The current state of pro cycling - an appraisal

[Alex Simmons/RST]

I still don't get your point. The only comparison that makes sense is with content people want to watch, i.e. actual races, not fluff pieces and 2-minute highlight reels.

If any of those channels you cite actually had pro / world tour men's bike races on view, then we can talk about the audience and financial viability comparison. Else the comparison makes no sense. Why compare content very few are interested in watching with content that many would be interested in watching.

It's like saying the YouTube channel covering slow motion repeats of ends of the local lawn bowls tournament is a good guide to how many people might want to pay watch a Formula 1 race on their TV.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

I still don't get your point.

Oh. My. God.

 

[simoni]

Re:

Why compare content very few are interested in watching with content that many would be interested in watching.

But that's exactly the point that's been made (albeit in an overly disparaging style).

You say there's many that would be interested in watching such content. How many and how do we know this? I just don't see evidence that the audience being there to make it work at present.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re: Re:

Why compare content very few are interested in watching with content that many would be interested in watching.

But that's exactly the point that's been made (albeit in an overly disparaging style).

You say there's many that would be interested in watching such content. How many and how do we know this? I just don't see evidence that the audience being there to make it work at present.

Well you start with the numbers actually watching the actual race content available now, not by looking at completely different and irrelevant content. At least compare apples with pears, and not with rubber bands.

Now once you have that information, consider that many people watching that actual race content can only access some of the content, not all of it.

e.g. I'd watch more races if more of the race season were available to me to watch. But they're not.

I think it would be reasonable to assume that the current aggregate number of people viewing the disparate televising of races would represent the minimum number of people viewing races should all the content be available to all the people who wanted to watch it.

 

[Koronin]

Re:

That's why I thought something like a Fubo solution would be good as it enables recording and replay, like having a virtual hard drive recorder. Better if it's via software already in the TV or a device plugged into the TV.

It's how I watched the Giro this year but I needed to run it from my laptop connected to the TV.

The problem with something like Fubo is the cost for many of us who have cable/Sat. It's an additional about $60 per month. Plus from my understand you only have a short amount of time to watch something. To me you'd need a way of recording on some sort of external hard drive.

For me, I'm still not sure I'm willing to pay unless the service includes every race I actually want to watch which our current options do not. Our current options you still need either Fubo and NBCGold or Flobikes and NBCGold and you still aren't getting a portion of the races.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re: Re:

That's why I thought something like a Fubo solution would be good as it enables recording and replay, like having a virtual hard drive recorder. Better if it's via software already in the TV or a device plugged into the TV.

It's how I watched the Giro this year but I needed to run it from my laptop connected to the TV.

The problem with something like Fubo is the cost for many of us who have cable/Sat. It's an additional about $60 per month. Plus from my understand you only have a short amount of time to watch something. To me you'd need a way of recording on some sort of external hard drive.

For me, I'm still not sure I'm willing to pay unless the service includes every race I actually want to watch which our current options do not. Our current options you still need either Fubo and NBCGold or Flobikes and NBCGold and you still aren't getting a portion of the races.

I'm talking about Fubo as an example of the sort of technology which can help the sport reach far more people than it does now, not necessarily via the precise service (Fubo).

But WRT to Fubo, it has the option to record events on a virtual HDD which you can then replay at any time of your choosing, and fast forward / rewind / skip ahead like a normal video replay system. There is no time limit on watching shows you have recorded. If you don't ask it to record, each event is available for replay at a time of your choosing but disappears as a replay option after a few days.

That's what I did for the Giro. Set the record option and watched it the next day when it was convenient for me. Last year I had to work my way through pirate streams with all their inherit instability and lack of convenience.

Your experience of needing various service providers to watch pro cycling is exactly the problem I'm talking about. Currently it's too difficult or expensive to watch an entire season because the events are shown across a mish mash of media channels, often not even available in many locations.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

That's why I thought something like a Fubo solution would be good as it enables recording and replay, like having a virtual hard drive recorder. Better if it's via software already in the TV or a device plugged into the TV.

It's how I watched the Giro this year but I needed to run it from my laptop connected to the TV.

