[norbar]

Hey,

Lenzerheide Finals WynTV mentioned something about only Top30 qualifying. Am I stupid/deaf or is this really planned?

 

[sethimus]

i have a huge feeling that we will look back to 2022 for a looong time

 

[norbar]

I dont think there is a legitimate reason to shorten DH for TV when road is way longer than current DH so I hope this doesn't happen.

Then again maybe the screw up so hard we finally have people return to openly talking about a non UCI downhill world cup

 

[sethimus]

red bull x crankworx, make it happen

 

[canadmos]

I dont think there is a legitimate reason to shorten DH for TV when road is way longer than current DH so I hope this doesn't happen.

Then again maybe the screw up so hard we finally have people return to openly talking about a non UCI downhill world cup

Maybe Discovery doesn't care and just wants it to fit into one of their 30 minute windows?


Gary mentioned in the other thread, "who cares about any of the 30-60 ranked riders". Well, lots of people really. If true, it'll mean even less exposure and whatnot for people who are already struggling to make the races and trying to gain more support.

Like the denim destroyer and maybe David Trummer? If they never were broadcasted on the race show, would they have gained what they did at the time?

 

[jonKranked]

Maybe Discovery doesn't care and just wants it to fit into one of their 30 minute windows?

WhyNotBoth.jpg

 

[norbar]

Maybe Discovery doesn't care and just wants it to fit into one of their 30 minute windows?


Gary mentioned in the other thread, "who cares about any of the 30-60 ranked riders". Well, lots of people really. If true, it'll mean even less exposure and whatnot for people who are already struggling to make the races and trying to gain more support.

Like the denim destroyer and maybe David Trummer? If they never were broadcasted on the race show, would they have gained what they did at the time?

They do sports in 30 minute windows? I still remember watching full tour episodes on Eurosport since I assume that's where they want it. It really seems we are going into the dark ages of downhill back again. The worst part is Disco may drop UCI like Eurosport previous owners did in the past and then we will have no coverage...

 

[sethimus]

They do sports in 30 minute windows? I still remember watching full tour episodes on Eurosport since I assume that's where they want it. It really seems we are going into the dark ages of downhill back again. The worst part is Disco may drop UCI like Eurosport previous owners did in the past and then we will have no coverage...

you‘ll gonna pay for gcn+ like the rest of us

 

[norbar]

you‘ll gonna pay for gcn+ like the rest of us

If they keep the current presentation format I have no issue with paying for the content I like. The problem is them fucking it up

 

[Avy]

Hey,

Lenzerheide Finals WynTV mentioned something about only Top30 qualifying. Am I stupid/deaf or is this really planned?

What I don’t understand is How? They(Discovery)bought the Broadcast rights of the UCI DH/XC. That Package has rules to it set by the UCI No? Like protected Riders and so on. What next,Track can only be 2 minutes long? It feels like someone Very Powerful is tryin to pull strings.

Avy

 

[canadmos]

What I don’t understand is How? They(Discovery)bought the Broadcast rights of the UCI DH/XC. That Package has rules to it set by the UCI No? Like protected Riders and so on. What next,Track can only be 2 minutes long? It feels like someone Very Powerful is tryin to pull strings.

Avy

No different than how Red Bull influences or dictates of that already now.

 

[fwp]

Top 30 would have some pretty big names rethinking their careers, take the 2 or 3 top juniors moving up you have 20 something spots. That is a terrible idea, especially for young riders.

 

[Avy]

No different than how Red Bull influences or dictates of that already now.

What has Red Bull done in Regards to this? IE,chopping it down to 30 is earthshaking tome? Have they done anything close to that?

Avy

 

[norbar]

What I don’t understand is How? They(Discovery)bought the Broadcast rights of the UCI DH/XC. That Package has rules to it set by the UCI No? Like protected Riders and so on. What next,Track can only be 2 minutes long? It feels like someone Very Powerful is tryin to pull strings.

Avy

It may no be discovery but general UCI fuckery.

 

[norbar]

No different than how Red Bull influences or dictates of that already now.

