BBC coverage of the UCI DH World champs

thelonegroover

Am I missing something? We’ve just had a UCI World championship downhill round in the UK and the BBC don’t even seem to recognise it was on. Is this a reflection on UCI or the BBC?

bluechair84

Probably more a reflection on the size of the sport which is miniscule compared to tennis and football.

meursault

bluechair84 wrote:

Probably more a reflection on the size of the sport which is miniscule compared to tennis and football.

Tennis? WTF?

welshkev

meursault wrote:

bluechair84 wrote:

Probably more a reflection on the size of the sport which is miniscule compared to tennis and football.

Tennis? WTF?

yeah I've often wondered what the actual viewing figures were for sports like tennis, darts, bowls etc. eurosport/ITV cover the road races. you'd think someone would pick up the DH world cups.

It'd be interesting to see the viewing figures (if it's possible) from Red Bull of who watched the DH

paul.skibum

Red Bull have the TV rights effectively so they show it on their channel. BBC doesnt show stuff it doesnt have the rights too. Oddly enough if you were in say Italy next weekend you would probably find that Italian TV is not showing the race there either.

warpcow

It could at least be reported with the other sports news though: WC round held in UK, won by UK riders. It happens all the time that clips from events other channels own the rights to are shown in the sports news. Generally though, I agree it's to do with the size of the sport (even if I doubt bowls gets many viewers, it's some kind of tradition).

thelonegroover

I wasn't really expecting wall to wall coverage as they do with Wimpledon or the Open, but surely they can report the results in the cycling news.

jairaj

I don't expect it to be televised but I think its pretty rubbish that the BBC sport website has no mention of off-road cycling in any form. Not even a one off report as there was an major DH event taking place in the UK.

bowden769

i seem to remeber watching it last year on eurosport tho !!

welshkev

bowden769 wrote:

i seem to remeber watching it last year on eurosport tho !!

I think they might have shown it about a month after it actually happened

bowden769

yes its quite possable

ddraver

Guys, if it had been on virtually NONE of us would have watched it anyway. There is no reason to put it on. It's a minority sport from which a tiny minority of people watch the pro races.

We re in to mountain biking enough that we post on an internet forum about it. Without looking can anyone name the full podiums? Who won the World Cup last year? Where were the races?

No, me neither

Like it or not, people DO watch Tennis, Darts, Snooker etc even if most of them havent played any sport for decades.

welshkev

ddraver wrote:

Guys, if it had been on virtually NONE of us would have watched it anyway. There is no reason to put it on. It's a minority sport from which a tiny minority of people watch the pro races.

We re in to mountain biking enough that we post on an internet forum about it. Without looking can anyone name the full podiums? Who won the World Cup last year? Where were the races?

No, me neither

Like it or not, people DO watch Tennis, Darts, Snooker etc even if most of them havent played any sport for decades.

where's your proof of that? i'm not dismissing it. but where's the figures to back that up?

most of my riding mates (about 20 that I know of) all watched it on line yesterday - myself included.

full podium for yesterday? gee, brook McDonald and stevie smith. Rachel Atherton, manon and emiline ragot

arron gwin smashed it last year as well btw. but only finished 20th yesterday.

but you're right, no one's interested :roll:

bluechair84

meursault wrote:

bluechair84 wrote:

Probably more a reflection on the size of the sport which is miniscule compared to tennis and football.

Tennis? WTF?

How many stops are there on the World Cup - 6? Doesn't seem like there's a great deal of interest around the world to me. Sure there are nationals as well, but compared to the number of championships in tennis, DH is dwarfed. I imagine the viewing figures to be a hell of a lot higher around the world for Tennis. Hell, it's even in the Olympics. It might have been news worthy to mention that a Brit had won an internaitonal event on home turf, but then they're kind of tied in to report on his progress at the other races. People outside of our minority sport don't give a stuff about our minority sport.

welshkev

bluechair84 wrote:

meursault wrote:

bluechair84 wrote:

Probably more a reflection on the size of the sport which is miniscule compared to tennis and football.

