Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

BattleBots & ESPN Strike TV Deal

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hope-the-hosts-are-good dept.

NMajik writes "Although BattleBots has been largely removed from the public eye since episodes stopped airing years ago, a new deal has recently been struck with ESPN to return combat robots to the living room. Episodes will be broadcast as a series on ESPNU and ESPN2 after filmed at the competition in June 2008. This is the first notable progress towards televised combat robotics in years."

3 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. About time! by iansmith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My friends and I always thought that BattleBots on Comedy Central was a bad idea.

    The humor was funny, but the sportscasting was awful. Weird stats, rarly any good discussion over what happened or any more details. The after-fight interviews were pretty much just, "How did you feel about winning?". And the crazy stats and numbers rarely had any relation to the judges scores, which were glossed over and never explained.

    We always wished ESPN would have shown it.. THEY at least know how to host a sporting event. Hopefully they will treat Battle Bots just like any other sport this time around, explaining judge decisions, giving people a better idea of why someone wins, focusing on the exciting parts more than long, long clips about someones garage.

    Here's to hoping we get lucky and ESPN doesn't screw it up this time around. :-)

    1. Re:About time! by Matrix2110 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ...My friends and I always thought that BattleBots on Comedy Central was a bad idea.

      If ESPN treats the sport at least half as well as NBC did with American Gladiators, We may be in for a treat!

      ESPN has a rep to keep up, and sports show crews tend to be fanatics. So there is much upside.

  2. Re:boring by Bazman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Until some real new idea comes out. On the UK 'Robot Wars' it was turning into a battle of the flippers v the axes, until innovations like HypnoDisc and Gemini appeared. HypnoDisc had a heavy horizontal spinning disk with blades, and a very low CoG. It span up until it had masses of angular momentum, and then all the other robots just bounced off it with massive gashes. Version 1 was liable to being flipped, but in the next series they added a self-righting mechanism. Gemini was a 'clusterbot': the robot split into two independent parts, each with a flipper. Combined they were below the weight limit so it was all legal. Other bots found themselves facing two small light flippers, and so couldn't use the usual tactic of pointing their dangerous end at the opponent.