The problem with something like Fubo is the cost for many of us who have cable/Sat. It's an additional about $60 per month. Plus from my understand you only have a short amount of time to watch something. To me you'd need a way of recording on some sort of external hard drive.

For me, I'm still not sure I'm willing to pay unless the service includes every race I actually want to watch which our current options do not. Our current options you still need either Fubo and NBCGold or Flobikes and NBCGold and you still aren't getting a portion of the races.

I'm talking about Fubo as an example of the sort of technology which can help the sport reach far more people than it does now, not necessarily via the precise service (Fubo).

But WRT to Fubo, it has the option to record events on a virtual HDD which you can then replay at any time of your choosing, and fast forward / rewind / skip ahead like a normal video replay system. There is no time limit on watching shows you have recorded. If you don't ask it to record, each event is available for replay at a time of your choosing but disappears as a replay option after a few days.

That's what I did for the Giro. Set the record option and watched it the next day when it was convenient for me. Last year I had to work my way through pirate streams with all their inherit instability and lack of convenience.

Your experience of needing various service providers to watch pro cycling is exactly the problem I'm talking about. Currently it's too difficult or expensive to watch an entire season because the events are shown across a mish mash of media channels, often not even available in many locations.

It might work, but it needs to be cycling only with the ability to record with unlimited time to watch. Part of why I haven't upgraded my DVR is I have a couple of races on it that I don't want to lose and can't figure out how to get them off the DVR. It also has to be affordable. $60 on top of TV payments per month isn't affordable. In the US only a handful of races are even on TV in the to begin with. NBC owns the rights to both la Vuelta and the Worlds but doesn't broadcast them on TV. They expect you to purchase their on line streaming service at $50 per year to watch those events. They basically want to force people to pay twice for their content and a large portion of us refuse to do that. So we find other ways to watch or just don't bother with races at all.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re: Re:

It also has to be affordable. $60 on top of TV payments per month isn't affordable. In the US only a handful of races are even on TV in the to begin with. NBC owns the rights to both la Vuelta and the Worlds but doesn't broadcast them on TV. They expect you to purchase their on line streaming service at $50 per year to watch those events. They basically want to force people to pay twice for their content and a large portion of us refuse to do that. So we find other ways to watch or just don't bother with races at all.

This is exactly the problem with the current mishmash of cycling on "TV".

As it stands there are a lot of people like you and me who would watch more races but the barriers (be they technical or financial) are simply too high. I have the same issue - it would cost me $1k just to watch one race on a cable channel service with recording, a service I have no interest in otherwise. So I don't watch.

My elderly mum is classic example of someone who enjoys the spectacle and seeing the sights and scenery from all over the world, and she has enough passing interest in the sport to watch more of it, if only it were easy for her to do so.

We don't actually know the size of the audience if the racing season was available via a consistent medium and properly and consistently packaged and marketed.

Hopefully someone else can come up with a solution to transfer your race videos to an alternative storage.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

It also has to be affordable. $60 on top of TV payments per month isn't affordable. In the US only a handful of races are even on TV in the to begin with. NBC owns the rights to both la Vuelta and the Worlds but doesn't broadcast them on TV. They expect you to purchase their on line streaming service at $50 per year to watch those events. They basically want to force people to pay twice for their content and a large portion of us refuse to do that. So we find other ways to watch or just don't bother with races at all.

This is exactly the problem with the current mishmash of cycling on "TV".

As it stands there are a lot of people like you and me who would watch more races but the barriers (be they technical or financial) are simply too high. I have the same issue - it would cost me $1k just to watch one race on a cable channel service with recording, a service I have no interest in otherwise. So I don't watch.

My elderly mum is classic example of someone who enjoys the spectacle and seeing the sights and scenery from all over the world, and she has enough passing interest in the sport to watch more of it, if only it were easy for her to do so.

We don't actually know the size of the audience if the racing season was available via a consistent medium and properly and consistently packaged and marketed.

Hopefully someone else can come up with a solution to transfer your race videos to an alternative storage.

