The UCI can do what they like and everyone just has to get on with it. For historical reasons (that’s I don’t claim to know) they have the unilateral exclusive right to be the governing body (ie in charge) of any cycling event they like. Despite what anyone on here may think, being a World Champ and those rainbow stripes matter, both to riders and sponsors.
You just need to look back at snowboarding. The ski world didn’t give a crap about snowboarding until it was going to be included in the Olympics. Then they could make money out of it and the FIS (ski federation) took control of Olympic qualifying and the older ISF (snowboard tour) basically folded and now snowboarding is ruled by the skiers. (ok it’s an oversimplification , but the gist of it is correct) At the time the sport’s biggest star Terje Haakonsen boycotted the Olympics over it, and is still revered for his decision amongst older riders, but is probably unknown to the younger generation who idolise the Olympic medal winners.
Same will happen in DH racing. I can’t see any of the riders walking away from an officially recognised World Series to race a breakaway one, even for more money.

I can’t see any of the riders walking away from an officially recognised World Series to race a breakaway one, even for more money

anyone here a cricket fan? quite a few parallels to be drawn

So I guess this will mean paying to view the DH series next year?, how much will that cost?

Have been wondering this..  Will it be rolled into the GCN+ sub or will you need a Discovery+ sub.? Who knows but if you are only interested in DH and XC and not road/CX racing or the big pile of other Discovery content then it’ll be a tough sell.

GCN+ is £39.99 pa, Discovery+ is £59.99 to get the sports coverage.!

GCN+ is £39.99 pa

£40 for 8 DH races, 8 XCO races, 8 XCC. Thats £1.67 a race. or 83p if you consider the mens and womens to be separate events.

More importantly can you pay by the month?

The UCI can do what they like and everyone just has to get on with it. For historical reasons (that’s I don’t claim to know) they have the unilateral exclusive right to be the governing body (ie in charge) of any cycling event they like. Despite what anyone on here may think, being a World Champ and those rainbow stripes matter, both to riders and sponsors.

So this comes down to the Olympics doesn’t it.? The Olympic committee will only allow sports that are governed by a recognised body, for cycling this is the UCI.If you want your cycling discipline in the Olympics, it needs to be a UCI governed discipline.  This is the point at which the UCI got control of MTB, XC racing wanted to get into the Olympics and so had to become a UCI sanctioned series with a World Cup and World Championship as well as the various national championships and series that go with it.  I believe that DH was dragged along with it as it didn’t make sense for it to be left on it’s own, throwing in with the national cycling body which is backed by the UCI carries a lot of benefits in terms of costs, insurance etc.

However, as has been mentioned earlier by someone else, DH isn’t ever getting into the Olympics, does that weaken the UCI’s hold on it if this new deal turns out to be ruining the sport and Red Bull are waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces with a non UCI series and unofficial world championships  .?  Only time will tell but potentially their position isn’t as strong as they are used to without the ability to hold the Olympics over everyone’s head.

GCN+ is £39.99 pa, Discovery+ is £59.99 to get the sports coverage.!

Absolutely no interest in watching other sports so it’ll be a no from myself

Out of curiosity, why would DH never be an Olympic event?

£40 for 8 DH races, 8 XCO races, 8 XCC. Thats £1.67 a race. or 83p if you consider the mens and womens to be separate events.

More importantly can you pay by the month?

Discovery+ has a monthly plan of £7.99 pm, GCN+ is £6.99 pm

Somafunk, it’s not just sports it quality television programmes such as
Jack Osborne night of terror – bigfoot
Friends Jack Osbourne and Jason Mewes have questioned the existence of Bigfoot for years. Now, Jack and Jason venture deep into the woods of northern Idaho to find out for themselves if this infamous creature is real or simply an age-old legend run wild.
Surely that must be worth the fee on it’s own?

Out of curiosity, why would DH never be an Olympic event?

Happy to be corrected but I believe that the Olympics has a minimum requirement in terms of number of countries able to put up competitors in both men’s and women’s events.  With a lot of Olympic sports someone can enter from a country with no representation just by gaining enough qualifying points in the event.  I think that DH is already far short of that requirement and the safety implications of opening it up to novices from countries with no DH scene means that the UCI aren’t going to try.

The idea of an Eddie the Eagle or Cool Runnings scenario isn’t likely given the very high likelihood of someone getting themselves killed live on global television.!

At the time the sport’s biggest star Terje Haakonsen boycotted the Olympics over it

Terje also started the TTR world tour as a rival series to the FIS, for a long time that totally eclipsed the FIS series for pro snowboarding (I don’t follow snowboarding as much these days so not sure how it’s organised now) and I’d say a LOT of people (riders included) would like something similar to happen in mountain biking

why would DH never be an Olympic event

It is incredibly boring to watch…actually, all off-road stuff is incredibly boring to watch as there is very little rider fighting rider type stuff – as much asI hate to admit it, the TdF is more entertaining to watch as the riders race to the various stage points where they can gain points for various jerseys and there tends to be a good battle for the final line each day – that doesn’t happen that often in MTB and Enduro and DH is even poorer for it as the riders all set off individually. I can’t think of anything worse than watching someone else riding their bike (aware that is a personal preference).

Unless you have all riders mass starting together, it’ll be even duller to watch as an ‘olympic’ sport for the people who enjoy watching the Olympics. CX and the new Short Course MTB stuff seem to fair better as there is a lot more battling between riders to get away, they still aren’t great (which I’m sure isn’t helped by camera angles and whatnot).

The riders are incredibly skilled and that allows amazing speeds, but turning that into something to watch is very difficult.

UCI has been the governing body of MTB long before the sniff of Olympics came around…pretty sure it was largely due to the ‘local’ governing bodies (BC in the UK) around the world all wanting to be the controller of MTB ‘stuff’, and as those governing bodies are all affiliated/part of UCI, then UCI are the big daddy. Although there was a lot more going on in the early days and many competing ‘governing’ bodies trying to get top place, but ultimately, the UCI-affiliated groups won the day.

As for the comments about starting an alternative race series – look at the issues with the golfing world when another group created their own competition – loads and loads of money for it, but the governing body soon moved in and blocked many of the golfers who were competing in the alternative contest – I can see UCI doing that as well.

Out of curiosity, why would DH never be an Olympic event?

I know the newly added surfing does sink this argument a bit…

but how many places in the world have the geography to be capable of having a 4 minute WC track, let a lone actually have a suitable track already. How many of those are even vaguely near to a city with an interest in hosting the entire thing?
Plus adding another equipment/cost heavy sport that is dominated by the English and French (notable mentions to USA, and Australia) probably goes against the ethos a little.

Terje also started the TTR world tour as a rival series to the FIS, for a long time that totally eclipsed the FIS series for pro snowboarding (I don’t follow snowboarding as much these days so not sure how it’s organised now) and I’d say a LOT of people (riders included) would like something similar to happen in mountain biking

That’s very true but as you say, even you don’t know where it stands now compared to the FIS. MTB has had lots of stand alone side events (urban DH, Hardline) but i bet the winners of those would trade them in for a world cup win. Riders voicing that they’d love less UCI involvement is very different to the companies that pay them allowing it. Can’t see Specialized giving up all their road endorsements for the sake of Bruni and Iles. Would be an extreme example of misuse of power (then again it is the UCI) but could be possible to withdraw UCI road bike reg’ compliance for companies that didn’t play ball.

The riders are incredibly skilled and that allows amazing speeds, but turning that into something to watch is very difficult.

Then we all need to ditch DH and get behind 4X..

Or push for a hybrid? How about 4 up DH races on technical but wider 2 minute courses with multiple lines and jumps?

It is incredibly boring to watch…actually, all off-road stuff is incredibly boring to watch

Not watched any WCDH recently then?

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/rob-warner-voice-of-dh-staying-with-red-bull/page/2/#post-12478581

In no way is WC DH boring to watch, I dont know why the average Singletrack reader is so sniffy and dismissive of it and seem to be way more interested in TDF, politics, what new watch to buy or what to invest in (yawn).

I’ll give you XC being boring though and Endro to an extent.

By contrast, Crankworx Austria. Anyone watch the DH this year. I dont think its a much less challenging track compared to WC. Some of the top names were there. Notably Vali Holl and Finn Iles, 2 of the wildest ones to watch in WC races… and I was bored.
Was it the commentary, was it the lack of well placed cameras? I dont know.

DickBarton
why would DH never be an Olympic event

It is incredibly boring to watch…actually, all off-road stuff is incredibly boring to watch as there is very little rider fighting rider type stuff – as much asI hate to admit it, the TdF is more entertaining to watch as the riders race to the various stage points where they can gain points for various jerseys and there tends to be a good battle for the final line each day – that doesn’t happen that often in MTB and Enduro and DH is even poorer for it as the riders all set off individually.

Boring to watch? have you seen WC DH? Far from boring. TDF is ****ing tedious by comparison.

the riders all set off individually. Surely it’s just like the winter Olympic DH skiing? The format is almost identical.

To be fair, mtbers are ****ing terrible judges of whether or not DH is boring

The good thing about 4X would be that it hardly needs any hill. In fact, you could take away the hill altogether and just use a start ramp and a load of leg power . . .

It is incredibly boring to watch…actually, all off-road stuff is incredibly boring to watch as there is very little rider fighting rider type stuff

As opposed to laps of a velodrome, or a 5hr grand tour stage with a few sprints along the way? DH without Warner will be like F1 without Murray Walker, the same riders on the same tracks, it won’t be as good to watch but as a mountain biker I’d choose to watch DH over any other discipline every time

Most sports are pretty dull if you have no interest in them.

Yeah, have tried to watch more MTB racing over the last few months – DH and various XC stuff – it was all very dull, hence my comment. It just doesn’t seem to capture the excitement, but for DH, it is unlikely to do so unless you are watching it all and really wanting the rider to beat the time, otherwise it is 1 rider on the track and it is ‘just’ the clock they are racing against.

This doesn’t make interesting TV and is why not many folk watch it (outside those already in to mountain biking and have an interest in watching it). 4X is exciting, like a BMX race juiced up, but I’ve not managed to find much of that (but haven’t actively been looking) – and I’ve absolutely no interest in being able to do big jumps on a bike, so that stuff doesn’t get a look in at all (but aware that is likely to be just me).

This is part of the problem…for those who are died-in-the-wool participants in the sport, it is either brilliant or dull when ‘their’ sport is on TV. I’ve no issues with people watching it if they enjoy doing so, but to the average person who isn’t interested in the sport and stumbles across it on the TV, they aren’t going to last long watching it.

I’m aware it is most likely to be me – I’m a doer rather than a watcher – if I’ve time to sit and watch someone racing their bike, I keep thinking I’ve got time to go ride my own (which I’m aware sounds properly cheesy, but this is my sport/thing and I much prefer doing it myself than watching someone else doing their take on the sport).

And all of that doesn’t really make any odds as I don’t pay for any tv subscriptions, so I’m not the intended audience for any of it.

to the average person who isn’t interested in the sport and stumbles across it on the TV, they aren’t going to last long watching it.

I’d have to agree with this, which is exactly why the UCI should have left it as separate TV rights deals for different disciplines instead of handing the whole lot to a single broadcaster

 – if I’ve time to sit and watch someone racing their bike, I keep thinking I’ve got time to go ride my own

I usually watch the replay on Redbull TV after I’ve been out riding, which is another plus point of their coverage, the option to watch the whole thing at a time of your choice will be a miss if Discovery don’t continue to offer it and another reason not to subscribe for a lot of people

Yeah, I’ve have the opportunity to watch both downhill skiing and DH bike racing, and the speed that both of these sport are like IRL and how they’re portrayed on the screen is wildly different.

Will become another sport I used to watch.

There is a competing series sponsored by IXS maybe that will get a boost.

Re earlier comments, my main thought is same around why is it the organising of the sport has been sold off, not just the broadcast rights. And surely even then the UCI ought to maintain control over sporting arrangements and integrity etc. impression given this is all now Discovery pulling the strings.

I can’t think of any other parallel. Even F1 for all the money brokers, its still FIA distinct from F1 who try and govern.

Surely UCI set the rules even if someone else organises and broadcast. Sky or BT don’t buy premier league rights and then say ok it’s 60mins, no offside and in event of a draw it’s then topless penalties.

A question I haven’t seen asked or answered. Does this mean that under Red Bull they were both organiser and broadcaster, or just the latter? Ie who decided on current DH arrangements, uci or red bull?

Seems a shambles. For all I like EWS the coverage isn’t great. It’s passable as a freebie on YouTube but no way I’d pay unless the quality steps up in a big way. Doesn’t bode well for DH.

Then we all need to ditch DH and get behind 4X..

Except for the small issue in that 4x doesnt have a recognised governing body. They cut their ties with UCI years ago. Good interview with Scott Beaumont about that in Cranked a couple of issues ago.

For all those claiming that UCI would ban riders competing in another series, how did that go down back in the days of the Maxxis Cup? (I may be misremembering the scope of that series but it was not UCI sanctioned IIRC)

Maxxis Cup never really tried to compete with World Cups, they let any punter in (must’ve been 20 years ago too? Thing are far more commercial now) and it was just a small European series (similar to IXS Cup)

RB were the broadcaster. The events are all organised locally and have to comply with various uci rules and contractual conditions to hold the event with World Cup status

As to the change of broadcaster in indifferent. Yes I like listening to Warner getting overly excited but I guess he has chosen to stay with rb and I wish him well doing that.

The simple version is that rb got outbid as they can only spend so much to get the roi from selling  more drinks as a result of the people watching the event those getting freebies from the rb pit girls at the events and their professional influencers doing the social media thing.

I am concerned that no one seems to have a clue what’s happening next season yet as I imagine the logistics for event organisers takes some planning and lead times to get everything in place.

As to how we will be able to watch I think that is quite complicated. Discovery will clearly want to get the roi they expect from their investment. That means they will need to come up with a compelling programme to encourage viewers. If they choose to put it behind a paywall then that programme has to be even more compelling if they want to keep the likes of us prepared to pay for it. Equally if the programme  doesn’t reach the target markets of team sponsors then will they still want to spend their marketing budget on racing if enough people don’t see it? Racing is all about sales at the end of the day. Discovery are going to have to find a balance of a good show that has enough viewers to keep the team sponsors happy whilst giving them the roi they want from buying the rights

watching the DH WC is far from boring. the speed the riders carry through corners and the ability to traverse rough sections by appearing to levitate amazes me.

no doubt rob warner’s enthusiasm lifts the excitement, especially when there is a time to be looked at, but i find it strange that a mountain biker would prefer to watch the olympics (unless it was a cycling event, obvs) or sit through 2 weeks of TdF coverage. i enjoy the TdF, but it is only “exciting” at select moments in the race.

anyway, it will be interesting to see what discovery do. though i won’t actually see what they do as i won’t be subscribing to find out.

Ahhh that’s really sad news that Rob won’t be commentating. Having watched other Red Bull sport productions most of the U.S commentators are beyond bland – take Rampage for instance, it’s embarrassingly bad. I feel DH will go the same way as Wheeler Dealers…

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LAT
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watching the DH WC is far from boring. the speed the riders carry through corners and the ability to traverse rough sections by appearing to levitate amazes me.

To us, absolutely. To the lay man though? In their eyes someone rides a bike down a hill, but the rider is so good they actually make it look kinda easy (especially as said lay man doesn’t really have a perspective on the skills involved). 3mins later someone else does exactly the same, and a wee thing on the screen says he’s a bit faster or slower. Repeat this 60 times. If you’re lucky there’ll be an exciting looking crash.

£40 for 8 DH races, 8 XCO races, 8 XCC. Thats £1.67 a race. or 83p if you consider the mens and womens to be separate events.

More importantly can you pay by the month?

So essentially more expensive for those not interested in XC, XCO nor road racing.

Personally, I DGAF about xc, XCO nor road racing. Despite the skills, they don’t represent the kind of riding I’m interested in. For the same reason I don’t watch xc skiing, F1, horse jumping, etc.

I fear that the uci will sell itself out to the detriment of the sport.

@mashr yeah but tennis and golf are absolute mind numbing bollocks and yet still manage to make the Olympics. As does speed walking. SPEED WALKING FOR CHRISTS SAKE!

Are you seriously suggesting that DH is more boring than any of those?

There’s no real barrier other than geology which doesn’t seem to stop other geologically restricted events.

The 2032 Olympic XC event is set to be at my local tracks (god knows what they’re going to do to the place to make it worthy, but it’ll be controversial).

I think the closest realistic location that could host a DH race would be 1000 miles north in Cairns, or about 800 miles south in Stromlo. Not inconceivable I suppose.

