Elevator pitch?

[gabjoh]

I'm trying to get a quizbowl team started here at the small, Central Ohio university I am now a freshman at. However, when I've attempted to promote the idea to others and see if they're interested, I run into an unexpected obstacle: the inability to explain, concisely, what exactly quizbowl is. I seem to remember the QB wiki having something along those lines, but it seems as if it has shut down and started from scratch. Any ideas for an "elevator pitch" of about 30-45 seconds to explain what the heck it is? The best I've been able to come up with is "like Jeopardy, but different". (On the plus side, I've already got a couple of former Academic Decathlon people who have expressed preliminary interest.)

[quantumfootball]

Most people would know what "In The Know" or "Brain Game" are, and many central Ohio quizbowlers refer to quizbowl after the "In The Know" TV show instead of using the word quizbowl.

[Duncan Idaho]

I think the page that you're looking for still exists:

Quizbowl, sometimes spelled Quiz Bowl, is the most common name for a competition involving answering questions and attemping to provide the correct answer, usually with a buzzer.

When people ask me what exactly quizbowl is, I reluctantly relate it to Jeopardy! as well. Generally, I'll say something like "Quizbowl resembles Jeopardy!, but with teams of four people, and with [generally] much greater emphasis on academic content like literature, history and science."

[Grams's Go-Go Boots]

"Team Jeopardy! with more academic content" is a perfectly reasonable way to describe quiz bowl in one breath.

[idrayer]

I usually compare it to Jeopardy as well, or just call it a trivia competition with questions that are academic in nature.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

"Like Jeopardy, but with teams" is my usual phrasing. Sometimes I add the detail that "you compete against other schools."

"Academic content" sounds like a confusing phrase IMO. People outside of quizbowl won't necessarily define it in the way that people inside of quizbowl do. At the very least, they're not as likely as us to divide all knowledge into "academic" and "non-academic".

Usually people will ask me something like "what kind of questions" and then I'll say "mostly history, science, and literature, but also some art, mythology, social science, etc."

[Broad-tailed Grassbird]

Let's be honest though about the elevator pitch, its pretty rare that you get someone who doesn't have any academic competition experience to stay on for a long time. You have to focus on the "i did quiz bowl in high school" crowd (because they seem to be everywhere from person experience). You need to answer the question "Why should I be on Ohio Wesleyan's quiz bowl team, when I don't have the fondest memories of HS quizbowl?". The best part is, you have a new club so the answer can be whatever you want. Interestingly enough, rushing a quiz bowl team is very similar to rushing a greek org (minus the fact that you dont have to compete against other quiz bowl teams for recruits). You have the always joiners, who as long as you get the team is above water will join, the maybe's, and the not interested. Those who are not interested making up 90% of the population, so you just need to identify the maybe's and get them interested.


The cold elevator pitch is great for your friends, the press, getting people to volunteer for your tournaments, but does little for recruitment. With that said, you are at a small school so I could be wrong, people may just want to do new different things.

Although this isn't useful for your first year, I find running HS tournaments to be a great recruitment device. Many students who go to your tournament, and then end up going to your school will find you. That is actually how I joined the team at MSU.

[gabjoh]

I've actually found the comment right above me to be surprisingly true; heck of a lot more people with academic team experience than I thought there would be here.