Improvements

                 So I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching the Spelling Bee on Thursday and on Thursday night, and congratulations to Snigdha Nandipati, another representative from the great Southern California area!!!! It seemed like ESPN told the Spelling Bee after last year's 1.5-hour running-overtime that they better shorten the bee either naturally or artificially, and the Spelling Bee officials complied by comprising some TOUGH rounds, including Rounds 5 and 6 early in the day that knocked the number of spellers from 42 to 9. Ouch. After the morning rounds whittled the field to 9 I fully expected Arvind Mahankali or Nicholas Rushlow to win (in fact, I put their odds of winning at around 66%) at that time, but the "dark horse" candidate Snigdha pulled it out to win. Never underestimate the 14-year-old eighth graders, I say; their brains are just a bit more developed and they don't crack under pressure. My main concern, however, was that it seems as if the Spelling Bee doesn't get much attention anymore. It used to be a pretty insignificant event that took place all on one day in the nineties, not unlike the July 4th Hot Dog Eating Contest. However, it gained popularity and momentum with movies Spellbound (non-fiction) and Akeelah and the Bee (fiction) in 2002 and 2006 respectively, and suddenly in 2006 and 2007 the NSB found itself on national TV, in prime-time, on a big TV night (Thursday). But then apparently as with any TV show, the ratings dropped a bit, ABC pulled its support of the show, and now it's back to just being on ESPN.


How does the Spelling Bee get more attention, not just from nerdy spelling bee fans like myself? Here's a Modest Proposal:


 1.) Have a pool for the Spelling Bee just like the NCAA tournament: Wednesday night, just after the semifinalists are announced, post online leagues, bracket pools, fantasy leagues, whatever, for spelling bee. Allow people in the "pool" to pick 3 spellers.......(has to be more than one and probably more than two, otherwise everyone will just pick the favorites). The bee is all about personalities and getting emotionally invested in certain spellers: what better way to feed off of that than to allow the audience to "pick" spellers to root for? I imagine audience members will take combos of 1.) the favorite, 2.) sentimental favorite, and 3.) hometown/home-state hero. Also, throughout the night on Wednesday night and Thursday morning the "water-cooler" talk can be which "favorite" people in the pool picked, which dark horse candidate looks like they might make a run, etc.



 2.) Prop "fun points" - get points for things that happen on the ESPN broadcast, such as 1.) how many letters does the winning word have, 2.) What color shirt will the winner have, 3.) how many rounds will the Bee go,

 3.) Get a name-brand host. Getting a guy like Tom Bergeron was a good idea, Tom Bergeron himself was not. He didn't fit into the culture of the spelling bee, a lot of times he just didn't seem like he even understood the concept. Maybe get someone nerdy, like the guy from "The Big Bang Theory" or something.


 4.) More build-up to the bee: I know there's 200+ spellers and you can't possibly profile all of them and guess which spellers might make it to the semifinal, but the essence of "The American Bee" and "Spellbound" is the delving into the stories of the spellers, how they got to the spelling bee, how they lead different lives in different parts of the country (now world) to end up in Washington on one eventful day, the days and nights they spend studying and preparing, and the other trials and tribulations they go through in teenage adolescence. The ESPN broadcast sometimes tries to capture that, but it seems forced, artificial, in a "aw look at these kids" Disney kind of way. No, the spelling bee is more just about hard work, perseverance (like Nicholas Rushlow coming back year after year for 5 years) and putting in the hard work, and I think that's what ESPN misses. It's not cute + cuddly, it's tears + sweat not unlike the hard work professional sports players do (and sometimes even more). The kids who get to the National Spelling Bee get there because of hard work and because they want to compete, and that's why ESPN should treat it like any other sports show they do: as a competition where all spellers strive to be the winner. That's what I want to watch.




Anyway, the rest of the year will all be about improvements: 1.) Improvements in having a tidier lifestyle, 2.) Less time stuck in traffic, 3.) More productivity in the workplace 4.) Better about getting back to people emailing me, 5.) Improvement in the economy, 6.) Some charity work, 7.) Less stressing about fantasy baseball/sports in general

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan