I could see the UCI fitting a similar sort of series into the current calendar. Killing this idea dead.
I think they might implement some of Rothschilds' ideas but not much. Everyone would love for TV Revenue though to pay if only to get the females minimum wage and get more marketing power and make long held races still stand and junior/ longstanding races in all countries supported
- Mar 20, 2009
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my take on it is it seems to be a trend to do this.
look at what happen to triathlon. at the pointy end, its become a limited series over a number of races around the world. they dont care about classics as cycling does.
dont think it would work at all with cycling, because its very deep rooted in tradition, and the ever-powerfull UCI would do something in similar that would crush anyone elses ideas.
look at what happen to triathlon. at the pointy end, its become a limited series over a number of races around the world. they dont care about classics as cycling does.
dont think it would work at all with cycling, because its very deep rooted in tradition, and the ever-powerfull UCI would do something in similar that would crush anyone elses ideas.
Waterloo Sunrise said:
its not just the layout of the parcours though, when i refer to parcours i mean the actual route, its historic standing, fans enthusiasm towards it, a whole host of things.
You cannot buy history... creating a bunch of new four day races will never have the prestige of races that have been going for 20, 30, 40, 100 years..
im opposed to anytthing that invoves creating new races at the expense of old ones. If the world series can get tv deals and revenue then put the money into tour of the basque country, or drei daagse de panne, or a shortened tour of colmbia, or races like strade bianche. improve the existing races, save existing races from dying out, dont create new ones that nobody cares about..
- Oct 30, 2011
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TeamSkyFans said:
What you seem to be describing is the race. You've just listed every aspect of what makes a particular race that particular race and said it's the parcours! Fair enough all those features define the race, but parcours just means something else.
There are also old races that could be revived, if existing ones don't want to join in.
In other news, absolute female dog move by the UCI, pretty much sums up the organisation to me:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-gcp-move-to-scupper-breakaway-plans
They've registered domains for worldseriescycling.com, .org and .net. Why bother? Firstly it would probably be a short legal fight for WSC to get them back, and secondly, this fight is not going to be decided on who gets the best domain name. Epitomises the petty, greedy small-mindedness of the UCI.
- Feb 15, 2011
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I can't believe they bought out the rights to those domains; it seems completely stupid for the UCI to do that, especially just to spite the WSC. If the WSC could get support from ASO & RCS, the league would easily be able to work. Without, theres no way I would watch the new league.
- Sep 30, 2011
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gustienordic said:
But they won't get the support from ASO, so the UCI doesn't have to be afraid of this plan. There is only 1 organization able to form a breakaway and that is the ASO. And if they do, it will be on their own terms. Which means the money will stay where it is now, firmly in the pockets of ASO.
My guess is that this whole breakaway idea isn't so much about creating an actual breakaway 'league' but to force the controlling powers into reform. A reform which is long overdue. Cycling is badly packaged, marketed and sold. It's years behind other sports.
And the villains here aren't the UCI. It's the ASO.
ASO undersell cycling to TV and then keep most of the money for themselves, leaving the teams to rely on the fragile sponsor financial model and the UCI to fend off scraps. The ASO though have great PR while the UCI have terrible PR, so it's easy for them pass to buck and make them them target for 'hate'.
And the villains here aren't the UCI. It's the ASO.
ASO undersell cycling to TV and then keep most of the money for themselves, leaving the teams to rely on the fragile sponsor financial model and the UCI to fend off scraps. The ASO though have great PR while the UCI have terrible PR, so it's easy for them pass to buck and make them them target for 'hate'.
Polish said:
In a sport without one event bigger than all the others, yes. In a sport where one event gets over 90% of the attention like in cycling, no.
Polish said:
No, because nobody would know that breakaway Giro is exciting, because nobody would watch it. If in your example the breakaway Giro will compete with the Tour, it has to move to the same period. But the Tour is much bigger than the Giro. So except the few hardcore fans everyone will be looking at the Tour and the breakaway will disappear within 5 years. Thinking any race, even the Giro, has a chance to directly compete with the Tour is naive at best.