They dictate small things like what media are allowed not the format of the sport

 

[sethimus]

What has Red Bull done in Regards to this? IE,chopping it down to 30 is earthshaking tome? Have they done anything close to that?

Avy

choping it down to 60? only showing the top 30?

 

[dump]

Dh is looking more and more like f1 ))))

 

[slyfink]

I just posted in the Lenzerheide thread that, imo, DH biking is most similar to DH skiing. I don't watch DH skiing, but does anyone know who broadcasts it, and what the selection and race format is?

edited to add, google is (sometimes) my friend:

Watch Every FIS World Cup Event Live, On Demand This Season

U.S. Ski & Snowboard is excited to announce multiple opportunities for U.S. fans to watch every FIS World Cup event this season live, or on-demand, leading up to the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

usskiandsnowboard.org

160 live events?!?! holy shit... we've got a looooong way to go. Maybe the UCI should hire someone from FIS to shake things up a bit. Good grief.

 

[norbar]

I just posted in the Lenzerheide thread that, imo, DH biking is most similar to DH skiing. I don't watch DH skiing, but does anyone know who broadcasts it, and what the selection and race format is?

edited to add, google is (sometimes) my friend:
View attachment 178869

Watch Every FIS World Cup Event Live, On Demand This Season

U.S. Ski & Snowboard is excited to announce multiple opportunities for U.S. fans to watch every FIS World Cup event this season live, or on-demand, leading up to the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

usskiandsnowboard.org

160 live events?!?! holy shit... we've got a looooong way to go. Maybe the UCI should hire someone from FIS to shake things up a bit. Good grief.

UCI should be dismantled, their buildings demolished, people put in jail. I mean they are up there with FIFA and FIA

 

[jonKranked]

UCI should be dismantled, their buildings demolished, people put in jail. I mean they are up there with FIFA and FIA

DICK POUND

 

[slyfink]

DH is not skiing. Generally without a strong marketing push few new sports get that much exposure. Snowboarding isn't as big as Alpine skiing in Austria and Switzerland but those are local traditional sports.

The only real recent breakthrough is MMA but MMA was really lucky they grew a lot abroad in countries with strong martial arts cultures and in USA it grew thanks to a reality show since USA has a long bullshit entertainment culture

I'm not sure I fully understand your point... are you saying alpine is popular only because it's a "legacy" sport, and has grown over time?

Road is more popular because it's old. That's all. Most people still don't watch road. They simply understand people watch it because it's on linear TV and they've seen it while flicking channels

and yet the teams are big, and the budgets are huge. so even if people don't "watch" it, they're still seeing it, and therefore there is a value proposition somewhere in there...

I'd also say that racing on dirt preceded racing on roads... but that's just semantics really

Weirdly USA also produces the best storytellers on earth and has created the best system for telling visual stories. A country of extremes

QFT

 

[slyfink]

To

I just posted in the Lenzerheide thread that, imo, DH biking is most similar to DH skiing. I don't watch DH skiing, but does anyone know who broadcasts it, and what the selection and race format is?

To answer my own question, I found this on-line:

Starting Order for the First Run
The starting order of the competitors in all alpine competitions is determined by their FIS points (Downhill, Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super-G and Super Combined). A first group of a maximum of the 15 best competitors present regardless of nationality will be drawn. The group may be increased if two or more competitors share the 15th rank. All remaining competitors start in order of their FIS points. All competitors without FIS points will be drawn in the last group. If in the first 15 competitors present, the points difference between one and the following competitor is too great; the Jury will decide the number of competitors in the first group. The rest will start in the order of their FIS points.

Starting Order for the 2nd Run
In competitions with two runs, the starting order for the second run is determined by the result list of the first run except for the first 30 places. 621.11.2 For the first 30 places the starting order is as follows: – the 30th in the result list starts 1st – the 29th in the result list starts 2nd – the 28th in the result list starts 3rd – the 27th in the result list starts 4th – the 1st in the result list starts 30th – from the 31st onward according to the result list of the first run. If more than one competitor is ranked 30th, the competitor with the lowest start number will start first.