I've found some places I can get live streams but well being in the US live streams aren't exactly that helpful as I'm usually either sleeping or working while they are racing. One thing that would help is if we could get Eurosport over here, but there is some regulation or something that doesn't allow it. We aren't even allowed to pay for Eurosport's internet feed. I agree there needs to be something that isn't yet another barrier to us trying to watch a sport enjoy.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

We don't actually know the size of the audience if the racing season was available via a consistent medium and properly and consistently packaged and marketed.

We don't know the size of the audience yet we do know that 100,000 people will willingly pay $100 a head to see what they cannot currently see.

Once again you are talking utter nonsense. Because there's a lot of stats available on cycling's current TV audience. Van Reeth - cited earlier by someone in attempt to buttress the claim that ASO makes €50 million from the Tour's TV rights - offered a good set of numbers from 2012, based on research by IFM Sports which covered cycling's fifteen main markets - ie all of Europe, where most all of the World Tour races have long been available on either EuroSport or traditional TV, plus a couple of other markets. The numbers do not make happy reading (not that actual evidence will ever be allowed to intrude on those with a faith-based approach to math):

Tour de France 16.0 million
Paris-Roubaix 5.5 million
Liège-Bastogne-Liège 5.3 million
Ronde van Vlaanderen 4.0 million
Amstel Gold Race 3.7 million
Giro d'Italia 2.9 million
Vuelta a España 2.7 million
Milan-Sanremo 2.1 million
Tour de Pologne 2.0 million
Giro di Lombardia 2.0 million
La Flèche Wallonne 1.9 million
Paris-Nice 1.4 million
Critérium du Dauphiné 1.2 million
Gent-Wevelgem 0.8 million
Vattenfall Cyclassics 0.8 million
Tirreno-Adriatico 0.7 million
E3 Harelbeke 0.7 million
Tour of Beijing 0.5 million
Classicá San Sebastián 0.5 million
GP de Plouay Ouest France 0.4 million
ENECO Tour of Benelux 0.3 million
Tour de Romandie 0.2 million
Vuelta Ciclista al Catalunya 0.2 million
GP de Montréal 0.1 million
Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco 0.1 million
GP de Quebéc 0.1 million

So, one more time: where are the 100,000 punters willing to pay $100 a head going to come from and where is the $10,000,000 in revenue they will bring with them going to go? What is the bottom line for a team in all of this? Third time of asking now...if this is really about improving cycling's economic model and generating more money for teams - and not just you fantasising about how you'd like to watch cycling - you'll have an answer.

 

[Bolder]

Interesting that this thread has turned into "how will pro cycling make more money?" Won't more money just bring more temptation to create more sophisticated cheating methods, be they pharmacological or mechanical? If cycling has to retract a bit, wouldn't that in theory make for a cleaner sport? (as a corollary, do we think that mountain biking is cleaner now that it's essentially a second- or third-tier sport, especially in North America?)

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re:

Interesting that this thread has turned into "how will pro cycling make more money?" Won't more money just bring more temptation to create more sophisticated cheating methods, be they pharmacological or mechanical? If cycling has to retract a bit, wouldn't that in theory make for a cleaner sport? (as a corollary, do we think that mountain biking is cleaner now that it's essentially a second- or third-tier sport, especially in North America?)

Are doping and making money strongly correlated? It doesn't explain the level of doping in amateur ranks of sport.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re: Re:

We don't actually know the size of the audience if the racing season was available via a consistent medium and properly and consistently packaged and marketed.

We don't know the size of the audience yet we do know that 100,000 people will willingly pay $100 a head to see what they cannot currently see.

I can't tell if you are trying to state a fact, or implying I (or others) are saying this?

Can I ask that you take some time to be clearer about what you write? It's quite ambiguous and hard to understand what you really mean.

Once again you are talking utter nonsense. Because there's a lot of stats available on cycling's current TV audience

Again, I do not know to what you are referring? What have I said that is utter nonsense?

I said that current viewer numbers would be a good place to start, and would represent the lower bound of what's possible if viewing races was packaged better and made available as a viewing choice for a larger audience than it currently is. As it stands, large populations in many wealthy markets can't even watch many of these races. So surely there is upside on audience numbers if the product can actually be seen by people who currently have no sensible option to view them.

I don't understand the $100 x 100,000 thing you keep babbling on about. I've made no reference to such a thing.