Tour of Colorado has no chance to compete with Paris-Nice simply because the time zone it is in. Most cycling fans are in Europe and are able to watch at least the weekend stages of Paris-Nice without trouble. Tour of Colorado they have to schedule and most won't do that.
Of the three points you mentioned (excitement, payoff and ratings) only one matters. Ratings. Ratings=money. Money matters more than anything. Something else can be ten times more exciting, but if you have more money, you can market your boring thing better and everyone will watch it.
- Feb 10, 2010
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TeamSkyFans said:
There's no shortage of 'traditional' events that have been around 20, 30, 40 years and demoted or just plain capped by the UCI. If the Rothchild's switch the event to WorldSeries whatever and show up with a spectacular production I'd give it 5 years for cash flow to go green. The Strade Bianchi race you mention hasn't been around as a UCI race for 5 years and it's getting excellent traction much to the dismay of the ASO.
DutchSmurf, sure people would watch it. They watch the Tour of California and it's a joke.
DirtyWorks said:
Yeah, it depends on how it's run, I guess. To use an opposite example as TSF, I'd rather watch GP Montreal (with the same talent; 'with amateurs' is stretching it) than Paris-Tours. Part of that is that P-T has been demoted by UCI and it is apparently flatter than previous eras (I've only been following for 4 years), but it's just not as exciting. If P-N wasn't the first 'big' race of the year, I wouldn't tune in next year based on how crappy this year's was, and I would certainly watch a competing race if it seemed to have an interesting parcours and talent. I love tradition, but a crappy race and a lack of big names will make me grudgingly switch my allegiance.
That said, this '4-day race' business sounds awful; I'm just talking in the context of 'old boring races with less star power vs. new good races with talent'... the idea could work. But I don't think this proposal is going to.
- Oct 30, 2011
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BroDeal said:
I'm not quite sure why they're gone for this as a permanent fix. For me the 4-day races seem like filler that's gonna be there until they win a few big races over. To get the big races, they need to best riders, and they aren't gonna get any riders is they've not got roads to ride on.
I think that governments ought to exert more pressure on organisers - after all, the race promoters don't pay for the road closures, do they? If the UCI and some European governments were able to put some pressure on, cycling might become less fragile.
- Jun 17, 2010
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I don't know anything about the men (Price and Kurth) behind the WSC proposal, but the latest CN article (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/the-men-behind-world-series-cycling) says these "heavyweights have a history of battling sporting administrators".
I don't really know what to make of all this at this point, but agree with others here that unless the race organizers are on board that the WSC proposal will be futile. However, we know that money talks, and if the WSC can put together a package of TV rights and distribution of revenues that works for the organizers, then maybe this breakaway league can work. Otherwise it just intriguing stuff to discuss.
I don't really know what to make of all this at this point, but agree with others here that unless the race organizers are on board that the WSC proposal will be futile. However, we know that money talks, and if the WSC can put together a package of TV rights and distribution of revenues that works for the organizers, then maybe this breakaway league can work. Otherwise it just intriguing stuff to discuss.
- Nov 2, 2009
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World Series Cricket (WSC) was a break away professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 and organised by Kerry Packer for his Australian television network, Nine Network. The matches ran in opposition to established international cricket. World Series Cricket drastically changed the nature of cricket, and its influence continues to be felt today.