So, in Alpine skiing, only the top 15 overall points holders are guaranteed a spot in a race. "All remaining competitors" start in the order of their points. Doesn't say how many get to race. The implication with the 2nd run rule is 30 racers... So it sounds like Disco is looking at Alpine Skiing as a model.

Hrmph. Maybe skiing isn't such a great model for DH biking then... for one thing, they have 160 events to get points at... that's a lot of events. I guess that having 4 or 5 disciplines in which to get points really makes a difference. Maybe we need to bring back 4x and DS at race weekends then!?

Oh man, I guess what it comes down to is that I'm happy with the way things are now and I don't want change! : oldmanyellingatclouds :

 

[norbar]

I'm not sure I fully understand your point... are you saying alpine is popular only because it's a "legacy" sport, and has grown over time?

and yet the teams are big, and the budgets are huge. so even if people don't "watch" it, they're still seeing it, and therefore there is a value proposition somewhere in there...

I'd also say that racing on dirt preceded racing on roads... but that's just semantics really

QFT

1. I'm saying legacy means a lot. It means those sports grew in a vacuum without competing with many developed sports and now many people do it because of tradition. It's an obvious choice for kids and it's an established way of spending time.
2. People watch Road. It's just a billion people doesn't watch road. If a billion people watched road then road cycling teams would have Real Madrid like budgets. They don't.
3. Yes racing on dirt preceded road racing but current road racing is an evolution of that dirt riding. That sport evolved into current road.

Overall screw UCI and competing with legacy sports. Just work like extreme sports work. Make the organization rider owned. It's a sport for us by us. We need the UCI as much as I need pineapple on pizza.

 

[iRider]

2. People watch Road. It's just a billion people doesn't watch road. If a billion people watched road then road cycling teams would have Real Madrid like budgets. They don't.

Depends on how they count. I assume they just add the people that watch each day of e.g. the TdF as they have no way of measuring how many of them are returning viewers.

 

[slyfink]

1. I'm saying legacy means a lot. It means those sports grew in a vacuum without competing with many developed sports and now many people do it because of tradition. It's an obvious choice for kids and it's an established way of spending time.
2. People watch Road. It's just a billion people doesn't watch road. If a billion people watched road then road cycling teams would have Real Madrid like budgets. They don't.
3. Yes racing on dirt preceded road racing but current road racing is an evolution of that dirt riding. That sport evolved into current road.

Overall screw UCI and competing with legacy sports. Just work like extreme sports work. Make the organization rider owned. It's a sport for us by us. We need the UCI as much as I need pineapple on pizza.

you see my post in the Andorra thread? Sounds like Loic is organizing a rider union to act as a common voice to Disco-UCI... I think this is a good development (As reported by Neko on the Downtime Podcast)

 

[norbar]

Depends on how they count. I assume they just add the people that watch each day of e.g. the TdF as they have no way of measuring how many of them are returning viewers.

I can ask the research people at work if there is a functionality of unique sustained viewers in nielsen panels. 1 bilion sounds high even if they added global daily views for every day. It would still mean 50 milion viewers per day. So their either added views from a few years or added also streaming + some weird youtube views and other sources.

French football matches get 16 milion viewers in France and TDF is not in the top10 French TX's.

Eurosport Global subscriber numbers are 157 milion. It's unlikely 1/3 of their total subscriber numbers watches TDF. Possible but unlikely knowing typical TV sub to views ratio

 

[norbar]

you see my post in the Andorra thread? Sounds like Loic is organizing a rider union to act as a common voice to Disco-UCI... I think this is a good development (As reported by Neko on the Downtime Podcast)

I've read it and I'm super for it. A strong riders union is a good idea. It even works in some US sports if I remember right

 

[Gary]

French football matches get 16 milion viewers in France

Apparently an Estimated 10-12 million spectators line the roads over the 3 weeks of the tour each year.
I've absolutely no idea who counts them.

 

[slyfink]

Apparently an Estimated 10-12 million spectators line the roads over the 3 weeks of the tour each year.
I've absolutely no idea who counts them.

local police forces maybe?

