With challenges similar to the Amazing Race, voting akin to American Idol and a local connection that runs deeper than Lake Erie, gotcitygame.tv is among the region's most ambitious and lively means to preventing brain drain.
Originally the brainchild of Barbara Oney and TL Champion, gotcitygame.tv is billed as a "web-based reality show - set in Cleveland neighborhoods - to showcase Northeast Ohio as a great place to live, learn and work."
The 15-episode season launched on November 17, each Tuesday debuting a new episode on gotcitygame.tv, where three teams sponsored by Hiram College, Cuyahoga Community College and LiveCLEVELAND! compete in various challenges throughout Cleveland. "Teams are competing for Cleveland for a year," says Oney. This includes a two-bedroom apartment in Tremont Place Lofts that is paid for the year, in addition to concert tickets, sporting event tickets, restaurant gift certificates and more.
The winning team will be chosen based on number of points earned during challenges and number of viewer votes received. Visitors to gotcitygame.tv are encouraged to vote for their favorite teams – there is something in it for them, too. Four lucky voters will be randomly selected to each receive $500 scholarships for college text books, courtesy of the National Association of College Stores based in Oberlin, Ohio. The scholarships may be used at any university in the country and at any level. In addition, each week, four voters will receive special prizes.
"Very early on, TL and I agreed that one of the guiding principals would be collaborative community engagement," says Oney, who had worked for nearly two decades in Los Angeles as VP at Universal Studios, while Champion helped shape the success of CoolCleveland.com. The pair met over coffee one afternoon in Cleveland, developing concepts to help keep the city's future leaders, those ages 18 to 35, excited about life on the North Coast. "We knew it had to be a media and a medium that was suitable for the audience," says Oney.
Oney and Champion brought their ideas to Bob Bryan, Tri-C's executive director of television and video services. Enthusiastic about the project, Bryan enlisted students from the new media arts programs, providing real world experience filming the web reality show, using professional equipment and editing software, and providing paid internships for certain classes.
Soon, Hiram College president Tom Chema was sponsoring a team as was LiveCLEVELAND!, a non-profit community development organization founded in 1983. That sense of community development and promotion comes naturally to Oney, who was raised in Cleveland Heights and currently resides in Shaker Heights.
"I'm a comeback kid," says Oney. "When I moved back to Cleveland, I was chief marketing officer for the CVB [Convention and Visitors Bureau], and I'm a self-professed city and regional junkie – I just love it." View the trailer below, and check out new episodes here.
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