The rules have changed, which may make the finals quite interesting. Among other things, they’re going to give the kids harder words, which makes me wonder where they’re going to find them. :o
A few years ago, MAD magazine did a piece on it, and included ways to liven it up. They included having the girls introduced by Chippendales and the boys introduced by Hooters girls; giving the kids words that just plain old don’t exist in any language; using the Indian kids’ names as spelling words; and using the words in really disturbing sentences, as in “Betsy became lachrymose when she saw her dog splattered all over the street.” 
As for me, I made it to the city level in 8th grade and got dinged on “justification”. I accidentally left out one of the "I"s in the middle.
These kids are pretty amazing, if only in terms of work ethic and memory. The national Math Bee kids are even more incredible.
The Geography Bee is pretty impressive too. These kids have to know about places that locals probably have never heard of.
A year or two ago, there was a boy who made it into the finals that I hoped would win it. It was really obvious from his onstage behavior and interviews that he was SEVERELY autistic, and unlike the autistic girl who won it about 20 years ago, he seemed like a really nice kid. IIRC, she was the first homeschooled winner, but this wasn’t a choice in their case; she had even been expelled from schools for kids like her, and had to be taken offstage when she wasn’t spelling because she could not behave appropriately onstage. 
I watched the finals this evening, and fast-forwarded my Tivo once it got down to the last two boys and I realized they knew all the words. At that point, it wasn’t particularly interesting.
I also noticed something else. I did not see a single obese, or even really chubby, youngster among them, at least the ones who were shown on television, and not much of that in the audience either. 
Maybe some of them lost weight because they knew they would be on TV; IDK, but I’ve observed that in past years too.