NBC Gold screws Paris-Roubaix viewers

[GraftPunk]

Tiz was a huge fail for me, but luckily I found a French youtube stream (i can understand it reasonably) that hadn't been sniped by ASO. If not I'd have been out of luck. That was from around 80k to go.

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

That looks pretty good, but it's more than twice as expensive as NBC Gold and don't show Il Giro nor La Vuelta. Their schedule is still pretty great though. How reliable are their streams?

If the question was about CyclingTV, very reliable, no problem until now. No advertising during the race. Very high quality video.

I have 2 sportchannels on my tv package and Paris Roubaix was the first live race since the new season is started. Sometimes, it's nice to be sure to have a site where you're sure to find some races without problems. This year, i have problem with Tiz-Cycling.



P.S. For the Giro, it's a subscription just for that.

Who has a reliable subscription for the Giro in the USA? I will buy it!

 

[SHAD0W93]

My problem with Tiz is it keeps cutting out like 15km from the finish.

 

[yaco]

Re:

My problem with Tiz is it keeps cutting out like 15km from the finish.

This is the same problem for all these streams which ask for donations - They cut out because of band-with/resource issues - I only wish that there was a system that stopped people streaming when the resource limit is reached - So that people who watch from the start can watch the finish.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Re: Re:

My problem with Tiz is it keeps cutting out like 15km from the finish.

This is the same problem for all these streams which ask for donations - They cut out because of band-with/resource issues - I only wish that there was a system that stopped people streaming when the resource limit is reached - So that people who watch from the start can watch the finish.

Makes since. I thought it was just my laptop not being able to run it.
I watch a little bit on Tiz then when it cuts out I read the racing thread then 1-2 hrs later cycling den uploads it to youtube.
I'm happy you guys brought up the NBC gold since I was thinking about getting it beginning of the year.

 

[Nacho]

NBC(SN) doesn't give a crap. They delayed the Cable TV broadcast (in the USA) until Monday 10th at 6:00pm local time. And, that was one of the better timed cycling cable broadcast they do. Most of the other races they show, other than ToF, are broadcast at 1:00 in the morning. Heck, they even consistently give Curling (which I do like to watch BTW) better time slots than cycling. That pretty well tells you how low cycling events are on their priorities.

 

[Potomac]

Why does cycling coverage suck so bad in America? It drives me crazy

 

[Irondan]

Re:

Why does cycling coverage suck so bad in America? It drives me crazy

Because procycling is a "fringe" sport in the USA.

 

[Nacho]

Re: Re:

Why does cycling coverage suck so bad in America? It drives me crazy

Because procycling is a "fringe" sport in the USA.

Yeah -- and pretty much all of the races are in Europe. Europe has quite of a head start on the USA for bicycle races. We'll probably never catch up.

I also suspect it is probably pretty expensive to bring those races over to our market.

 

[Irondan]

Re: Re:

Why does cycling coverage suck so bad in America? It drives me crazy

Because procycling is a "fringe" sport in the USA.

Yeah -- and pretty much all of the races are in Europe. Europe has quite of a head start on the USA for bicycle races. We'll probably never catch up.

I also suspect it is probably pretty expensive to bring those races over to our market.

Well, we have a World Tour race now in the Tour of California but it's not as exclusive as when the WT required all WT teams to attend WT races but it's still the biggest race in the US.

As far as bringing the races over to the US market I'm assuming you mean a Grand Tour? The Giro has threatened in the past to have the race begin in the US to gain more market share and has not completely dismissed it at this juncture, yes it's partially due to cost of moving the entire professional peloton such a great distance but it's also the size of the disruption in the transfer between stages 3 and 4. It still may happen someday but things have quieted down since after the WCRR in 2015.

 

[cantpedal]

Google Chrome + Hola plugin for vpn and a Eurosport subscription for 6 or so a month. Very easy to set up. only issue is im starting to get hooked on watching more obscure (to us in the US) sports like biathalon

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

That looks pretty good, but it's more than twice as expensive as NBC Gold and don't show Il Giro nor La Vuelta. Their schedule is still pretty great though. How reliable are their streams?

If the question was about CyclingTV, very reliable, no problem until now. No advertising during the race. Very high quality video.

I have 2 sportchannels on my tv package and Paris Roubaix was the first live race since the new season is started. Sometimes, it's nice to be sure to have a site where you're sure to find some races without problems. This year, i have problem with Tiz-Cycling.

P.S. For the Giro, it's a subscription just for that.

I wish this poster would come back and tell us how he has " 2 sportchannels on my tv package" and "P.S. For the Giro, it's a subscription just for that." I'd be happy to pay the $$.

I have ascertained that cycling.tv will NOT be carrying the Giro.......

 

[Nacho]

Re: Re:

Why does cycling coverage suck so bad in America? It drives me crazy

Because procycling is a "fringe" sport in the USA.

Yeah -- and pretty much all of the races are in Europe. Europe has quite of a head start on the USA for bicycle races. We'll probably never catch up.

I also suspect it is probably pretty expensive to bring those races over to our market.

