ESPN2 launching "Bracket Genius"

[colonial]

ESPN2, which has specialized in recent months with airing programs ESPN Original aired an hour earlier, is getting the sports behemoth back in the game show realm with "Bracket Genius".

http://awfulannouncing.com/espn/trey-wingo-host-espn2-quiz-show-bracket-genius.html

Trey Wingo hosts the show, which is essentially a modern take on "College Bowl" and similar fare.

The contestant pool takes a cue from the NCAA men's basketball tournament, as the teams will consist of schools whose hoops teams make the Sweet 16 of this year's tournament.

JD

[Matt Ottinger]

Buried way down at the bottom of the story is that this is NOT a sports trivia show.  It is a general-knowledge quiz pitting teams of college students against each other.  While it certainly won't be as rigorously academic as the original College Bowl and the modern quiz bowl associations and formats, that appears to be, at least in broad strokes, the basic structure.  This could be good, but this could also be very, very bad. There are many reasons why "quiz bowl" does not make good television and those reasons are very hard to overcome.  When non-quiz people try to overcome them, the results have been decidedly mixed.

[Matt Ottinger]

The contestant pool takes a cue from the NCAA men's basketball tournament, as the teams will consist of schools whose hoops teams make the Sweet 16 of this year's tournament.

The story is confusingly written in that regard, but I don't believe the latter part of your statement is accurate.  It would appear that teams have already been selected, and it would be very dangerous to rely on the whims of a sporting event to select your participants for a show that's supposed to air less than two weeks after those sixteen teams would have been chosen.

[SwohS Emag]

Perhaps less confusingly written:

http://espnmediazone.com/us/press-releases/2017/03/espn-intersport-announce-new-original-series-bracket-genius/

[colonial]

I may be wrong on the original post, and I apologize for the confusion if I am.

According to the release ...

"Bracket Genius will pit university academic teams, consisting of three undergraduate students, against one another in a bracket-style competition for the chance to have their team crowned the inaugural Bracket Genius Champion and share the prize of $100,000. The final 16 universities represented on the hardwood will match up in the same head-to-head games on Bracket Genius where the winner advances by answering questions spanning history, geography, politics, literature, science, pop culture, the arts and sports in a race to score as many points as possible against the clock and their opponent."

"The eight-episode Bracket Genius series is currently scheduled to debut Wednesday, March 15 at 6:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2 with a half-hour “Study Guide” episode showcasing the playing format along with original behind-the-scenes footage from potential Bracket Genius teams and ESPN personalities."


As Matt notes, it does sound bizarre to be selecting 16 teams for a game show just days before it airs, and it be based solely on how their men's hoops teams perform on the court. I would have to presume that ESPN and Intersport have been planning this show for months and reached out to the 300+ schools with Division One men's hoops squads to find players.

If that's the case, there's also the danger of blowouts based on who the teams consist of. Several colleges in this tournament have quizbowl teams where players practice once or twice a week and play in numerous tournaments during the school year. A wise media relations/PR rep for such a school will reach out to the QB team and ask if they could represent the university on this show. Schedule one of those teams against a school made up of three people who signed up for the show on a whim and the game could get bowling-shoe ugly rather quickly.

I just have this feeling that while the idea for this show is good in theory, making it work could be extremely problematic. A lot of it will depend on question quality and casting.


JD

[Matt Ottinger]

Schedule one of those teams against a school made up of three people who signed up for the show on a whim and the game could get bowling-shoe ugly rather quickly.

Welcome to my world.  We literally have that happen two or three times a year in the early rounds of our high school show.  Most of the participating schools have some sort of quiz bowl program, a small handful of them quite elite.  Other schools don't, and yet they insist on participating and show up to the studio with four kids who sometimes don't even really know how the game is played.

[TLEberle]

The thing of it is that there are 68 teams in the tournament, and just sixteen will get to the show. It would be frustrating to make the team then not get to play because your school doesn't go 2-0 or 3-0 on the court. 52 teams who may (or like Matt said may not have) spent lots of time preparing and getting ready are going to be disappointed just because.