Tennis? WTF?

How many stops are there on the World Cup - 6? Doesn't seem like there's a great deal of interest around the world to me. .

but surely that's down to a lot of factors, i'd guess mainly cost issues

bluechair84

welshkev wrote:

bluechair84 wrote:

meursault wrote:

bluechair84 wrote:

Probably more a reflection on the size of the sport which is miniscule compared to tennis and football.

Tennis? WTF?

How many stops are there on the World Cup - 6? Doesn't seem like there's a great deal of interest around the world to me. .

but surely that's down to a lot of factors, i'd guess mainly cost issues

It's all speculation, but building the tennis arenas for Wimbledon I imagine would cost more than building the fort bill run :?:
I just had a quick look; The Guardianreports the Wimbledon final last year attracted 17 million viewers. They're kind of comparable on the grounds of a Brit with a chance of winning competing on home turf, at a world class stage. Being on TV will make it considerable easier to tune in than Red Bull's online broadcast so no they're not equals, but I'd be interested to see what their viewing figures were for yesterday.

welshkev

17 million, now that's a lot of viewers!! :shock:

but how many of them are just watching it because it's on the TV? I know I've watched it before and I wouldn't normally choose to watch tennis.

I wonder how many people may watch the DH if it was more accessable? all conjecture of course. and I doubt it'd be anywhere near 17 million

concorde

Tennis is massive compared to DH! DH is tiny in comparison. Hence the ridiculous prize monies. BBC wouldn't touch that in a million years. Whoever thinks it's a big sport is delusional!

welshkev

it's weird though. I know 1 person who plays tennis regulary.

how is it so popular?

jairaj

Is that because of your friends circle? I'm sure if you pick a different demographic they could be a different ratio of tennis players and bikers.

The parks near me that have tennis courts are usually occupied all the time. Its definitely a popular sport.

welshkev

jairaj wrote:

Is that because of your friends circle? I'm sure if you pick a different demographic they could be a different ratio of tennis players and bikers.

The parks near me that have tennis courts are usually occupied all the time. Its definitely a popular sport.

possibly yes, but I mean as a whole. I know plenty of people who, swim, run, play cricket, golf etc.
there is a tennis club in my town so it has to be reasonably popular

ddraver

welshkev wrote:

ddraver wrote:

Guys, if it had been on virtually NONE of us would have watched it anyway. There is no reason to put it on. It's a minority sport from which a tiny minority of people watch the pro races.

We re in to mountain biking enough that we post on an internet forum about it. Without looking can anyone name the full podiums? Who won the World Cup last year? Where were the races?

No, me neither

Like it or not, people DO watch Tennis, Darts, Snooker etc even if most of them havent played any sport for decades.

where's your proof of that? i'm not dismissing it. but where's the figures to back that up?

most of my riding mates (about 20 that I know of) all watched it on line yesterday - myself included.

full podium for yesterday? gee, brook McDonald and stevie smith. Rachel Atherton, manon and emiline ragot

arron gwin smashed it last year as well btw. but only finished 20th yesterday.

but you're right, no one's interested :roll:

Oh so hilarious Sacrasm aside, If that's true then fair enough. If I had nt been in Algeria, I'd have watched too. But I also watch the XC and Road stuff if I can so I'm a rarity

Anecdotal stories, when Steve Pete won the WC, I sent an e-mail around the bike group. most of them replied asking who Steve Pete was! if you follow the XC chat on the side of RedBull TV the vast majority of people are not from the UK, they re mostly Eastern Europeans with a couple of US and Aus.

The "spoiler threads" for the Olympic XC races on here got to about 4 pages each - a single stage of a frankly not very important Road Race will get more that that in ProRace

But you wanted actual numbers so -

http://www.uci.ch/Modules/ENews/ENewsDe ... Id=MTI2Mjc

So for THE ENTIRE YEAR,

Across THE ENTIRE SPECTRUM OF MTBing

Over THE ENTIRE WORLD

There are less people (14.6M at that count) that watched MTBing than watched a single Tennis tournament in a single country...and you think the BBC should cover mountain biking? Come on!

