Universal Sports Spring Cycling Package

[etienne]

Is anyone a premium subscriber to Universal Sports Spring and having problems with the new website? They went to a new website 3-4 weeks ago and all the races other than the Tour of the Basque country vanished off the site (for me). I open trouble tickets with their premium support and I get automatic responses saying they are looking at and then nothing.

Anyone a subscriber and able to see Milan San Remo, for example, or the Tour of Catalonia, or any of last years races? Love the service in the past but this seems like a total and complete rip-off

 

[mewmewmew13]

Is anyone a premium subscriber to Universal Sports Spring and having problems with the new website? They went to a new website 3-4 weeks ago and all the races other than the Tour of the Basque country vanished off the site (for me). I open trouble tickets with their premium support and I get automatic responses saying they are looking at and then nothing.

Anyone a subscriber and able to see Milan San Remo, for example, or the Tour of Catalonia, or any of last years races? Love the service in the past but this seems like a total and complete rip-off

I don't see anything either!!
I logged in yesterday thinking I could access the back races I am ticked off that they are not there....
I hate to expend the headbanging energy it will probably take to get some sort of response and action from them....

maybe will have to take it to Gogo

 

[etienne]

Universal S**ks!

Well after some sleuthing around they are simply saying that all races prior to April 3 are simply unavailable. No explanation. The Spring package without any Spring races! I guess they are giving back 50% and you can keep the 3 stages of Basque and the Giro, or the entire price with no access. To request a refund go to Customer Service, select "billing" in the request type. Of course, they say they are giving refunds. Getting one is something different.

How do companies like this stay in business!

 

[mewmewmew13]

Well after some sleuthing around they are simply saying that all races prior to April 3 are simply unavailable. No explanation. The Spring package without any Spring races! I guess they are giving back 50% and you can keep the 3 stages of Basque and the Giro, or the entire price with no access. To request a refund go to Customer Service, select "billing" in the request type. Of course, they say they are giving refunds. Getting one is something different.

How do companies like this stay in business!

well, how do you like that!? They said initially that you would have the access...now rescinded.

Thankx for the info, etienne, I will see about their refund honesty.

 

[DirtyWorks]

As much as Universal Sports will take some heat for this, I'm certain some people are fair minded at Universal Sports and wanted the content to stay up.

Some possiblilities:

1. The rights owner on the rebroadcast decided to end their relationship with Universal Sports.

2. Their Spring Package project was not generating enough revenue to keep it all running as they promised.

These distribution deals are nauseating to put it nicely. So few in the industry understand how they are destroying their business by creatively renting content to consumers and then burning the consumer. There was another site trying to do a similar thing and there were lots of unhappy consumers there too. Same problem. Draconian content control.

Hopefully NBC Universal does the right thing and issues credit in a timely manner. At this rate the NFL and MLB have will have no competition in the U.S. for another 100 years.

 

[_Zipp0_]

I lost Milan San Remo. I emailed them stating that I would be disputing the charge unless they gave me a refund. I had my refund the next day.

On the fence about buying the Giro after this debacle.

 

[Maxiton]

I lost Milan San Remo. I emailed them stating that I would be disputing the charge unless they gave me a refund. I had my refund the next day.

On the fence about buying the Giro after this debacle.

I would say don't do it. I've been a loyal, paying customer of theirs for years. The way they reneged on their Spring package, without any warning, and the way they changed their website so that it now no longer plays well with my preferred browser, Firefox: all that is bad enough.

It took considerable looking, in order to even find the support email address. I think in the end I found it only through instructions in this thread. When I did, on April 29, I sent an email asking if partial refunds would be offered. The next day I got a response, saying, "Your refund request is being looked into. We will get back to you as soon as possible." Then it gave me a ticket number. Since then, nothing.

Today I wrote demanding a full refund, and promising to dispute the amount with my bank. We'll see what happens.

As we say in Hawaii, too much humbug.

 

[TheRossSeaParty]

Don't give them your money. I ordered the Spring Package and now I can't even watch the Giro! And there are no On-Demand races anymore. It just shows me a short preview clip of the stage and then asks me to purchase the Giro for $19.95. What a rip-off. I will be demanding a full refund and never giving them my money again. Last season was awesome, this year is pitiful. Shame on NBC.

 

[Maxiton]

a pox on universal sports! not because of bob rolll...because since the pair of brain-dead four year olds redesigned the universal sports website, i and legions of other subscribers to the spring package ($40 us) including THE giro - cannot view our libraries OR any website videos...or the giro.

thank goodness for eurosport!

From another thread. I got up this morning and fired up eurosport. Couldn't even be bothered to try universal sports, even though I paid for it. Figured (rightly, it seems) it would be an exercise in frustration.

I was shocked when cycling.tv pulled this crap a few years ago and stayed in business. But for NBC sports to do it . . . . Unbelievable.

 

[mewmewmew13]

From another thread. I got up this morning and fired up eurosport. Couldn't even be bothered to try universal sports, even though I paid for it. Figured (rightly, it seems) it would be an exercise in frustration.

I was shocked when cycling.tv pulled this crap a few years ago and stayed in business. But for NBC sports to do it . . . . Unbelievable.

I didn't go to US to try to watch this morning but stayed with RAI feed...just now logged in to see if Uni would have playback of the whole stage that had been showed, and when I went to playback it appeared to have the whole thing ....but I'm not sure as I didn't sit and watch for too long.

Maxiton, try from yours and see if it is the complete replay....btw I also run firefox. and I hate their new website. totally.

edt: I just checked after logging in...if you go to the "watch replay " or whatever there is the full version of stage 1. Seemed you had to do a sort of roundabout way to get to the replay option....
NOW will look tomorrow morning to see if it is actually on.