To us, absolutely. To the lay man though?

i absolutely agree, but what layman watched any sport? by which i mean, if i watch basketball or skiing, it’s of no interest and i find it dull. the same is true of many other sports. i was responding someone who is a mountain biker (in the way that i imagine being a mountain biker) saying earlier in the thread that watching WC DH dull. horses for courses, etc.

the olympics are only interesting to people who aren’t interested in the sports because you can get behind your national team and because it’s the olympics.

most spors that you aren’t interested in are dull to watch.

edit, i’m not advocating for DH to be in the olympics. god forbid.

I’ve enjoyed watching mtb downhill over lockdown because it was free and something to kill a few hours.

Rob certainly made it more interesting than it otherwise would be

My observations

Qualifying is a waste of time

It’s the least pro, pro sport (from an athletic perspective)

The results are incredibly inconsistent

Why only 6 rounds

An Elite sport should have feader leagues that take you from grass routes to pro ie an amateur shouldn’t be turning up to a pro race

You shouldn’t be able to turn up to a pro race because you fancy it (Rachel Atherton) see above

It does appear to be a bit of an amateur sport in a pro world, which in some ways keeps with the cool dude culture of the sport, but depends what the ‘pro’ arm of the sport wants to be

I’ve enjoyed watching it the last 3 years, certainly will not be paying to watch it

They would be better having World Cup XC races, maybe call it the ‘Overbiked series’ on long travel MTB’s where it’s a mixture of riding easy trails that show how awesome the bikes are, with points awarded for how awesome each riders beared is. That and an ebike series.

That will satisfy the marketing folk at least

Are you seriously suggesting that DH is more boring than any of those?

No, comparably boring.

Don’t get me wrong, I love it, I race it, I’m all in.

But you have to have an interest and understanding or you get Funkydunc’s post.

That’s what it looks like to the uninitiated, like most sports. The other aspect is the athletes aren’t part of popular culture, so they’re unknowns to gen pop, you don’t have to have an Intrest in track to know who Sir Mo is.

So many parallels between this thread of the convo and the kids or not thread.

I’ve enjoyed watching mtb downhill over lockdown because it was free and something to kill a few hours.

Rob certainly made it more interesting than it otherwise would be

My observations

Qualifying is a waste of time

It’s the least pro, pro sport (from an athletic perspective)

The results are incredibly inconsistent

Why only 6 rounds

An Elite sport should have feader leagues that take you from grass routes to pro ie an amateur shouldn’t be turning up to a pro race

You shouldn’t be able to turn up to a pro race because you fancy it (Rachel Atherton) see above

It does appear to be a bit of an amateur sport in a pro world, which in some ways keeps with the cool dude culture of the sport, but depends what the ‘pro’ arm of the sport wants to be

I’ve enjoyed watching it the last 3 years, certainly will not be paying to watch it

I think the fact that non-pro riders can turn up and make a fist of it as a brilliant aspect of the riding… They still won’t get past Qually, but hey, they can jump on the hill ride down next to pro riders and have an absolute blast. The difference is that the ‘pro’ riders do the same in the opposite direction.
Last time at Rheola my lad was on the uplift with Charlie Hatton and other pro riders, this wasn’t even for a national (although the national were 2 weeks later at same track, hence why they went i guess), but i think it’s brilliant that youngesters and average Joe can be there riding the same trails at the same time, even if it’s not in the race. The accessibility of the sport in that context is what really makes it exceptional.

I’m not sure why Qualifying is a waste of time, shall we just call it free practice ? The faster guys go down last, they’re the ones RB want to see and the fans want to see, so makes sense to have them going off togethr in a bunch, otherwise the coverage time needs to be doubled as the winner could be 2nd out of the gate and we all miss it ?

Of course they have feeder leagues, think MIJ/Woodland, then Gravity events, then to nationals/Pearce and then to full on national, then finally to worlds… they have the classes and the courses and the riders are in relation to the series they’re in… but the great thing is, you can ride up or down a level too (well, IMO not your of course).
Riders soon learn if they’re up to it and i’ve seen plenty of people at ‘harder’ levels than they can race going home before race 1 as they know they’re out of their depth. But it’s still a great experience if you ask me.

Obviously i look at all of this from a slightly different persepctive to some as i’m pretty involved in trying to get a rider from the lower end to the upper end, so i want him to experience the things i’ve written above, but i can see why that’s different to the viewer at home.

I’ll pay for the DH racing… but that’s not a massive shock.