DCR00

welshkev wrote:

I wonder how many people may watch the DH if it was more accessable? all conjecture of course. and I doubt it'd be anywhere near 17 million

Prob not, but i bet most people would accept it as an entertaining sport to watch. The coverage on Red Bull was pretty good, and far more entertaining than road racing (IMO of course)

Just a shame that the quality of the stream was so crap

I was trying to record the replay to watch at my leisure, but the picture quality was a bit sketchy to say the least

Shame that Dirt didnt have a live feed

welshkev

ddraver wrote:

and you think the BBC should cover mountain biking? Come on!

read the thread again..no where did I state that the BBC should cover it.

I also watch road racing. I watchted most of the criterium de dauphine, the giro and some others and i'll watch the tour as well.

that's 1.4 million people who made the effort to watch. again, i'll refer to my point that how many would make that effort to watch (for example) tennis? would it still get the same viewing figures if it was only shown on line?

again, it's all conjecture

welshkev

DCR00 wrote:

welshkev wrote:

I wonder how many people may watch the DH if it was more accessable? all conjecture of course. and I doubt it'd be anywhere near 17 million

Prob not, but i bet most people would accept it as an entertaining sport to watch. The coverage on Red Bull was pretty good, and far more entertaining than road racing (IMO of course)

Just a shame that the quality of the stream was so crap

I was trying to record the replay to watch at my leisure, but the picture quality was a bit sketchy to say the least

Shame that Dirt didnt have a live feed

I think red bull tv to watch on demand for a week after don't they?

jairaj

I don't think anyone has stated they think it should get TV coverage on the BBC. But a mention or a even just a results page on the BBC sport cycling page would be justified. Especially as us Brits are quite good at it.

I totally agree it is not a popular sport and even those who partake in it do not follow the race scene whether that's DH, XC or 4X or anything else. But would have thought a 2 sec mention would be nice? maybe I've just got my rose tinted specs on?

mcnultycop

Just to put my cards on the table I like to watch downill as a sport, I think the downhillers are superb and wish I could do it.

It simply doesn't make good TV though. As stages are often at least partially in forests the cameras cannot get an overall viewpoint on the action, so you see each of the riders at a number of sections of the run, but not a complete run. Also most sports that involve going down something quickly (luge, bonsleigh, skiing, etc) are difficult to watch as you are basically just looking at a clock and split times without actually being able to understand how each rider tackled each section compared to another.

I regularly watch the road cycling as it makes a decent TV show, nice landscapes in HD, clearly there is a winner each day (and each intermeidate sprint, KOM, etc), commentators are often pretty good to listen to.

I'd watch downhill on TV, but I don't think many non-MTBers would, and to be honest, if they did they'd just be waiting to see a crash.

ddraver

^It's a good point - and why the Olympic course ended up looking the way it did. In fairness it was by far the best coverage of a bike race I ve seen, but I don't need to remind everyone how unpopular the course was...

welshkev

mcnulty cop: just out of interest did you watch the red bull coverage yesterday? I found it really good. you didn't see the full run, but the way it was done worked really well in my opinion. add in rob warners (marmite) commentary and it was great

DCR00

welshkev wrote:

mcnulty cop: just out of interest did you watch the red bull coverage yesterday? I found it really good. you didn't see the full run, but the way it was done worked really well in my opinion. add in rob warners (marmite) commentary and it was great

Yeah i would second this. They had a lot of cameras set up on the course, so coverage was pretty good.

mcnultycop

welshkev wrote:

mcnulty cop: just out of interest did you watch the red bull coverage yesterday? I found it really good. you didn't see the full run, but the way it was done worked really well in my opinion. add in rob warners (marmite) commentary and it was great

Nah, I went out on my bike (then watched the darts). I don't think I could face watching lots of it on my laptop - highlights, maybe, but not sitting there for a few hours.