What is the bottom line for a team in all of this? Third time of asking now...if this is really about improving cycling's economic model and generating more money for teams - and not just you fantasising about how you'd like to watch cycling - you'll have an answer.

Surely if more people watch and follow the sport (because it's been made such that they can actually watch, removal of viewing barriers, better packaging and promotion), then an improvement in the economics of the sport follows. Is that not obvious?

Sure it may not directly impact teams in the sense of revenue sharing but if their brand exposure is greater and wider than ever before, surely their opportunity and value to sponsors and potential sponsors increases? That leads to increased viability.

 

[Huapango]

Re: Re:

fmk_Rol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZR64EF3OpA

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

Interesting that this thread has turned into "how will pro cycling make more money?" Won't more money just bring more temptation to create more sophisticated cheating methods, be they pharmacological or mechanical? If cycling has to retract a bit, wouldn't that in theory make for a cleaner sport? (as a corollary, do we think that mountain biking is cleaner now that it's essentially a second- or third-tier sport, especially in North America?)

I can only presume you didn't read the OP. From the get go this has been about more money. Where it's at now is asking those who proclaim there's gold in them der hills to back up their claims with evidence. To which the response is blind faith.

Will more money create more sophisticated cheating methods? It will finance them and make them more attractive, of course it will. Look at what happened when the sport had its Big Bang in the eighties: it ushered in Gen EPO.

Some, however, argue that 'stabilising' the finances of cycling teams - and whether that is actually needed or possible is something we are just required to accept on blind faith, it is another area the believers don't want to have to actually discuss - will turn everybody honest. God knows it's worked that way in the financial industry, right?

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

I said that current viewer numbers would be a good place to start, and would represent the lower bound of what's possible if viewing races was packaged better and made available as a viewing choice for a larger audience than it currently is.

You have been shown evidence that, in Europe, where it is possible to watch all the races, if that's what you really want to do, there is not the audience you think there is for the full package. It is there in the actual viewing numbers, it is there in the small number of races channels like ITV and TG4 choose to take up from the available package. Your blind faith and belief in your own brilliance on this topic, however, leads you to just dismiss all the evidence.

As it stands, large populations in many wealthy markets can't even watch many of these races.

You say large. What is large? Is 100,000 new viewers paying $100 a head large? You keep being asked for numbers, you keep being asked for evidence, you keep coming back with vague, unsupported claims, like "large". You keep coming back with BS.

I don't understand the $100 x 100,000 thing you keep babbling on about. I've made no reference to such a thing.

Hardly a surprise that you have memory problems and can't keep up with the debate, really. The 100,000 x $100 was introduced by Mamil. If you don't agree with this figure you could have said so ages back. And if you do disagree with it then now is the time to tell us what you believe the real figure to be. And, when you do that, to tell us what the net result of this is for an individual team - how much impact will this have on their revenue figures? Because, one more time, if this isn't going to produce more revenue for individual teams then all it is is you fantasising about how you would love love love to be able to watch all the cycling there is in the world.

Surely if more people watch and follow the sport (because it's been made such that they can actually watch, removal of viewing barriers, better packaging and promotion), then an improvement in the economics of the sport follows. Is that not obvious?

You believe in blind faith. You believe in build-it-they-will-come. I believe in reality. I believe that such claims should be able to be supported by available evidence. I believe that such claims should not contradict all the available evidence.

Sure it may not directly impact teams in the sense of revenue sharing but if their brand exposure is greater and wider than ever before, surely their opportunity and value to sponsors and potential sponsors increases? That leads to increased viability.

So at the end of all this that's your answer? Sod all impact on revenue but it'll increase their exposure? Another uncosted solution to a poorly understood problem. What a joke.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

fmk_Rol
Many thanks for your condescending tone, it's most definitely a constructive form of argument that is sure to win people over to your point of view.

Here's an example:
The Giro was made much harder to watch in Australia in 2017. As a result, the viewing audience in Australia collapsed to less than 10% of the previous year. This represents 1.5 million fewer views of just one bike race.

Barriers to viewing exist in many markets and removing them has the potential to improve the sport's marketing potential. Can I categorically state by how much or to what level? Of course not.

