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The Freecaster/WC coverage 2012 thread

SuspectDevice

Turbo Monkey
Aug 23, 2002
4,161
368
Roanoke, VA
Dude-
Compile all of this **** into a dossier, please!
You have done more research than the entire media combined.
I'm trying to put all of your posts together right now to send to a few people, it's making my brain explode.

Ridemonkey:
The cutting edge of cycling journalism.

Power of the internet goddamnit- changing the world one inept bureaucracy combined.

THANK YOU.
 
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Beef Supreme

Turbo Monkey
Oct 29, 2010
1,434
73
Hiding from the stupid
Dude-
Compile all of this **** into a dossier, please!
You have done more research than the entire media combined.
I'm trying to put all of your posts together right now to send to a few people, it"s making my brain explode.

Ridemonkey:
The cutting edge of cycling journalism.

Power of the internet goddamnit- it"s changing the world one inept bureaucracy combined.

THANK YOU.
:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Don't eff with the forum nerds!!!

:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 

monkeyfcuker

Monkey
May 26, 2008
912
8
UK, Carlisle
Threw some his way for ya.

From Martin Whiteley's Twitter,

"With the internet sh#tfight in full swing since the Rocky Roads PR, why are the UCI silent, where's the response? Defend your sponsor maybe?"

He makes a very good point, they're bound to be aware of the **** storm that is brewing!
 

drkenan

anti-dentite
Oct 1, 2006
3,441
1
west asheville
rocky road used to be mtb-live.com. If you type mtb-live.com into address bar you go to rocky road.

much less impressive stats for that site before he changed the name a few months ago

http://urldata.info/www.mtb-live.com
I couldn't resist putting my own business's site into urldata and it said we only get 17 hits per day. :eek: This is off quite a bit.

Regardless, I hope this dude is massively trolling the UCI and this results in a new governing body for DH.
 

Inclag

Turbo Monkey
Sep 9, 2001
2,752
442
MA
Dude-
Compile all of this **** into a dossier, please!
You have done more research than the entire media combined.
I'm trying to put all of your posts together right now to send to a few people, it"s making my brain explode.

Ridemonkey:
The cutting edge of cycling journalism.

Power of the internet goddamnit- it"s changing the world one inept bureaucracy combined.

THANK YOU.
Haha, well if these crooks haven't smartened up by tonight, maybe I'll journal as much as I can in one document.

What's funny is that I haven't quit my day job and have been busy designing a medical device and yet I've been able to pull all of this up as a result of the gross ineptitude of a few people and via the power of El Google in my spare 15 minutes here and there.

Personally, I hope Pat McQuaid gets into a sh!tstorm for this. Head of the UCI and a member of the IOC sitting there in photographs with a sh!t grin on his face shaking the hands of what is at the bare minimum a crook who pulled an amateur con job on him and at worst it was something that he was cognizant of. This shouldn't be something that us mountain bikers are complaining about, this is the stuff that should be in newspapers as he's friggin IOC!
 

Whoops

Turbo Monkey
Jul 9, 2006
1,011
0
New Zealand
Yarrr, massive scammer. Pump up a **** brand and nab the rights, then sell out to the next fool.

UCI are either complicit, or just plain incompetent. Either way, they suck.

edit - a 3 year deal? omg. that's some serious leverage Mr Scammer's got there.

edit again - was there no tender process put up by the UCI? No invitation for counter offer by freecaster or others?
 
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davetrump

Turbo Monkey
Jul 29, 2003
1,270
0
I couldn't resist putting my own business's site into urldata and it said we only get 17 hits per day. :eek: This is off quite a bit.

Regardless, I hope this dude is massively trolling the UCI and this results in a new governing body for DH.
fair enough.... http://siteanalytics.compete.com/mtb-live.com/

see if those match up for your company

either way this guy renamed his useless website and all of a sudden supposedly has hundreds of thousands of visitors.... riiiiigggght
 

davetrump

Turbo Monkey
Jul 29, 2003
1,270
0
Looks like Pinkbike is flying Mr. Rocky Road out to Champery for a one-on-one interview...
considering he is therein Champery, I am surprised no one has caught up with him.



Like the question Martin asked, why hasn't the UCI followed up that press release to defend their sponsor?
 

