Editing BattleBots (section)

=== Early competitions ===
''BattleBots'' is an offshoot of the original Robot Wars tournaments, the brainchild of Marc Thorpe. Robot Wars had financial backing from Sm:)e communications, a New York record company. The Thorpe partnership broke up in 1997, starting many years of legal wrangling between Thorpe and [[Profile Records]] (the former Sm:)e Communications). Profile licensed ''Robot Wars'' to a UK production company''. [[Robot Wars (TV series)|Robot Wars]]'' ran from 1998 to 2004 as a popular television program in the UK, with a short-lived revival from 2016 to 2017.

The robot builders left behind in San Francisco formed BattleBots, Inc. and began a series of larger competitions. The first was held in [[Long Beach, California]] in August 1999 and [[webcast|streamed online]], attracting 40,000 streams. Lenny Stucker, a television producer known for his work on telecasts of [[professional boxing]], was in attendance and showed interest in being involved with ''BattleBots''—believing the concept of [[robot combat]] was "hip" and have shown an interest in technology. Stucker made changes to the competition's format and presentation to make it more suitable for television, including elements reminiscent of boxing (such as a red and blue corner) and shifting to a single-elimination format. The creators tried selling the competition as a television series to networks such as [[CBS]], [[NBC]], [[HBO]], and [[Showtime (TV channel)|Showtime]], but none picked it up. A second event was held as a [[pay-per-view]] in [[Las Vegas]] in 1999, the PPV was in turn, used as a [[Television pilot|pilot]] to pitch the show again, with a higher rate of success.<ref name="sbnation-oralhistory">{{cite web|title=Robot Wars: An oral history of the birth and death of BattleBots|url=https://www.sbnation.com/longform/2013/6/18/4438250/battlebots-robot-wars-combat-oral-history|website=SBNation|date=18 June 2013 |access-date=29 June 2015}}</ref>