But I can say this: it's not a negative number.

 

[Mamil]

Just a couple of things to chip in at this point.

1) The argument that all along this thread has simply been about 'how does cycling make more money?' is garbage. It's a gross and I suspect deliberate over-simplification. Rather, two of the main inter-related considerations have been how to make cycling more sustainable, and how to give it more consistent exposure and a better place in the sports coverage marketplace. Of course increasing the sport's revenue is part of both those discussions. But to suggest that this is the main aim in itself is ridiculous.

2) The figure I threw out there of $100 p.a. paid by 100,000 viewers for a streaming service, that FMK seems to have become obsessed with, has been over-hyped. It's simply my very very rough estimate of what people may be willing to pay per year for a good streaming service, and what I would consider to be the bare minimum in terms of the global market for such a service. The point isn't the accuracy or not of the estimate, it's that you don't need to charge too much, or have that big an audience, before the service can start to pull in some reasonable money. Of course there are operational costs involved, but I have already argued how they need not be significant, plus they can be offset at least to a point by advertising. FMK has asked for a detailed breakdown of those costs, but in the context of an ultimately insignificant forum discussion, I don't see what that will achieve, so I'll not waste my time. Really the viability of a streaming service comes down to what you think the potential market is for customers paying to watch World Tour bike races outside of the Tour. If you believe that no-one watches the likes of the Tour de Suisse and that no-one else would were it actually watchable for a reasonable fee, then obviously it'll never work. But given there are over 2,000 amateur cycling clubs in the USA alone, I'd argue that's a tad narrow minded...

 

[fmk_RoI]

While waiting for cycling to be 'saved' by blind faith in technological utopianism, faux Field of Dreams philosophy, and the belief that all you need to take cycling into the digital future is an iPhone and the Periscope app, it's worth considering the reality of modern streaming. In the twenty years since I was first involved in an attempt to livestream a large event, a lot has changed, but a lot of the same problems persist. If we are dreaming of a world where 100,000 concurrent users paying $100 a head is both just a very rough estimate of what people may be willing to pay per year for a good streaming service and the bare minimum in terms of the global market for such a service, we need to be aware of them:

During the World Cup, YouTube proved that even being the world’s largest video-sharing platform does not mean live streaming comes easy, as its $35-a-month subscription service suffered an embarrassing outage during England’s semi-final clash with Croatia.

In Australia, streamer Optus, which held exclusive World Cup rights, had to allow public broadcaster SBS to air games after its service failed.

In May, Formula One refunded subscribers after its new streaming service ran into trouble during the Spanish Grand Prix.

And last month DAZN, the streaming service controlled by Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik, apologised to customers after its first crack at delivering Serie A Italian football coverage failed during the opening game of the season.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re:

While waiting for cycling to be 'saved' by blind faith in technological utopianism, faux Field of Dreams philosophy, and the belief that all you need to take cycling into the digital future is an iPhone and the Periscope app, it's worth considering the reality of modern streaming. In the twenty years since I was first involved in an attempt to livestream a large event, a lot has changed, but a lot of the same problems persist. If we are dreaming of a world where 100,000 concurrent users paying $100 a head is both just a very rough estimate of what people may be willing to pay per year for a good streaming service and the bare minimum in terms of the global market for such a service, we need to be aware of them:

During the World Cup, YouTube proved that even being the world’s largest video-sharing platform does not mean live streaming comes easy, as its $35-a-month subscription service suffered an embarrassing outage during England’s semi-final clash with Croatia.

In Australia, streamer Optus, which held exclusive World Cup rights, had to allow public broadcaster SBS to air games after its service failed.

In May, Formula One refunded subscribers after its new streaming service ran into trouble during the Spanish Grand Prix.

And last month DAZN, the streaming service controlled by Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik, apologised to customers after its first crack at delivering Serie A Italian football coverage failed during the opening game of the season.

So in your world a handful of occasional problems means streaming sport can never ever work?

What a weak argument.

If you had presented all of sports streaming events in a table side by side, with problems on one side and successful ones on the other, how do you think your claim would stack up?

My Fetch TV box has several sports streaming channels already (along with dozens of other streaming channels). Rate of failure is very low - they are as reliable as regular TV broadcast.

