ANW7 Suggestions (Spoilers)

[Philip]

I highly doubt NBC staff lurk here, but in the off chance they do, let's put together a list of (preferably) constructive feedback of what we would do to improve ANW7.

I might as well go first, let's get the big ones out of the way.



Competitor Profiles: Nobody cares about them unless they are for notable successful competitors.


Consistent ruling/DQ rules: Get rid of the DQ rules unless they are obviously DQs (climbing on scaffolding lol).


Obstacles:

1st Stage was fine except for the BS Silk Slider landing. What was wrong with the Rope Glider's landing?

I was fine with the brutal 2nd stage except for one thing: the Metal Spin. The chains are too long and the landing is too far away.

3rd Stage was fine, and I believe I am the only person in the world that enjoyed the Propeller Bar, mini tramp and all.

[Amber]

I honestly would just love if they reverted the show back to ANW 1-3 style.

[arsenette]

Make the season shorter.. 15 weeks is too damn long.

[kangaroo]

I posted this in another they need to make sure the course between cities are balanced no Miami issue.

They need to do Monday Tuesday episodes and knock the City qualifiers and the next day with the Finals waiting four weeks to see the final kills all the excitement about seeing one of your favorite competitors run.

5 to 6 cities if they add one with 10-12 episodes over 5-6 weeks then you get your 75-90 + wild cards then you can do stage one over two weeks then the finals stage 2-4 that means 8-10 weeks more hype same mount of episodes to milk. The wait between the qualifiers and the city finals is brutal and kills the excitement to see the 30 get whittled down to 15 the contestants will still be fresh in your mind.

Those are some of the ones I can think off oh and do a better job of testing your obstacles and make adjustments when testers give feed back so you do not have the Cannon ball alley fiasco

[arsenette]

This may be an unpopular opinion but in order to get fairness in trials you have to have 1 central location and bang out all of the qualifiers in one go. Period. The only reason why the cities are lopsided is that NBC is trying to not give one city a chance to have a one week preparation over the other (meaning if Venice had these obstacles, people use social media to communicate that to the other cities and voila they are prepared). So in "theory" NBC had no choice by changing the obstacles. So by doing one central location and having everyone fly out there they don't have a leg up at all and everyone is basically level. The other is that they have to cut the casting down to a manageable level. It's zerging right now. But with NBC's insistence in dragging trials to 12 weeks on it's own.. we have the same issue. The downside is that people will be bitching that they can't get on the show otherwise and that's unfortunately part of casting. Japan has that issue every tourney telling 2-3000 people that they can't even enter auditions. NBC has to start doing this IF they are going to cut down the qualies season. After a while it's like watching Ice Dance compulsories.. people get tired of the song they all have to dance over and over and skip that portion waiting for the Freedance when it's different.

[thatoneuser]

The producers need to completely start over with the Vegas course. While the city finals courses were boring and unoriginal (4 different ball/spike combos, wut), at least they were interesting and didn't ruin the competition, maybe with the Cannonball Alley being the lone exception. The Rope Jungle destroyed everyone's stamina and people suffered on the UB and DSL, in addition to being way too time consuming. There would have been so many time outs if not for...

...the Metal Spin, which completely ruined the show this year. The producers need to learn the difference between "hard", "too hard", and "unfair". I don't know if they just don't test the obstacles or what, because what happened on the Metal Spin is simply inexcusable. The same goes for the farce of an obstacle known as the Silk Slider. It's a fantastic idea in theory had NO ONE known what to do on it. Seriously, David Campbell doesn't make rookie mistakes. It doesn't happen. Also, the Giant Ring is BS. Thanks for making the Jumping Spider doable this year, though.

There's seriously not a single obstacle on the Vegas course that I like or that I would miss if they decided to completely start over. $500,000 is not going to ruin NBC. Remember all the hype that Kacy got for clearing the city finals course? Imagine that, but MULTIPLY THAT BY 100. Being able to say "This year, someone finally conquers Mount Midoriyama!" would piss us superfans off a bit (admit it, you'd get pissed off) but the ratings would skyrocket and propel the eventual winner to instant stardom. Plus people will be super excited for ANW8.

As for the actual show format, go back to the ANW4 format of showing the qualifiers on Sunday night on Esquire and the city finals on Monday night on NBC. As an audience in general, we truly do not give a s*** about dentists who fail the second obstacle. Oh, and don't make the competitors run at 4 in the morning. The course looks fine in daylight. That might be my biggest gripe of all.

