MTB World Cup broadcast rights go to Discovery from 2023

But if there were more cameras further up the course there would have to be larger gaps between riders, thus probably less riders televised or even qualified. I’m not sure that’s the shakeup people are hoping for.

can’t see Rob Warner fitting in with the GCN/GMBC studio-based culture

The GMBN Dirt Shed Show started with Martyn Ashton and Rob Warner as hosts IIRC

someone on the pink site suggested redbull could start their own race series.

It’s almost touching how naive some of them are.

The UCI DH WC series isn’t going to be supplanted anytime soon and any RB-led alternative would be a sideshow – albeit perhaps a really good sideshow if they were to team up with Crankworx, for example.

Eurosport know how to do live sports and will certainly be keen to retain the current commentary team, they may even take on the existing production team if that’s logistically feasible.

My concern would be what kind of show they try to put on around the live action. Will it just be an abrupt live feed as we get for most road cycling, or will they retain and develop the preview & post-race content?

Well yes. It’s a business, not a charity. They might have got it wrong but no-one is in it (edit: at that level) for anything other than the money.

Of course they’re in it for the money but there’s always the question of short term gain that will result in long term decline. Cricket and Rugby League are good examples of this.

Of course they’re in it for the money but there’s always the question of short term gain that will result in long term decline

But one isn’t an inevitable result of the other. Companies and people get things wrong all the time, they get them right too.
It’s rarely in a companies interest to sacrifice the mid term in favour of the short. Investors want to see % year on year every year, it’s very unusual they’re happy with tiny or negative growth this year despite they may have seen 50% last year.

Discovery will want to see increasing return on their investment, year on year on year, sometimes they screw it up but they’d much rather the sport continued to grow every year for the next 8 (or however long they think they can hold the rights for) than ballooned tomorrow, held steady for 5 years then died slowly over the final three of their contract.

The improvement under RB has been mentioned above, do you think that’s because “they understand the fans” or because that’s what they need to do to keep shareholders happy?

Me, I think it’s the later and they’d have taken the DCC approach to track surfacing if they thought it would give them 3% a year for the next decade.

Don’t get me wrong discovery might kill it deader than what ever is in @andrewreay cellar but it won’t be “for the money” it’ll just be incompetence.

The improvement under RB has been mentioned above, do you think that’s because “they understand the fans”

I don’t think RB have a particular rapport with the fans, but their commentary team do – and they sometimes draft in people like Tahnee or Reece Wilson to contribute alongside their generic interviewers.

I really don’t know if DH will benefit from being on a wider, more mainstream, platform or suffer from being behind a paywall.

We don’t even know if Discovery plan to put it behind a paywall TBH, but I have no real objection and part of me thinks it’d be good for the entitled little shitbags of Pinkbike (and some here) to realise that sometimes you have to pay for content.

You pay regardless so don’t go thinking anyone is getting anything for free.

Not really.

If it’s “free” content, someone pays for sure, whether you or I pay for it is a different matter entirely.

Obviously, otherwise you’d be chakaWing

I really don’t know if DH will benefit from being on a wider, more mainstream, platform or suffer from being behind a paywall.

Is there any minority sport that’s grown participation whilst it’s professional level has been behind a paywall? Even football is starting to struggle in attracting new fans in the UK though it does a good job expanding it’s market internationally and extracting more money from existing fans.

This sucks.

Aside from anything else races stay on Red Bull TV for ever – I think i finished watching last year’s season about two weeks ago as I watch all the coverage in full on the turbo over winter (…Super Bruni is back!!!).

The UCI DH WC series isn’t going to be supplanted anytime soon and any RB-led alternative would be a sideshow – albeit perhaps a really good sideshow if they were to team up with Crankworx, for example.

A really good sideshow is what they might be aiming for. There’s a very chicken and egg type scenario when you look at some of the other events – the crankworx DH and the IXS cup.

The coverage of those is shockingly bad. And as such, the top riders (say the top 15 men and top 5 women) seem to give them a miss. Which is a shame because looking at the helmet cams, the courses are pretty similar. If redbull showed up with some cameras and Warner, are the top riders going to enter?

Loads of DH fans love to moan about the UCI and their treatment/neglect of the discipline (pro riders are probably smart enough to keep their mouths shut). And yet what is most coveted? The rainbow stripe jersey.
Is this because they appreciate the steeped history of over a century of competitive cycling? Or is it just because it is the most high profile race?

In XC we see riders turn their back on WC points in an Olympic year. Nino at his peak skipped a WC race to train/prepare for Rio. Pidcock and VDP were both Olympic medal hunting too. I wager we would have seen far less of them on the mtb this coming year if you took injuries off the table.

Interesting to see if we get more rounds. In my limited understanding, at the moment organisers approach the UCI and take all the financial risk associated with putting the event on and presumably also pay the UCI a fee whether they make any money or not.
If as it reads, Discovery are also going to be running the series. More events (could) equal more viewers/money and may leave scope for them helping new organisers financially to put on events.

Not after a bloated F1 type season with events run my dubious Middle East dictators, but nobody can deny that the circuit has become way too Europe based.

As for coverage, I can see them keeping some of the current format of extras but that will be under GCN/Eurosport player subscription and them a highlight package or best of the field live on Eurosport. Hopefully they show the whole of the women’s field, that’s a big miss at the moment for Red Bull.
As stated already, you’re never going to get full course coverage with the current rider gaps. Just look at ski coverage, couple of angles from start gate, then pick up half way down. Their ski coverage is actually very good and if they can bring some of that behind the camera team in for the summer, then it could work very well.

If we want more money in the sport then it needs to be broadcast on a wider platform than a drinks companies marketing platform. It’s the only way to attract proper sponsorship money from outside of the cycling industry

Absolutely! And more rounds. From a XCO perspective – look at the non World Cup races…..how many can you watch? And when you can, it’s not great. So 6-9 World Cup events a year to bring in viewers, sponsors, money, etc
It’s nowhere near enough….

But if a “Red Bull race league” is pulling more viewers than “UCI DH presented by discosport” then where will the top teams and brands be suggesting their athletes focus their efforts?

That would depend on how they league was run. At the moment every RB event is invitation only and so the entry list can be controlled and manipulated. With the UCI series anyone can enter if they are good enough to earn the right to be there. If RB stuck to their current methodology then its is just a marketing entertainment show and not really a race series to find the best

Well it’s not on Eurosport live… Damn….

It’s showing as on Monday 1pm for Womens, 2pm for Mens, XC afterwards…

So where to watch live ? Hmmmmm

Live on GCN+ app if your telly supports it.