 

[Mamil]

Re:

While waiting for cycling to be 'saved' by blind faith in technological utopianism, faux Field of Dreams philosophy, and the belief that all you need to take cycling into the digital future is an iPhone and the Periscope app, it's worth considering the reality of modern streaming. In the twenty years since I was first involved in an attempt to livestream a large event, a lot has changed, but a lot of the same problems persist. If we are dreaming of a world where 100,000 concurrent users paying $100 a head is both just a very rough estimate of what people may be willing to pay per year for a good streaming service and the bare minimum in terms of the global market for such a service, we need to be aware of them:

During the World Cup, YouTube proved that even being the world’s largest video-sharing platform does not mean live streaming comes easy, as its $35-a-month subscription service suffered an embarrassing outage during England’s semi-final clash with Croatia.

In Australia, streamer Optus, which held exclusive World Cup rights, had to allow public broadcaster SBS to air games after its service failed.

In May, Formula One refunded subscribers after its new streaming service ran into trouble during the Spanish Grand Prix.

And last month DAZN, the streaming service controlled by Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik, apologised to customers after its first crack at delivering Serie A Italian football coverage failed during the opening game of the season.

So what, because of a few potential issues it's a lost cause? Sometimes 'conventional' TV broadcasts drop out due to satellite and other technical problems - suppose we should just give up on TV then?!

On the whole streaming services work very well, and the technology supporting them will only get better. There are millions of broadcasts and products streamed around the world every day, the vast majority without trouble. Clearly the concept is viable.

Let's look at F1 TV a little more, since you raised it. No question it got off to a bad start at the Spanish GP - but they sorted out the teething issues and since then it has mostly operated faultlessly. For just $100 USD a year (oh look it's that magic figure again!) an American can live stream every race, qualy and practice session, track live telemetry, and during races can follow onboard with whichever driver they like (cycling could do something vaguely similar with a few goPro cameras). There is also additional content, including interviews, docos and historic footage. All sessions can be watched later on demand, and some of the support races are covered too. That's good value.

One of the tricky things as well is juggling the various media and broadcast rights. In these early days F1 has been reasonably smart in addressing this - they have 2 services, F1 TV Pro and F1 TV Access. Here in Oz Foxtel have the exclusive rights to the races, so we can only get the lesser Access service. This allows me to watch full races or highlights on replay only after the races have been run, plus we still get some of the other content too, for $42 AUD per year. Not perfect but still a reasonable service, and my bet will be that as the existing TV contracts come up for renewal, Liberty Media will be keen to continue to fine tune the balance between giving value to the TV providers and enhancing their own streaming platform. It's worth noting as well that at the moment Liberty only sees the need to offer the service in 4 languages - English, French, Spanish and German.

I've said before and I'll say again that cycling is clearly not F1 - the amount of money involved, and the potential audience, is much smaller. But at least in getting started cycling would not need anywhere near the same amount of resources thrown into streaming as the F1 service, and a lot of the required infrastructure for producing the content already exists. Access control would allow the UCI to tailor the product and advertising for each market, in consideration of existing media contracts. So for example in Australia, SBS would retain the exclusive rights to showing the Tour and Spring monuments live, and the streaming service would only provide highlights and little info pieces on those, but the service would live stream and have on demand all the other classics/semi-classics and one week stage races, which would still be a very marketable product.

Providing sports broadcasting direct to the consumer is the future. F1 is already there, so is the NBA, the NHL and more besides. Cycling is not a big sport, but it's not small either. It is truly global. It has the potential to be more popular than it currently is. It would take someone with vision to pitch a cycling streaming service, and it would need to be subject to a thorough cost analysis. In would be a risk. But I think the odds of it being viable and finding a suitable market-share are quite high. We can argue the specifics, we can wonder whether the sport's government really has or will ever have the nous and desire to make it happen, but to say it's all pure fantasy, when so many other sports and entertainment products already have such a service, is well over the top.