[Matt Ottinger]

Tonight's "study guide" should clear things up quite a bit.  Meanwhile, tonight?  Seriously?  This is the first we're hearing about the show, and the debut airs in a few hours?  Even though it's not a competition episode, this all just seems really, really odd to me.

I cut the cord last year, so I'll miss out on the fun.  I hope someone will explain things in excruciating detail for me later tonight.

[BrandonFG]

Work with me here...this is not a perfect solution, but it gets everyone involved. Hold your fire.

If you want to represent all the schools in the tournament, why not simply do a Monday-Thursday setup with the 64 teams that make the Big Dance*? Each episode features two halves, with two teams per half (four teams per day). Instead of the "Sweet 16" teams, keep the regional bracket setup with 1 vs. 16, 2 vs. 15, etc. You could still knock this out in about four weeks.

*The "First Four" runners-up could play in a special game as well.

/That reminds me, I gotta fill out a bracket
//Uniform colors FTW
///Or is it animal mascots?

[SwohS Emag]

The half hour premiere episode told us little to nothing more.  The host, standing in front of a green screen, informed us that 16 schools would compete, but did not indicate how they would be selected. (There was clearly an edit in my recording...I'm not sure if it was just my DVR that did it or it was edited this way at the source).  Each school will have three players, and one team would win $100,000.

From there four potential teams (Northwestern, Villanova, Michigan, and Dayton) were profiled, and Michael Magazine from U. Cincinnati was interviewed on "bracketology" as it applies to the men's basketball tournament.

That's it.  The casual observer would be largely unaware that s/he was watching a preview episode of a quiz show more than just a documentary about college students.

More info is also in this article, which confirms that the 16 teams will indeed be comprised of reps from the schools that make the Sweet Sixteen.  I would be highly amused if none of the profiled teams made it as a result.
http://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2017/03/15/espn-and-intersport-chicago-launch-quiz-show-to.html

[Jimmy Owen]

My alma mater, Michigan, will do well. The reputation is they excel in athletics and academics.

[colonial]

A friend of mine who saw the special only mentioned the first part, which featured the University of Wisconsin, who will be represented by three quiz bowlers.  The segment also featured footage of what appeared to be an NAQT tournament (NAQT is one of the largest providers and producers of high school and college QB content in the U.S.).

One of the UW players said in the segment that the school reached out to the QB team about the show and if they wanted to participate if "chosen". So, as I expected, we may see a decent QB premise on this show if the right teams make it to the Sweet 16.

Looking for any info on the show, I came upon these articles from, of all places, the campus newspaper for Gonzaga ...

http://www.gonzagabulletin.com/news/article_0c909bb6-e8c7-11e6-bb12-bfe1b77cac3e.html

http://www.gonzagabulletin.com/news/article_d203f0c0-f93c-11e6-a047-c36f854ce598.html

Gonzaga (which, AFAIK, doesn't have a QB team) opted to hold a campus-wide tournament of interested students to find a squad. The school found 10 finalists and sent info on them to ESPN, which would choose the three who'd appear on TV. IOW, it sounds like it was up to the schools to find a pool of players, with ESPN making the final decision on who actually plays.

Also, it appears the show was originally titled "March Genius", which sounds like a reality show seeking the next John Philip Sousa.


JD

[Matt Ottinger]

I always like to make a point of admitting when I'm wrong.  It's pretty easy to do since it so very rarely happens...

Still, I sure hope these guys know what they're doing.  The logistical challenges of just getting folks to the competition would seem daunting.  We won't know the Sweet Sixteen until some time Sunday night, and the first matches of the TV show air on Wednesday afternoon.  In an era in which new shows spend hours working out the kinks of a single episode, that's a ridiculously tiny window.  Add to that an unknown and unproven game, and a quiz bowl subculture that takes itself frighteningly seriously, especially at the college level.  There are several opportunities for this to go off the rails.

I hope it's spectacular, and I hope I get to see some of it eventually.  Maybe they have quiz bowl types who've been helping them put it together from the get-go.  On the other hand, an epic fail would be pretty entertaining as well. We'll know soon enough.