I thought of something last night - it might make it easier for some folks to understand why Phil and Paul should be respected, and not reviled - even if you choose to watch a different broadcaster! [Which I do, btw]. The thing to understand is that American broadcasters are still keyed in to American participation, and uninitiated audiences. I don't think most of the audience is that ignorant today, but who am I to say what the broadcasters give us?
A little timeline folks -
1986 - Greg wins his 1st tour - we get about an hour recap of the week's racing on the weekend. It might have been 1.5 hours.
1988 - down to no coverage again, if I recall. It was certainly a spotty period, with Lemond out of action.
89-90 - we get once weekly recap coverage, with a limited coverage of intermediate stages.
Coverage fades, 90-92 or 93. By 1993 I think there was no coverage again - no Americans were involved. Somebody help me here - we got a little coverage when Lance got involved.
Remember, in 1993 if you talked about the "internet" nobody would have known what you were talking about. The world-wide-web was still limited pretty much to unix users - very few, and very far between. BBS and telnet were big. The first browsers, Cello and Violawww were tiny one or two paragraph bits of news, buried somewhere in the middle of everything else. Marc Andreeson developed Cello the next year.
Lance brought coverage back to the US. His participation gave us an American hero again, and the networks would give THAT some time. I believe he doped, and that has spoiled those wins for me - but I can not take away that his wins were responsible for bringing good cycling coverage to the U.S. Additionally, he came from the tri-ranks, and that was a huge untapped audience that tuned in to the TdF because of Lance. They also started turning out for club rides in large numbers because of this.
Phil and Paul are cyclists, and they brought experience and knowledge to the broadcasts - to explain what was going on to, as I said earlier, an uninitiated audience. They helped grow the coverage in the US. If the US has grown past them, fine, no sweat off my nose. But, I still think they are due respect for the role they have played.
Bob Roll is another man due some respect, in spite of his clownish broadcasting. Remember - he finished the Giro riding for Andy Hampsten. ANY rider who managed to finish that Gavia stage is due respect.
Now, I will go back to my Eurosport broadcast with Sean Kelly.
Chapeau!
And then, this year before the first stage of California, I turned on the TV and the first thing I heard was, "and the Amgen Tour of California has now become that greatest race in the world." I changed the channel immediately.
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