The series originated due to two main factors—the widespread view that players were not paid sufficient amounts to make a living from cricket, and that Packer wished to secure the exclusive broadcasting rights to Australian cricket, then held by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
After the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) refused to accept Channel Nine's bid to gain exclusive television rights to Australia's Test matches in 1976, Packer set up his own series by secretly signing agreements with leading Australian, English, ****stani, South African and West Indian players, most notably England captain Tony Greig, West Indies captain Clive Lloyd, Australian captain Greg Chappell and former Australian Captain Ian Chappell. Packer was aided by businessmen John Cornell and Austin Robertson, both of whom were involved with the initial setup and administration of the series.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_Cricket
Contents
1 Kerry Packer and the Australian television industry
2 Secret signings
3 Court case
4 "Supertests", the West Indies and drop-in pitches
5 First season: 1977-78
6 The united front weakens
7 Second season: 1978-79
8 The rapprochement
9 Legacy
Secret signings
Packer's planning of the proposed "exhibition" series was audacious. In early 1977, he began contracting a list of Australian players provided by recently-retired Australian Test captain Ian Chappell. A bigger coup was achieved when Packer convinced the England captain Tony Greig to not only sign on, but to act as an agent in signing many players around the world.[8] By the time the season climaxed with the Centenary Test match between Australia and England at Melbourne in March 1977, about two dozen players had committed to Packer's enterprise, which as yet had no grounds to play on, no administration and was secret to all in the cricket world. It was a measure of the players' dissatisfaction with official cricket that they were prepared to sign up for what was still a vague concept and still keep everything covert.[9]
By the time the Australian team arrived to tour England in May 1977, thirteen of the seventeen members of the squad had committed to Packer. News of the WSC plans were inadvertently leaked to Australian journalists, who broke the story on 9 May. Immediately, all hell broke loose in the hitherto conservative world of cricket. Not unexpectedly, the English were critical of what they quickly dubbed the "Packer Circus" and reserved particular vitriol for the English captain Tony Greig, for his central role in organising the break-away. Greig retained his position in the team, but was stripped of the captaincy and ostracised by everyone in the cricket establishment, most of whom had been singing his praises just weeks before.
It seemed certain that all Packer players would be banned from Test and first class cricket. The Australian players were a divided group and the management made their displeasure clear to the Packer signees.[10] Dispirited by this turn of events and hampered by poor form and indifferent weather, Australia crashed to a 3-0 defeat, surrendering the Ashes won two years before.
The united front weakens
Between the two WSC seasons, the united front presented by the ICC countries began to erode. The highest ill-feeling toward Packer existed in England, but many officials of the county clubs were prepared to keep Packer players on their books.
The West Indies were the most financially vulnerable nation, and only voted for the original ICC in the interests of unity.[31] The financial and political problems of the recent Australian tour led them to begin negotiations with Packer for a WSC series in the Caribbean during the spring of 1979. Initially, ****stan took a hard line and refused to select their Packer players,[31] but changed to a more pragmatic approach when WSC signed additional ****stanis during the off season.[32] Ostensibly, India were not involved as yet, but rumours abounded that their captain Bishan Bedi and star batsman Sunil Gavaskar had signed WSC options.[33]
New Zealand's chief administrator, Walter Hadlee, had advocated a compromise from the start. Now he had no objection to WSC making a brief tour of his country in November, nor was he going to stop the Kiwis' best player, his son Richard, from appearing with WSC. The South Africans, banned from official cricket due to the apartheid policy of their government, were keen to see their individual cricketers compete with the world’s best. Some were prepared to acclaim South Africa as the best side of the world on the basis of the performances of some of their players in WSC.
Meanwhile, WSC continued to up the stakes for the embattled ACB, optioning a number of young Australians and signing more overseas players: they now had well over 50 cricketers under contract. After organising the tours of New Zealand and the West Indies, WSC began making noises about a tour to England and signing enough players for stand-alone England and ****stan teams.
The rapprochement
By 1979, the ACB was in desperate financial straits and faced with the prospect of fighting an opponent who had seemingly bottomless cash resources. In two seasons, the combined losses of the two biggest cricket associations, New South Wales and Victoria, totalled more than half a million dollars. However, Packer too was feeling the financial pinch - many years later, WSC insiders claimed that the losses he incurred were very much higher than the amounts quoted at the time. During March of that year, Packer instigated a series of meetings with then chairman of the ACB board, Bob Parish CMG OBE which hammered out an agreement on the future of Australian cricket.
