised how infrequently this was necessary. Maybe the kids were a little rattled by the cameras, or maybe we just underestimated the format, but the buzzers were almost always late enough that the audience understood them...well, at least as well as they would have understood them at the end of the question.

Bill Cullen was the best ever at this. On Blockbusters, while the question was in play his pace slowed dramatically. But if someone interrupted with a right answer, he quickly read the rest of the question and acknowledged the response.

In the event you don't have Game Show Network, watch Matt Otttinger on Quizbusters (Michigan high school PBS quiz). The most recent airing can be seen online here:

http://wkar.org/quizbusters/page.php?fi ... pgmID=1759

[metsfan001]

While not exactly quiz bowl, someone told me an excellent idea a while back: a National Trivia Tournament. The specific format logistics would have to be worked out, but the general idea is that the country (or continent, or world, even) is split up into regions, each of which has a qualifying tournament. The top people qualify for a national tournament (perhaps about 200 people total), which is televised/webcast. Successful players could return year after year, gather followings, and so on (like WSoP). Money could be gotten from entries fees, but funding would probably be needed to get it off the ground (hello, Ken).

Thoughts?

[themanwho]

While not exactly quiz bowl, someone told me an excellent idea a while back: a National Trivia Tournament. The specific format logistics would have to be worked out, but the general idea is that the country (or continent, or world, even) is split up into regions, each of which has a qualifying tournament. The top people qualify for a national tournament (perhaps about 200 people total), which is televised/webcast. Successful players could return year after year, gather followings, and so on (like WSoP). Money could be gotten from entries fees, but funding would probably be needed to get it off the ground (hello, Ken).

Thoughts?

I'm working on it.

-M

[Ken Jennings]

Discounting eccentic millionaires, I think that corporate sponsorship is the way to get this off the ground, but it does seems like the kind of thing that certain kinds of companies, especially tech companies, would be happy to get behind. I think this could definitely happen.

[Rick, Recovering KJL]

Well, seeing as how I've been shamed on TV by both Ben Stein and Ken, I'd definitely be interested in a third televised humiliation.

In fact, are there any other well-known trivia gurus out there who could make me look stupid on TV? I've sort of made it into a mini-cottage industry....