![]() We all try our best to avoid creating them, but the fact of the matter is the robots can’t all be perfectly reliable all the time. Many are absolute duds and did not encourage people to pay money to watch the rest of the show. ![]() Some of the fights have done very well on YouTube. For better or worse, the decision was made to air those fights alongside Fight Nights airing rather than in batches after the season was over. Since the episodes only air with 7 matches, at least 10 fights would be downgraded to basement tapes to be revealed on YouTube. The 8 teams who were accepted into the tournament with 2-0 records would get that minimum count of 3 fights in the Round of 32 episodes. What we were told by the people in charge is they felt it was more important to give as many teams as possible a third chance to be on TV. One question I’ve fielded a few times is whether this is fair. Sure there are a couple that just wouldn’t have made it to a third fight, but most of them would have. 21 of the 62 robots in Fight Nights didn’t get 3 fights. Most notably, 8 robots who qualified for the tournament only had 2 fights. The problem with missing the goal of an average of 12 fights per session (for a total of about 96 fights) is a bunch of robots didn’t get a third fight. Maybe in a few years, it’ll be a sport, but we’re not there yet, not by miles. Robot combat is a sport, but the show is not a sports broadcast. Something to keep in mind is BattleBots is a TV show about robot combat. The distinction is a critical part of our status as a Game Show and BattleBots’ ability to dispense prize money. Talent refers to Chris, Kenny, Faruq, the Judges, etc. A lot of that is the sheer quantity of people required to make it happen, some of it is equipment costs, and finally the cost of having talent on set. We’ve been told it costs about $1,000 per minute to film at the arena. There were further technical issues during the fight night days too. The first two days of fights always have terrible flow, but we also had a mix of power and technical issues that delayed the first session, which led to cascading delays later on. They set the goal of 12 fights per session so they could get through 3 episodes per day. With the tournament getting bumped up a day, we needed to get through 10 episodes in 8 sessions. With 2 sessions a day we get to 20 episodes. The goal is typically about 10 fights per session with about 8 fitting into an episode. Normally, each session corresponds to an episode. There are only 9 filming days over the two weeks we’re there. There’s a little more to that, but spoilers and NDA. This season, they changed up the format to create space for the ending of the Bounty Hunters content. Landing in B-roll is always a nice treat, it's another opportunity for fans and sponsors to see a team’s brand. The short featurettes in the middle of the episodes vary, and the film has several more of them than they’ll use on top of hundreds of hours of “B-roll” that probably won’t get used. Main events come with a fair amount of interview time so that further increases the airtime of the teams. Since the show is a fixed length, any airtime one team picks up is airtime another team can’t have. ![]() Airtime is a big chunk of what sponsors are interested in. Most teams were still able to appear in 3 episodes during the main season and almost everyone who didn’t make the round of 16 was able to participate in Bounty Hunters, netting them a 4th appearance.Ĭounting appearances is important because each time a team appears in an episode, there’s a minimum amount of airtime they’re going to have. The schedule changed to a standard fight night schedule of 3 fights per team to accommodate the filming time set aside for Bounty Hunters in Season 5. In Seasons 3 and 4, most teams were in at least 4 episodes between Fight Nights and whiteboards. The preseason “fight night” format gave the majority of teams unprecedented opportunities for airtime. With the move to Discovery in Season 3, the show’s format changed to have a pre- and post-season.
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