[arsenette]

Sept 10, 2014 19:50:06 GMT -5 thatoneuser said:

As for the actual show format, go back to the ANW4 format of showing the qualifiers on Sunday night on Esquire and the city finals on Monday night on NBC. As an audience in general, we truly do not give a s*** about dentists who fail the second obstacle. Oh, and don't make the competitors run at 4 in the morning. The course looks fine in daylight. That might be my biggest gripe of all.

Agreed.  That way NBC can focus on showing the Regional finals and shorten the season.

As for obstacles, they just replaced the company they used with another crew that doesn't know wtf they are doing. For all of us who just facepalm with this.. why not ASK the ones that fine tuned this event over the past 17 years?  Nope. The wheel has to be reinvented all over again.  Makes ME frustrated looking at it.  They throw their hands in the air going "wait.. why didn't that work?" when plenty of people could have told them that it wouldn't hold up during the course of the competition.

[TCM]

Sept 10, 2014 19:50:06 GMT -5 thatoneuser said:

There's seriously not a single obstacle on the Vegas course that I like or that I would miss if they decided to completely start over. $500,000 is not going to ruin NBC. Remember all the hype that Kacy got for clearing the city finals course? Imagine that, but MULTIPLY THAT BY 100. Being able to say "This year, someone finally conquers Mount Midoriyama!" would piss us superfans off a bit (admit it, you'd get pissed off) but the ratings would skyrocket and propel the eventual winner to instant stardom. Plus people will be super excited for ANW8.

As for the actual show format, go back to the ANW4 format of showing the qualifiers on Sunday night on Esquire and the city finals on Monday night on NBC. As an audience in general, we truly do not give a s*** about dentists who fail the second obstacle. Oh, and don't make the competitors run at 4 in the morning. The course looks fine in daylight. That might be my biggest gripe of all.

Considering Sasuke's done it, it shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility that ANW would do it. The problem with ANW doing promotion via spoiling is they tend to not hide anything. Anyone with a decent eye knew that the person rushing through the walls were Joe. I wouldn't put it past them to actually show the person on the tower, leading us to just do process of elimination based on what they're wearing, instead of just showing the smoke go off or Matt and Akbar freaking out about the win.

I also agree about doing the two night showing again. Would give Esquire a boost as well. Could also solve any future preempting issues. And doubly agree about only running at night. Yes, the course looks nice at night. Great, even. You shouldn't also screw over the possibility of re-runs because of when you tape. Venice openly complained to the staff that they got shafted being run when the Silk Slider pad was overinflated and wet when other regions ran when it was dryer and not as bouncy. In terms of Vegas, I'd say start in the daytime, which allows the possibilities of redoing runs that are controversial enough to warrant it. Didn't hurt the show in the beginning when they ran in the daytime/afternoon.

[arsenette]

LOL Esquire has their own issues.. they haven't rated on the top 100 at all this season. Not even G4 accomplished THAT feat.

[Amber]

Also, add a time limit to the qualifier.
(If someone were to time up at the Warped Wall, it's a Warped Wall fail, 5th obstacle time up, it's a 5th obstacle fail)
Also, do placements by progress on the obstacles in qualifying and city finals, and then time.
Who's more deserving of moving on?
Someone who failed the jump to the Salmon Ladder or someone who failed the transition to the last rung before they reach? Now, if they failed in the exact same spot, that's when you bring time into it...

[KinnikuBanzukeÜberAlles]

I doubt that Esquire's ever getting new episodes because the ratings for new episodes were lousy on G4, and the re-runs used to get almost the same ratings as the new episodes.

I'd love to see daytime filming again, but that's unlikely to happen because nighttime filming lets them edit and shuffle the runs every which way possible.

I'm a big proponent of scrapping the pseudo-two-stage trials format and experimenting with something different. I'd rather have them run trials Kinniku Banzuke-style, like find the top 3 American Monster Box champions, top 3 American Hand Walk champions, top 3 American Monkey Bar champions, etc. After they get enough people, send them to Vegas.

Finally, TPTB definitely need to hire a production company not named "A. [insert name] & Co." Get TBS. Get people who used to work for Monster9. Just no more American reality TV show producers.

[arsenette]

Sept 10, 2014 22:27:56 GMT -5 KinnikuBanzukeÜberAlles said:

Finally, TPTB definitely need to hire a production company not named "A. [insert name] & Co." Get TBS. Get people who used to work for Monster9. Just no more American reality TV show producers.

M9 is gone. And TBS won't do it for free. NBC won't do it because they'd have to renegotiate their contract to carry Sasuke in the USA again. NBC doesn't want that. So yeah none of that is going to happen. As it is right now TBS is not happy with NBC. Bridges have been burned in that department.