 

[StiHacka]

 

[norbar]

Apparently an Estimated 10-12 million spectators line the roads over the 3 weeks of the tour each year.
I've absolutely no idea who counts them.

You can only do guestimates by aerial photos. The only way to be even in the ballpark of correct and by in the ballpark I mean probably like 8-15 mil but again they probably counted people at every stage as different people and counted people cought in traffic too.

I mean seriously they don't realize that France would be paralyzed if this was true. 20% of your population goes to 1 place of the country. Generally those numbers are whack as hell.People don't realize how 10 milion people looks. How stupid big number that is. Warsaw had the biggest mass protest since 89 2 years ago. I was there and the estimates were 100-200k people. The whole city was paralyzed. Even if TDF takes place over 200k x 20 stages the lines can't be that deep and it would still mean 500k viewers per stage. Not possible

Plus for popularity you need to count 2 groups:
1. Fans who drive there
2. Locals who are like "well if it's nearby I can see". Stadium sports don't have it. So it's not apples to apples.

 

[norbar]

DICK POUND

Was that the guy who wanted to give Wada some balls?

 

[Gary]

You can only do guestimates by aerial photos. The only way to be even in the ballpark of correct and by in the ballpark I mean probably like 8-15 mil but again they probably counted people at every stage as different people and counted people cought in traffic too.

I don't actually care.

 

[Gary]

You can only do guestimates by aerial photos. The only way to be even in the ballpark of correct and by in the ballpark I mean probably like 8-15 mil but again they probably counted people at every stage as different people and counted people cought in traffic too.

I don't actually care.

 

[norbar]

I don't actually care.

You always struck me as a very caring person.

 

[Gary]

I mean seriously they don't realize that France would be paralyzed if this was true. 20% of your population goes to 1 place of the country.

I can't believe you really have so little clue what the TdF is that you think it's held in one place?
it's a 23 stage competition covering 2000miles

 

[Flo33]

The ITT up Alpe d'Huez 2004 had and estimated attendance of 500000 fans. Just watch it on yt. It's unbelievable.

I was there in 2006 and you can't imagine what's going on that mountain alone. We arrived 3 days before the stage and half the mountain was already a big camping ground. On race day there were people literally everywhere. We were sleeping on the road behind our car and the most frightening thing were the 40to trucks with the whole equipment needed at a stage finish hammering past us in our sleeping bags in the middle of the night before race day. Out of nowhere. Nearly shat my pants.
Also had a nice conversation with a french police sergeant after the race. Learned that running naked on the roads in France is forbidden.

 

[StiHacka]

I can'tr believe you really have so little clue what the TdF is that you think it's held in one place?
it's a 23 stage competition covering 2000miles

So comparing spectators per mile, DH does betterer?

 

[norbar]

I can't believe you really have so little clue what the TdF is that you think it's held in one place?
it's a 23 stage competition covering 2000miles

I really can't believe you have so little reading skills you missed the part where I said it. "Even if TDF takes place over 200k x 20 stages"

So yes i know it's long. it's still a lot of people going in a general direction. Gary I know you like to argue and you may be grumpy at me since we had a spat yesterday but that's no reason to forget how to read.

 

[norbar]

The ITT up Alpe d'Huez 2004 had and estimated attendance of 500000 fans. Just watch it on yt. It's unbelievable.

I was there in 2006 and you can't imagine what's going on that mountain alone. We arrived 3 days before the stage and half the mountain was already a big camping ground. On race day there were people literally everywhere. We were sleeping on the road behind our car and the most frightening thing were the 40to trucks with the whole equipment needed at a stage finish hammering past us in our sleeping bags in the middle of the night before race day. Out of nowhere. Nearly shat my pants.
Also had a nice conversation with a french police sergeant after the race. Learned that running naked on the roads in France is forbidden.

I've been there. I don't know what maths they have been using but you can't fit 500k people in key stages. I know it's crazy but there is a big difference between crazy and 500k people. 500k people is 6 lanes of traffic for kilometers of people. There are no 6 lane roads there so it's even more.

But generally even if that's true then 500k for the most famous stage. 23stages. Not every stage can have those numbers.


To visualise the issue this is a small % of 100k people: