Downtime – Chris Ball talks Discovery and their plans for MTB

Taken at face value, all seems promising for the future (maybe). The subscription model is dividing opinion for sure and no doubt will continue to do so. Pinkbike comments sections is entertaining and disaster-porn-esque.

Seems many have forgotten the shitshow that Redbull was in its early days of broadcasting.

I’m lucky BT just added discovery to my subscription so I get it free (sort of). Red Bull were doing a pretty good job so will be interesting to compare. I just hope discovery make it easier to find on their app than it was with RB!

Discovery+ is free with Sky too. And it means no forking out £40 for GCN.

Good podcast. Chris Ball answered everything plainly and fairly without dodging much at all and not leaving anything too ambiguous. As I suspected I’ll be stealing my eldest’s GCN+ password, the angry bottom half of PB will be entertaining bedtime reading!
It’ll be interesting to see how the DH courses change visually if they’re ridding themselves of race tape, improving safety aspects and whatnot.

I agree with him about separating governance and promotional roles, I’m not sure I see the UCI as the right organisation to achieve that.

What’s clear to me is that mountain biking generally, across all disciplines, is about to have a good hard try made to monetize it like never before. That probably was inevitable but it feels like a bit of a shame that it’s ultimately WB/Discovery behind it, they have form for pulling the plug on projects at the last minute and an international race series needs stability and some assurance for the future.

I’m still not clear who Chris Ball currently works for, himself, ESO, WB? He’s clearly now a lynchpin for organising and broadcasting MTB racing.

The talk about developing course design and addressing all stakeholder’s wants especially trying to design out higher speed crashes in DH sounds like a big positive, especially as he says they’re looking forwards to subsequent years rather than just trying to fix a few things at short notice.

I get the impression that Chris Ball is good at spotting opportunities within MTB and bridging the gap between where the world is and where he wants it to be. My only real worry is the allies he necessarily has to make along the way…

Good analysis Cookeea.

He was quite straightforward and didn’t try to flannel the listeners, however a touch more humility and awareness of the importance of this to the fans might not have gone amiss.

I do enjoy the DT podcast, but if the host has a weak spot it’s his lack of follow-up questions. There were several glaring opportunities in this, not least to press CB on what type of personalities we can expect in the commentary booth. And why are teams paying twice as much now? Where’s that money going?

I’d also have asked “do you concede that communications have been poor?” and probed a bit on that.

Interviewer let him duck the question about the slump in EWS coverage, though TBF that might be down to their creative team going off the boil a bit. These things can happen and it was never great to start with.

What’s more significant is a perceived waning of interest in enduro as a sport among fans, so I’m sure he’s very happy to hitch his wagon to DH now.

Overall I think DH is in reasonably safe hands, so far as the core organisational side goes. Just some of the “soft” stuff might be a weakness for ESO.

I think he alluded to the issues Enduro faces when he talked about broadcast coverage. Pointing out the costs and logistics involved in beaming Olympic XCO were huge, well an EWS round is going to be an order of magnitude tougher, DH on the other hand looks to be the format that’s going to be adjusted, at least in part, to better suit broadcasting.

Interesting that he mentioned issuing onboard cameras to riders, might that (plus drones which we’ve seen a bit already) be the way they boost coverage of Enduro (and DH) without huge costs.

He was keen to push GCN+ as the main platform for live coverage, I’m interested to know if edited highlights will be put out without a paywall? If too much coverage ends up behind a paywall it could well work against growing Enduro and DH (IMO).

He was keen to push GCN+ as the main platform for live coverage, I’m interested to know if edited highlights will be put out without a paywall? If too much coverage ends up behind a paywall it could well work against growing Enduro and DH (IMO).

That depends on the PAywall. There’s some thoughts it’ll be part of Eurosport etc… That’s what it needs to succeed.

Soemeone sitting watching Tour of …. and then that finishes, they make a coffee and come back in, but notice DH is on next and sit and watch for the first time. That times 1,000,000 is what the sport needs so they can sell advertising, braoadcast rights.

Putting it on GCN+ only, or a complete more direct paywall that others who would only access who are already into DH, will balls the plan up.

Look at things like Darts… it’s as big as it’s ever been now… because people can see it.. People get hooked on it. But DH, only is being watched by people who like DH.

He repeated several times that it’ll broadcast on GCN+, Eurosport player and free to air services in some countries.
For example both XCO and DH world cup are shown live or delayed on l’Equipe TV in France. The way he emphasised the different broadcasting formats suggests that this may well not change.

A good listen. I do think Chris Hall let him off quite easily allot of the time especially on some of the more contentious areas

He repeated several times that it’ll broadcast on GCN+, Eurosport player and free to air services in some countries.

Yeah I think he answered the viewing question as clearly as he probably could, with things still being sorted out.

One positive I took from it is that he genuinely does want to grow the sport and has a clear and reasonably convincing vision of how to do that, by plugging it into the Discovery broadcast system alongside road racing etc.

Not everyone will be happy about that, but maybe the sport is now both too big for free broadcast (on Red Bull) but also too small for free broadcast (on the BBC)?

My worry is that with Discoveries reported financial issues (they have apparently stopped paying some of their suppliers). This whole thing that seems like it needs a large injection of cash will come crashing down at last minute. I wonder how fast Redbull can move?

I am really looking forward to seeing the new format if this does actually work. Although please no USA style watching the action in a tiny box with scrolling stats and adverts on all 4 sides!

The interviewer is a mountain biker not a journalist and he’ll want Chris back in the future so don’t expect a grilling from him. The coverage would have to be a lot better before I’d pay for it. Often a rider can be in the hot seat for ages but we don’t get to see their run because they were one of the early ones. And the number of races where there’s huge gaps in the run which leaves the commentators guessing what’s happened to a rider that’s lost a lot of time for example. All of that I don’t mind because the coverage was free and you take what you get.

That depends on the PAywall. There’s some thoughts it’ll be part of Eurosport etc… That’s what it needs to succeed.

Soemeone sitting watching Tour of …. and then that finishes, they make a coffee and come back in, but notice DH is on next and sit and watch for the first time. That times 1,000,000 is what the sport needs so they can sell advertising, braoadcast rights.

Putting it on GCN+ only, or a complete more direct paywall that others who would only access who are already into DH, will balls the plan up.

Was exactly my thoughts. Edited highlights on Eurosports would make perfect sense, but currently their cycling coverage is pretty Road and CX heavy so rotating more MTB content in would help them broaden their audience.

I know I’m on the fence about signing up for GCN+ I had the original introductory £20 deal but didn’t fancy renewing after because lots of their other content was on YT and I could already watch lots of bike racing live and edited via Eurosport…

If they’re managing to channel MTB coverage behind that paywall too then I may reconsider a GCN+ sub, but I might whinge about it a bit…