Max failing to show the men’s race today, at least in the US. Feed cut off after the women’s podium and that was it. Trying to...
Max failing to show the men’s race today, at least in the US. Feed cut off after the women’s podium and that was it. Trying to watch the “live” feed shows a replay of the women’s race.
Did that ever happen in the Red Bull days?
Did it ever start live? I watched replay and there was a big gap(just showed event starting soon) between end of women's coverage and start of men's? Then the men's pre race started.
Redbull always had two separate streams for them so probably wouldn't have had that issue.
Max failing to show the men’s race today, at least in the US. Feed cut off after the women’s podium and that was it. Trying to...
Max failing to show the men’s race today, at least in the US. Feed cut off after the women’s podium and that was it. Trying to watch the “live” feed shows a replay of the women’s race.
Did it ever start live? I watched replay and there was a big gap(just showed event starting soon) between end of women's coverage and start of...
Did it ever start live? I watched replay and there was a big gap(just showed event starting soon) between end of women's coverage and start of men's? Then the men's pre race started.
Redbull always had two separate streams for them so probably wouldn't have had that issue.
Supposedly in lap 7, but by then I had switched over to the bootleg stream site.
I've watched the XCC and XCO races this season and will say that ESO/WB/Max is doing a better this year, than last. Great to see that they're doing more interviews of riders--especially after the race. It's not a major jump up from last season, but they have made improvements to the overall package.
I think the biggest issue right now for XC racing is that they are not displaying a ticker along the bottom of where people are throughout the race. Basically, they just display the graphic of the the top 20 occasionally in the first two laps, then after that it's just the graphic of the top 10, sometimes just the top 5. It's ridiculous. You basically have no idea where anyone else is in the race. If you're 11th you might as well not even be out there. I can't believe the teams are not pissed at them for this. I understand the 'video coverage' will be focused on the leaders, but the fact that the graphics aren't telling you where any of the other 50+ riders are in the race are at, is ridiculous.
And even the video coverage is too focused on the leader often--for instance, someone might have a 40 second gap on the field, leading, solo. The camera just follows them around the entire time, meanwhile they are missing tons of awesome battles for the top 10 behind. In Supercross, when the leader gets out in front the coverage switches to showing the battles for other positions, which is how it should be with XC.
Looking at discovery and Eurosport in Europe and it doesn’t look like there’s any coverage of the qualis or semis this year? Even more concerning is that the elite men’s final is a 25 minute slot?!!
Edit: not a 25 minute slot. I just need to learn to tell the time
Looking at discovery and Eurosport in Europe and it doesn’t look like there’s any coverage of the qualis or semis this year? Even more concerning is...
Looking at discovery and Eurosport in Europe and it doesn’t look like there’s any coverage of the qualis or semis this year? Even more concerning is that the elite men’s final is a 25 minute slot?!!
Edit: not a 25 minute slot. I just need to learn to tell the time
AFAIK there has never been coverage of qualis. Pretty shit that they've dropped the semis coverage though, I didn't tune in to many of them last year as I found it was too much to view in one day, but I had thought I'd be more interested to watch this year as they're a day earlier. Now there's no coverage it makes them seem more pointless than ever.
Just wait until you see the hot garbage of a practice edit they put out.
I got in last night, ready to catch up on my stories: Dialed, maybe a Cathro, some rider vlogs…buoyed by the press conference vid, I was hyped! Got the coffee ready for this morning. Ready.
Didn’t see a Dialed (hm) but watched the RAWs and some POVs…watched the dude Flo (English subtitles!—sick!) then i saw the screenshot for the UCI practice vid. Said out loud, “what is D N B? Is that another new abbreviation?” Cued that piece up and went out to the kitchen for a snack. My partner was now involved in trying to decipher this new D N B. A few calls from the kitchen back to the bedroom and we settled on “Down Hill Bike,” because obviously it’s not drum’n’bass, drum and bass, or drumNbass…
cracked a Modelo and pushed play…
Thousand yard stare. Wasted beer…
“Well shit. At least I have all morning set up to watch semis!!!”
If the semis concept was not pointless enough, the lack of coverage makes the whole thing just silly.
It's beyond me the number of riders who will return home on Sunday after a very expensive trip with almost no trace of coverage (thank god for the RAWS and several vlogs on YT)
Also, as an spaniard, I still don't know how am I going to watch the race. Best bet right now is a replay on Eurosport on monday, probably with terrible spanish commentary. This is just wrong.
While I definitely agree with Rachel that 30 men and 10 women is too few for finals (by a lot).
The semis stuff doesn't make sense. It was only introduced last year . They trialed coverage and with the small time gaps between riders it was canned cos it's a mess to produce I imagine.
So seen as RB TV never broadcast qualis and semis is a new thing (that sucks) I don't see how it's gone backwards.
I actually think the 30 men 10 women is necessary for the sport going forward. I think it's fine.