When Parish announced the truce on 30 May 1979, a surprise was in store for followers of the game. Not only had Channel Nine won the exclusive rights to telecast Australian cricket, it was granted a ten-year contract to promote and market the game through a new company, PBL Marketing. The ACB capitulation infuriated the English authorities and the ICC as they had provided much in the way of financial and moral support to the ACB, which now appeared to have sold out to Packer.
Legacy
World Series Cricket changed the game in many ways. Due to the punishing schedule, cricketers had to be fitter than ever before. The West Indies in particular dominated world cricket during the 1980s due to World Series Cricket.[38]
Night matches have become very common in most nations, and one-day cricket has become the most widely followed form of the game (though this is being threatened by Twenty20 cricket). Players are full-time professionals, and at least in the larger cricketing nations are very well-paid, mainly through television rights; broadcasters now have a huge say in the running of the game.
Examples of World Series Cricket marketing. The popular "C'mon Aussie C'mon" single, which reached the top of the charts, and a World Series Cricket autograph book
However, the traditional form of the game, Test cricket, is still played around the world, and in recent seasons has challenged one-day cricket for the interest of the public. Indeed, membership of a Test Cricket side is often seen as being more prestigious for players, both due to the more challenging nature of the format and the higher turnover rate of one day players. Kerry Packer described his involvement in World Series Cricket as "half-philanthropic".
Marketing was a major tool for World Series Cricket, and they revolutionised the way cricket in Australia was marketed, with the catchy C'mon Aussie C'mon theme song, the simple logo, the coloured clothing worn by the players and a range of merchandise. All of these techniques pioneered by World Series Cricket have become a staple of the way the game is now marketed in Australia.
In the Australian team, there was a division between the players who stayed loyal to the official XI and the Packer rebels. Especially between players such as Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, former WSC players and Kim Hughes who stuck with the official side. The division went on into the 1980s. Many of WSC's players fitted back into the official Australian side, though a handful of players from outside WSC remained at the highest level, most notably Allan Border.
The ACB continued to use the name "World Series Cup" to describe the One Day International tournament it held during each summer, usually involving Australia and two other international teams. This format was from WSC's International Cup. The name was used until the mid 1990s.
The series originated due to two main factors—the widespread view that players were not paid sufficient amounts to make a living from cricket, and that Packer wished to secure the exclusive broadcasting rights to Australian cricket, then held by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
After the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) refused to accept Channel Nine's bid to gain exclusive television rights to Australia's Test matches in 1976, Packer set up his own series by secretly signing agreements with leading Australian, English, ****stani, South African and West Indian players, most notably England captain Tony Greig, West Indies captain Clive Lloyd, Australian captain Greg Chappell and former Australian Captain Ian Chappell. Packer was aided by businessmen John Cornell and Austin Robertson, both of whom were involved with the initial setup and administration of the series.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_Cricket
Contents
1 Kerry Packer and the Australian television industry
2 Secret signings
3 Court case
4 "Supertests", the West Indies and drop-in pitches
5 First season: 1977-78
6 The united front weakens
7 Second season: 1978-79
8 The rapprochement
9 Legacy
Secret signings
Packer's planning of the proposed "exhibition" series was audacious. In early 1977, he began contracting a list of Australian players provided by recently-retired Australian Test captain Ian Chappell. A bigger coup was achieved when Packer convinced the England captain Tony Greig to not only sign on, but to act as an agent in signing many players around the world.[8] By the time the season climaxed with the Centenary Test match between Australia and England at Melbourne in March 1977, about two dozen players had committed to Packer's enterprise, which as yet had no grounds to play on, no administration and was secret to all in the cricket world. It was a measure of the players' dissatisfaction with official cricket that they were prepared to sign up for what was still a vague concept and still keep everything covert.[9]
By the time the Australian team arrived to tour England in May 1977, thirteen of the seventeen members of the squad had committed to Packer. News of the WSC plans were inadvertently leaked to Australian journalists, who broke the story on 9 May. Immediately, all hell broke loose in the hitherto conservative world of cricket. Not unexpectedly, the English were critical of what they quickly dubbed the "Packer Circus" and reserved particular vitriol for the English captain Tony Greig, for his central role in organising the break-away. Greig retained his position in the team, but was stripped of the captaincy and ostracised by everyone in the cricket establishment, most of whom had been singing his praises just weeks before.