[thatoneuser]

Sept 10, 2014 22:27:56 GMT -5 KinnikuBanzukeÜberAlles said:

Finally, TPTB definitely need to hire a production company not named "A. [insert name] & Co."

BREAKING: A. Cunningham & Co. have officially offered their support for the 2015 season of American Ninja Warrior.

[Philip]

Sept 10, 2014 22:40:02 GMT -5 arsenette said:

Sept 10, 2014 22:27:56 GMT -5 KinnikuBanzukeÜberAlles said:

Finally, TPTB definitely need to hire a production company not named "A. [insert name] & Co." Get TBS. Get people who used to work for Monster9. Just no more American reality TV show producers.

M9 is gone. And TBS won't do it for free. NBC won't do it because they'd have to renegotiate their contract to carry Sasuke in the USA again. NBC doesn't want that. So yeah none of that is going to happen. As it is right now TBS is not happy with NBC. Bridges have been burned in that department.

They are missing a golden opportunity to show old G4 broadcasts on NBC Sports for casual viewers that are interested in the roots of the show.

[arsenette]

Sept 10, 2014 22:45:29 GMT -5 Philip said:

Sept 10, 2014 22:40:02 GMT -5 arsenette said:

M9 is gone. And TBS won't do it for free. NBC won't do it because they'd have to renegotiate their contract to carry Sasuke in the USA again. NBC doesn't want that. So yeah none of that is going to happen. As it is right now TBS is not happy with NBC. Bridges have been burned in that department.

They are missing a golden opportunity to show old G4 broadcasts on NBC Sports for casual viewers that are interested in the roots of the show.

NBC? Oh yes they are. Hell they could benefit greatly from a cross promotion with TBS alliance the way it used to be back in the M9/G4 days. NBC would benefit more having 1-3 or even 5 competitors from ANW going to Sasuke yearly AND getting the ad money from showing Sasuke on Esquire. G4 proved that Sasuke had a much higher rating in G4 than even ANW but because the demo was almost all women they dropped it from their regular lineup. NBC seems to be embracing women so it could have been an opportunity to diversify and benefit from both licenses. However NBC historically has never liked splitting licenses. It's either their show or none at all. Shame really. For a fan it would have been perfect to have Ninja Warrior shown here to get their Japanese fix and cheer on their top ANW competitors on Sasuke and have ANW on the main network on NBC. It worked for a few years until NBC came in and got greedy. It always makes me smile when some random interviewer asks about Japan and they just quickly switch the subject. Especially noting that Japan's show is still going on. LOL

[KinnikuBanzukeÜberAlles]

Sept 10, 2014 22:45:29 GMT -5 Philip said:

They are missing a golden opportunity to show old G4 broadcasts on NBC Sports for casual viewers that are interested in the roots of the show.

They showed ANW3 and ANW4 episodes a few months ago, but that was it.

Ninja Warrior's subtitles are probably one of the reasons that NBCSN hasn't shown it. The network's ratings aren't the greatest, so it's not like they'd have anything to lose by showing them.

[greenday61892]

Sept 10, 2014 22:40:02 GMT -5 arsenette said:

Sept 10, 2014 22:27:56 GMT -5 KinnikuBanzukeÜberAlles said:

Finally, TPTB definitely need to hire a production company not named "A. [insert name] & Co." Get TBS. Get people who used to work for Monster9. Just no more American reality TV show producers.

As it is right now TBS is not happy with NBC. Bridges have been burned in that department.

what.

[blah123]

I still think a lot of forum members here forget sometimes that NBC cares about 1 thing and 1 thing only -- RATINGS. These suggestions should keep this in mind.

- Less fluff stories and more runs = probably more ratings
- Shorter season w/ qualifiers and finals in same week = probably more ratings
- Cross-promotion w/ TBS & Sasuke = probably more ratings
- Fairness of obstacles and stricter enforcement of rules = *PROBABLY NOT MORE RATINGS* because they want a winner, and they could care less about "rules" as long as they get their number of clears. Just look at the Brent Steffensen Stage 2 controversy, or the lubing of the Log Grip in ANW3. They DON'T CARE about "rules". They care about ratings. And modification, or breaking, of rules depending on the situation = more ratings (at least theoretically).

[peterpack]

They won't get rid of competitors profiles but make them 30 to 40 seconds tops and still show runs for competitors who did not want to film a profile. Paul Kasmair i could imagine hasn't wanted his private life aired on tv given all the poor guy has gone through and they have barely show any of his runs the past few years. That is not cool, you don't need a profile to show his runs, his name is profile enough.

Don't reduce the season, i like it long

[jork122]

Release all runs on youtube.