TrueScotsman

Monkey
Mar 20, 2002
271
2
Scotland
Right, to clear some things up.
I was at Eurobike today and was chatting to Si Paton of PinkBike (before he sped off to his private plane in his Bugatti Veyron!) and he has confirmed that he WILL have an exclusive interview with Mr Sietse Schelpe tomorrow at Champery.

So what kinds of questions would you ask him? (you never know Si Paton may read this!)
 

- seb

Turbo Monkey
Apr 10, 2002
2,924
1
UK
a friend of mine (who does post on here) claims to have looked over Mr RR's shoulder at Champery today and seen a program on his laptop called "tubefool".

http://tubefool.com/live/index/1

Certainly explains how he's got so many "followers" on twitter/facebook when no-one's ever heard of the site.

FWIW I think RR could be big, in a years time. Not an out-and-out con, just someone taking some shady steps to boost the early days of his site.

Maybe.
 

SuspectDevice

Turbo Monkey
Aug 23, 2002
4,161
368
Roanoke, VA
Did you know that they speak Spanish in Brazil? I didn't.

We need to hear some questions about the shady website SEO stuff- and is it rude to ask where they get money from? Seems like it's a reasonable question...
 

davetrump

Turbo Monkey
Jul 29, 2003
1,270
0
The guy is a piece of work.

He just said that he wants to attract casual riders and road cyclists - then in the next breath says road cyclists are sissies.
wow... the question about the conflict of interest that arises from having an editorial website as title sponsor went right over his head, haha.

Dirt, Pinkbike, Vital, etc are going be just thrilled to have to mention a rockyroads (another news site) in a their content covering world cups.

not exactly rocket science and someone running a business that has the ability to position itself as a title sponsor should be able to comprehend.

The guy dodges each question better than Sarah Palin
 

SuspectDevice

Turbo Monkey
Aug 23, 2002
4,161
368
Roanoke, VA
haha, is that why he "decided to stop?"
For some reason he couldn't find much sponsorship after the 2 year ban. Don't know why.

Specialized is still very angry. They ordered a boatload of bikes with rainbow stripes, huge tradeshow banners, etc. The positive came up 2 weeks before Interbike. Must have been fun.
 
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aaronjb

Turbo Monkey
Jul 22, 2010
1,105
659
Personally, I hope Pat McQuaid gets into a sh!tstorm for this.
Hope in one hand and a sh!tstorm in the other.

Seriously, guys - I appreciate the outrage, but keep things in perspective. If McQuaid et. al. (including predecessors) haven't been investigated internally nor charged nor prosecuted for their misdeeds re: road cycling, then nothing's going to happen here.

If McQuaid himself isn't in the know on the scam, I'd be surprised.
 

aaronjb

Turbo Monkey
Jul 22, 2010
1,105
659
Notorious doper. He even had a world title stripped!
Filip was a downhill racer, waaaay back when.

For some reason he couldn't find much sponsorship after the 2 year ban. Don't know why.
You'll note that he didn't have much trouble finding a gig on the road, even in his late 30s and without notable results there. I suspect he had a nice bag of tricks.
 
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big-ted

Danced with A, attacked by C, fired by D.
Sep 27, 2005
1,400
47
Vancouver, BC
RockRoad interview, downloading to listen now:

http://www.charlesrobertsonphotography.com/rockyroad/

I've got to be honest, in this interview it sounds to me like he's pretty open to current news agencies continuing coverage as before, no? And yes, he specifically states that the deal is not a "purchasing of rights" type deal. Granted there are some definite "anomalies" regarding his previous business practices, but I don't see any reason to be concerned that coverage will suffer as a result of this agreement just yet.

Dirt and Vital seem to have no problems cross-promoting each other...
 

ocelot

Monkey
Mar 8, 2009
395
10
Canadastan
Interview with Anneke Beerten, the new 4x champion: "Have you learned anything about your cross country adventures to win this race?"

WTF?!!
 

norbar

KESSLER PROBLEM. Just cause
Jun 7, 2007
11,368
1,605
Warsaw :/
Fraser I understand we have to wait for after the champs for the industry/media to officialy go berzerk on UCI?
 