It seemed certain that all Packer players would be banned from Test and first class cricket. The Australian players were a divided group and the management made their displeasure clear to the Packer signees.[10] Dispirited by this turn of events and hampered by poor form and indifferent weather, Australia crashed to a 3-0 defeat, surrendering the Ashes won two years before.
The united front weakens
Between the two WSC seasons, the united front presented by the ICC countries began to erode. The highest ill-feeling toward Packer existed in England, but many officials of the county clubs were prepared to keep Packer players on their books.
The West Indies were the most financially vulnerable nation, and only voted for the original ICC in the interests of unity.[31] The financial and political problems of the recent Australian tour led them to begin negotiations with Packer for a WSC series in the Caribbean during the spring of 1979. Initially, ****stan took a hard line and refused to select their Packer players,[31] but changed to a more pragmatic approach when WSC signed additional ****stanis during the off season.[32] Ostensibly, India were not involved as yet, but rumours abounded that their captain Bishan Bedi and star batsman Sunil Gavaskar had signed WSC options.[33]
New Zealand's chief administrator, Walter Hadlee, had advocated a compromise from the start. Now he had no objection to WSC making a brief tour of his country in November, nor was he going to stop the Kiwis' best player, his son Richard, from appearing with WSC. The South Africans, banned from official cricket due to the apartheid policy of their government, were keen to see their individual cricketers compete with the world’s best. Some were prepared to acclaim South Africa as the best side of the world on the basis of the performances of some of their players in WSC.
Meanwhile, WSC continued to up the stakes for the embattled ACB, optioning a number of young Australians and signing more overseas players: they now had well over 50 cricketers under contract. After organising the tours of New Zealand and the West Indies, WSC began making noises about a tour to England and signing enough players for stand-alone England and ****stan teams.
The rapprochement
By 1979, the ACB was in desperate financial straits and faced with the prospect of fighting an opponent who had seemingly bottomless cash resources. In two seasons, the combined losses of the two biggest cricket associations, New South Wales and Victoria, totalled more than half a million dollars. However, Packer too was feeling the financial pinch - many years later, WSC insiders claimed that the losses he incurred were very much higher than the amounts quoted at the time. During March of that year, Packer instigated a series of meetings with then chairman of the ACB board, Bob Parish CMG OBE which hammered out an agreement on the future of Australian cricket.
When Parish announced the truce on 30 May 1979, a surprise was in store for followers of the game. Not only had Channel Nine won the exclusive rights to telecast Australian cricket, it was granted a ten-year contract to promote and market the game through a new company, PBL Marketing. The ACB capitulation infuriated the English authorities and the ICC as they had provided much in the way of financial and moral support to the ACB, which now appeared to have sold out to Packer.
Legacy
World Series Cricket changed the game in many ways. Due to the punishing schedule, cricketers had to be fitter than ever before. The West Indies in particular dominated world cricket during the 1980s due to World Series Cricket.[38]
Night matches have become very common in most nations, and one-day cricket has become the most widely followed form of the game (though this is being threatened by Twenty20 cricket). Players are full-time professionals, and at least in the larger cricketing nations are very well-paid, mainly through television rights; broadcasters now have a huge say in the running of the game.