 

[yaco]

I will add that I've had eternal frustration with the IOC for the last two Olympic Games - It's tough going watching the broadcast from whatever country you are located and be forced to watch a parochial coverage, watching part-coverage of events and even not showing events in which you are interested - Yet the IOC broadcasts every minute of every event in every sport BUT yet fails to offer a paid streaming service - You should be able to pay to watch specific sports via streaming - The IOC is missing out on $$$

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Interesting that this thread has turned into "how will pro cycling make more money?" Won't more money just bring more temptation to create more sophisticated cheating methods, be they pharmacological or mechanical? If cycling has to retract a bit, wouldn't that in theory make for a cleaner sport? (as a corollary, do we think that mountain biking is cleaner now that it's essentially a second- or third-tier sport, especially in North America?)

Are doping and making money strongly correlated? It doesn't explain the level of doping in amateur ranks of sport.

Chris Froome says yes money and doping correlated. Amateur ranks carries prize money. Grand Fondos in Italy pay very well if you are winning them and there are several races throughout her entire year to make a good living.

Why don’t you do any research when responding?

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re: Re:

Interesting that this thread has turned into "how will pro cycling make more money?" Won't more money just bring more temptation to create more sophisticated cheating methods, be they pharmacological or mechanical? If cycling has to retract a bit, wouldn't that in theory make for a cleaner sport? (as a corollary, do we think that mountain biking is cleaner now that it's essentially a second- or third-tier sport, especially in North America?)

Are doping and making money strongly correlated? It doesn't explain the level of doping in amateur ranks of sport.

Chris Froome says yes money and doping correlated. Amateur ranks carries prize money. Grand Fondos in Italy pay very well if you are winning them and there are several races throughout her entire year to make a good living.

Why don’t you do any research when responding?

When did Chris Froome say that? Can you link to the quote and source?

Can you do some research as well before responding? All you mention are anecdotes which are pretty meaningless.

Doping exists at all levels of the sport, and money is often not the driving force behind an athlete's choice to dope. We get plenty of dopers at events with no prize money, indeed at events which cost far more to participate in than one could ever hope to earn in return.

We can all guess there is some correlation, but I was asking about the strength of the correlation. Is there any actual data or research?

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Interesting that this thread has turned into "how will pro cycling make more money?" Won't more money just bring more temptation to create more sophisticated cheating methods, be they pharmacological or mechanical? If cycling has to retract a bit, wouldn't that in theory make for a cleaner sport? (as a corollary, do we think that mountain biking is cleaner now that it's essentially a second- or third-tier sport, especially in North America?)

Are doping and making money strongly correlated? It doesn't explain the level of doping in amateur ranks of sport.

Chris Froome says yes money and doping correlated. Amateur ranks carries prize money. Grand Fondos in Italy pay very well if you are winning them and there are several races throughout her entire year to make a good living.

Why don’t you do any research when responding?

When did Chris Froome say that? Can you link to the quote and source?

Can you do some research as well before responding? All you mention are anecdotes which are pretty meaningless.

Doping exists at all levels of the sport, and money is often not the driving force behind an athlete's choice to dope. We get plenty of dopers at events with no prize money, indeed at events which cost far more to participate in than one could ever hope to earn in return.

We can all guess there is some correlation, but I was asking about the strength of the correlation. Is there any actual data or research?

Is money a driving force for people to cheat. Sure it is along with doing PB and seeing better numbers. And I produced factual evidence.

Do you have an actual data that “we get plenty of dopers events with no prize money? - or is this you just making up statements again?

Angelo Garcia of the Italian Cycling Journal, a blog focusing on Italian granfondos, welcomed the CNC’s decision but said more work needed to be done to take events back to their roots – and weed out cheating. "The cheating, the drugs, the ex-pros in granfondo racing was (is) out of hand," he told BikeRadar.

The explosion in the popularity of granfondos – both in Italy and around the world – has attracted large sums of prize money and made the events a lucrative sideline for ex-pros.

Some races have even been marred by amateurs failing doping tests. At last year’s Gran Fondo New York two riders, including the winner in the 45-49 category, David Anthony, tested positive for EPO. The top prize was an US$8,000 bike.

And, in 2011, Italian ex-pro Riccardo Riccò was caught joining the Gran Fondo Prologo-Giovanni Lombardi after 10km to help his friends achieve a better result.