Well, we have a World Tour race now in the Tour of California but it's not as exclusive as when the WT required all WT teams to attend WT races but it's still the biggest race in the US.

As far as bringing the races over to the US market I'm assuming you mean a Grand Tour? The Giro has threatened in the past to have the race begin in the US to gain more market share and has not completely dismissed it at this juncture, yes it's partially due to cost of moving the entire professional peloton such a great distance but it's also the size of the disruption in the transfer between stages 3 and 4. It still may happen someday but things have quieted down since after the WCRR in 2015.

By "pretty expensive to bring those races over to our market" I was meaning only getting broadcast rights.

Actually, I was thinking more of the 1 day races. There are quite a few of them, and I supposed a good share of them would have to be negotiated separately -- a lot of time, effort, and probably pay more for it. By the time the (a) race is up and running and they start televising it -- in the end the TV stations would only get 1-2 hours of their schedule for 1 day. I think that is one of the reasons ToF and other tours are pretty popular is that the TV station gets a good chunk of their daily TV schedule for 1 week up to 3 weeks completed in 1 whack.

I mean, look at hockey. I'm in the southwest USA and I don't know of anybody down here that watches it. I sure don't. But down here it's all over NBCSN in the winter and through their playoffs (and they NEVER finish in the allotted time and they ALWAYS go over into something I want to watch -- ). But, I suppose they negotiate the rights for ALL of the games at once, and they fill up a good proportion of their schedule, and in the end it probably cost less than negotiating broadcast rights for single games.

 

[Inga Arvad]

Well, I was having trouble with the NBC Sports Gold website and the NBC Sports channel on my Roku but the iPad app worked flawlessly. Coverage continued through the podium ceremony. I connect the iPad to my HDTV with an adapter and HDMI cable.

 

[zlev11]

i watched the whole thing on NBC Gold on Roku and had zero problems.

 

[Irondan]

Re: Re:

Why does cycling coverage suck so bad in America? It drives me crazy

Because procycling is a "fringe" sport in the USA.

Yeah -- and pretty much all of the races are in Europe. Europe has quite of a head start on the USA for bicycle races. We'll probably never catch up.

I also suspect it is probably pretty expensive to bring those races over to our market.

Well, we have a World Tour race now in the Tour of California but it's not as exclusive as when the WT required all WT teams to attend WT races but it's still the biggest race in the US.

As far as bringing the races over to the US market I'm assuming you mean a Grand Tour? The Giro has threatened in the past to have the race begin in the US to gain more market share and has not completely dismissed it at this juncture, yes it's partially due to cost of moving the entire professional peloton such a great distance but it's also the size of the disruption in the transfer between stages 3 and 4. It still may happen someday but things have quieted down since after the WCRR in 2015.

By "pretty expensive to bring those races over to our market" I was meaning only getting broadcast rights.

Actually, I was thinking more of the 1 day races. There are quite a few of them, and I supposed a good share of them would have to be negotiated separately -- a lot of time, effort, and probably pay more for it. By the time the (a) race is up and running and they start televising it -- in the end the TV stations would only get 1-2 hours of their schedule for 1 day. I think that is one of the reasons ToF and other tours are pretty popular is that the TV station gets a good chunk of their daily TV schedule for 1 week up to 3 weeks completed in 1 whack.

I mean, look at hockey. I'm in the southwest USA and I don't know of anybody down here that watches it. I sure don't. But down here it's all over NBCSN in the winter and through their playoffs (and they NEVER finish in the allotted time and they ALWAYS go over into something I want to watch -- ). But, I suppose they negotiate the rights for ALL of the games at once, and they fill up a good proportion of their schedule, and in the end it probably cost less than negotiating broadcast rights for single games.

NBCsports and NBC Gold in particular don't have nowhere near enough subscribers to put together a sum that would be sufficiently enticing enough to get a one day race to move to the US rather than cycling mad Belgium or France.

It's really not even the money with the classics, it's the fact that a classic is a classic because of the history and the nuance of the particular roads they race on. How could any geographical location besides maybe the Boston area compare to racing on some of the roads in Flanders? The UCI would certainly entertain any offer provided it was enough $$$, but NBC could never make enough money to cover the cost of what it would take to uproot a classic from Europe, and appease the organizers for the aftermath. The press would skewer any organizer that suggested they move a classic to the US, even if it were only for one year. The only single day race on the WT calendar that would ever race on US soil will be/has been the WCRR.

If NBC really wanted to invest in pro cycling they would dump lots of money into a race already on the NRC and build it up to apply for WT status. Maybe someday 20 years later they could call it a classic but nothing would ever make it comparable to the european classics.

NBC recognizes that there's not enough interest in pro cycling here in the US to make a product that people will pay for. Sure, there's people that will subscribe. But not enough to buy the kind of coverage that the diehards like us are demanding.

I'm afraid we're stuck with NBCgold and it's piss poor service and pathetic race lineup. If they didn't televise the Tour nobody would buy their service at all.


*Sorry, I just woke up and started typing more of a stream of consciousness than a point of thought. I should be more intelligible after some coffee.

 

[This Charming Man]

I am very appreciative of NBC Gold, and Phil' and Paul rule.