Examples of World Series Cricket marketing. The popular "C'mon Aussie C'mon" single, which reached the top of the charts, and a World Series Cricket autograph book
However, the traditional form of the game, Test cricket, is still played around the world, and in recent seasons has challenged one-day cricket for the interest of the public. Indeed, membership of a Test Cricket side is often seen as being more prestigious for players, both due to the more challenging nature of the format and the higher turnover rate of one day players. Kerry Packer described his involvement in World Series Cricket as "half-philanthropic".
Marketing was a major tool for World Series Cricket, and they revolutionised the way cricket in Australia was marketed, with the catchy C'mon Aussie C'mon theme song, the simple logo, the coloured clothing worn by the players and a range of merchandise. All of these techniques pioneered by World Series Cricket have become a staple of the way the game is now marketed in Australia.
In the Australian team, there was a division between the players who stayed loyal to the official XI and the Packer rebels. Especially between players such as Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, former WSC players and Kim Hughes who stuck with the official side. The division went on into the 1980s. Many of WSC's players fitted back into the official Australian side, though a handful of players from outside WSC remained at the highest level, most notably Allan Border.
The ACB continued to use the name "World Series Cup" to describe the One Day International tournament it held during each summer, usually involving Australia and two other international teams. This format was from WSC's International Cup. The name was used until the mid 1990s.
- Jun 21, 2009
- 518
- 457
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Complete non story just here to fill the hole in news for november/december.
Story over. Actually even before, here Cyclingnews simply admits that they know they are writing about a non-story.
Simply no reason for ASO to support a breakaway league whose goal is.... revenue sharing. Laughable, the whole reason ASO and RCS went to war against the UCI was exactly that. Revenue sharing, the UCI trying to gain control over TV rights etc. with the PT. The whole dispute was never about anything else, doping, sporting values, not enough Wild Cards, all other reasons given by ASO/RCS, it was about money.
So roughly 0% chances of ASO switching their allegiance, especially not with the new business model they just created with the UCI, Tour of Beijing, mutually benefitial cooperation in setting up a new race. Money for both, everybody is happy. And if RCS isn't, they'll get their part in the next new WT race, "Tour of Whatever" UCI owned, cooperation from RCS. Simple.
Breakaway league? At least 2 years too late and even then, based on revenue sharing... no chance to get ASO support.
The teams complaints? They have some that probably should be heard by the UCI, attraction of big sponsors is obviously not working with the WT, was supposed to be one of the big benefits, financial crisis doesn't help, brilliant innovations like the multi year licence, that is valid for only one year either, bigger costs due to the compulsory big teams for the licence either.. Might this breakaway league put pressure on the UCI to make chances? The pressure right now is so minimal, because the chances of it to take of are at 0.
Non-story.
Story over. Actually even before, here Cyclingnews simply admits that they know they are writing about a non-story.
Simply no reason for ASO to support a breakaway league whose goal is.... revenue sharing. Laughable, the whole reason ASO and RCS went to war against the UCI was exactly that. Revenue sharing, the UCI trying to gain control over TV rights etc. with the PT. The whole dispute was never about anything else, doping, sporting values, not enough Wild Cards, all other reasons given by ASO/RCS, it was about money.
So roughly 0% chances of ASO switching their allegiance, especially not with the new business model they just created with the UCI, Tour of Beijing, mutually benefitial cooperation in setting up a new race. Money for both, everybody is happy. And if RCS isn't, they'll get their part in the next new WT race, "Tour of Whatever" UCI owned, cooperation from RCS. Simple.
Breakaway league? At least 2 years too late and even then, based on revenue sharing... no chance to get ASO support.
The teams complaints? They have some that probably should be heard by the UCI, attraction of big sponsors is obviously not working with the WT, was supposed to be one of the big benefits, financial crisis doesn't help, brilliant innovations like the multi year licence, that is valid for only one year either, bigger costs due to the compulsory big teams for the licence either.. Might this breakaway league put pressure on the UCI to make chances? The pressure right now is so minimal, because the chances of it to take of are at 0.
Non-story.
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