'size

Turbo Monkey
May 30, 2007
2,000
338
AZ
this thread has morphed into a rockyroads focus rather than a freecaster one. how does RR have anything to do with the UCI asking for tons of $$$ from freecaster for 2012 film rights? i understand all the RR stuff in regards to their website/business and lack of time and knowledge covering MTB racing then becoming the main sponsor, but it doesn't seem it has any correlation to the freecaster situation.

correct or enlighten me as i'm curious how the two are related.
 

zdubyadubya

Turbo Monkey
Apr 13, 2008
1,273
96
Ellicott City, MD
this thread has morphed into a rockyroads focus rather than a freecaster one. how does RR have anything to do with the UCI asking for tons of $$$ from freecaster for 2012 film rights? i understand all the RR stuff in regards to their website/business and lack of time and knowledge covering MTB racing then becoming the main sponsor, but it doesn't seem it has any correlation to the freecaster situation.

correct or enlighten me as i'm curious how the two are related.
RR supposedly provides online viewing of races (formerly mtb-live.com or something like that). its obvious that they ponied up cash freecaster couldn't. problem is that freecaster has amazing coverage. RR sucks (if they are even capable of doing it--which most of us on here doubt they can).

or.... its an inside job. UCI set up their own shadow company to film races and make money off of the filming--which would in turn ban companies such as vital or dirt from getting footage because film rights are owned by someone else.
 

TrueScotsman

Monkey
Mar 20, 2002
271
2
Scotland
People need to wait until facts come out fully. As far as I know this deal has NOTHING to do with any freecaster or any other media restrictions. And I speak from the coal face (Champery).
 

'size

Turbo Monkey
May 30, 2007
2,000
338
AZ
RR supposedly provides online viewing of races (formerly mtb-live.com or something like that). its obvious that they ponied up cash freecaster couldn't. problem is that freecaster has amazing coverage. RR sucks (if they are even capable of doing it--which most of us on here doubt they can).

or.... its an inside job. UCI set up their own shadow company to film races and make money off of the filming--which would in turn ban companies such as vital or dirt from getting footage because film rights are owned by someone else.
in the audio interview -seb posted the RR dude says they have no video rights and if they want them they would have to purchase them as a separate deal from their title sponsorship. he even says he would like to talk to ray from freecaster about video. he also states that no journalists will ever be charged or prevented from reporting on the WC races. how do you know RR video coverage sucks? have you ever seen any? it doesn't appear anyone here had even heard of them before this week.

doesn't the UCI already film the races and make money off them? my understanding is it's all their equipment on the hill and freecaster pays them a fee to tap into their feed and broadcast it and add their own commentators. the UCI then jacked up that fee for next season and freecaster said no. yes they could take away that privilege from freecaster or anyone else and give exclusive rights to RR but is there any proof of this? and if that did happen, wouldn't RR essentially be given access to the same UCI feed that freecaster has been getting? what they could or would actually do with it is suspect though, i agree.

i understand the WTF reaction to a 3 yr title sponsorship deal with a company none of us have ever heard of and the apparently shady business practices of it's owner. i understand RR and the UCI could be less than truthful regarding everything that's been said and could take over all journalistic rights later on, but it seems a bit reactionary to assume they are just going to shut everyone else out with zero proof (that we as fans have) at this point.

TrueScotsman seems to agree and have much more info than any of us. i'm just trying to understand what is going on but it doesn't sound like anyone really knows anything at this point and is just speculating.
 

drkenan

anti-dentite
Oct 1, 2006
3,441
1
west asheville
According to Twitter, Freecaster's holding a press conference today after the finals to discuss their situation. Should be interesting.
 

nmpearson

Monkey
Dec 30, 2006
213
8
The owner of freecaster just said he's going to fight hard to be covering the World Cups next year. Apparently he said it's not def over, that there may be ways to cover them next year. So, him and Warner didn't seem like it was so definite that it's over for them...i certainly hope not
 

drkenan

anti-dentite
Oct 1, 2006
3,441
1
west asheville
The owner of freecaster just said he's going to fight hard to be covering the World Cups next year. Apparently he said it's not def over, that there may be ways to cover them next year. So, him and Warner didn't seem like it was so definite that it's over for them...i certainly hope not
He also mentioned something about a new global series?