We need a better TV product, 60 30 isn't it, it's terrible. It takes way to long, you don't see most people's runs anyway, and then we arbitrarily swap timing for the top 10 to have full viewed runs anyway.
What we need is a proper continental series behind the WC and to develop a legit feeder series. Look at how many men's entrants there at Fort Bill. It's ridiculous, they're racing for 60th and get no coverage or prize money.
Cap the WC to the actual elite of the sport, develop an 8 round continental series where the up and coming can challenge for podiums, and you can distribute prize money.
The only way we get more prize money is through more sponsorship, and that means a better TV product.
Since there wasn't a legit way for me to watch this in Asia, I've tried: Kodi plugins, pirated IPTV channels, suspicious online streaming links, and even scoured Facebook Live (ugh). No dice.
I wonder how they plan on growing the sport when the most populous countries in the world can't even see it.
Nope, it's Drum & Bass, as in the music used on it. Some people abbreviate it to DNB.
The fancy studio shots before the big dogs ride showing off the bikes and kit look fairly pro, and the amount of course covered was nice, but that's totally undone by not broadcasting semis, zero communication about why, and then making it so hard for people who either want to or indeed have paid to watch the finals live.
It was easy enough for me to find on the Discovery app, but it doesn't sound like many people shared that experience.
As a fan of anyone who lines up in a DH start hut it hurts to admit that 30 is enough for an elite men final (as long as I get to watch Saturday). 10 is too few women, though.
As a fan of anyone who lines up in a DH start hut it hurts to admit that 30 is enough for an elite men final...
As a fan of anyone who lines up in a DH start hut it hurts to admit that 30 is enough for an elite men final (as long as I get to watch Saturday). 10 is too few women, though.
Ten women in the final was way too few after seeing half the finalist share the podium afterward. How does this look for those new watchers who don't know to follow qualifier or the semi, which wasn't even broadcast? If they have more racers available for the final, then they should utilize them for the big show.
30 men in the final was alright, but again, so much of the story is missing if we can't watch the up and comers who are battling with the top guys to get a good result. I miss seeing guys like Atwill, Frixtalon, the Masters Brothers, etc, putting it all out there for a shot at the podium. We had that in the past when they took the top 80 qualifiers to the final. I'd sacrifice entire course runs to see more riders going balls out on the more interesting sections of the track. This could be accomplished by putting on a semis show that didn't show as much of the run.
I feel they'd have a good show if they actually broadcast some version of the qualifiers/semis the day before the finals, then do what they did today except with at least 20 women (if available) in the final.
Having Gwin in the box was great---but (I can't believe I'm saying this) they need Cedric back or something. To replace the stoke, the hype, the excitement. The broadcast (especially womens) was very "meh" in terms of "energy". After the race was complete, the wife and I watched the RedBull Race Tapes episode about Finn and Loic from the '23 season. There was some audio overlay from the race commentary of Cedric getting hyped. We both remarked that it was more exciting w/Cedric (or Rob/Claudio). I think Gwin should LEAD over Cedric, but Cedric or someone else needs to be in there that is HYPED. Like Tahnee has some descent commentary but sounded like was ready to take a nap (not her fault, she's not a pro sports commentator!).
Oh boy, after all the bashing of 2023 now people want CG back in the booth, shows you can never please everyone.
I honestly think commentating a race is a two people job. You bring in a third and then they start tripping on eachother, it is just too fast for three people at the same time (excluding a flash interview or something similar)
Ric is a decent communicator but he will never get us hyped as Rob did. But for now, the Ric/ Aaron, or even the Ric/ Tahnee combo is fine for me
Fun fact. According to StayAlive, the global provider for the World Cup, North Koreans can watch the World Cup. Korea (the Republic of) means North Korea now according to them. I could've sworn ROK meant South and DPRK meant North but maybe I've been confused all these years
Anyway, multiple emails have confirmed that I can't watch the races here in the South, but apparently people in the North can!
Haven't watched anything since the Discovery takeover and barely watched it before in the Red Bull era, but the exciting commentator should be the primary one. The second, backup commentator should be the knowledgeable one, the technical one.
Since there wasn't a legit way for me to watch this in Asia, I've tried: Kodi plugins, pirated IPTV channels, suspicious online streaming links, and even...
Since there wasn't a legit way for me to watch this in Asia, I've tried: Kodi plugins, pirated IPTV channels, suspicious online streaming links, and even scoured Facebook Live (ugh). No dice.
I wonder how they plan on growing the sport when the most populous countries in the world can't even see it.
I personally enjoyed the commentary way more than last year. Ric seems to have improved a lot, there were far fewer interruptions and people (Gwin, mainly) being talked over.
As far as the 10 women and 30 men is concerned, one thing that hasn't been mentioned is that it's less compelling to go and watch live with fewer riders on track for finals. As one commenter on the other site said, it's questionable if it's worth taking the gondola to the top of the track as time is limited to get back down to the bottom for the last riders.
I don't know if that is the reason, but to me the crowd seemed a little muted when compared to previous years.
Just a thought: I am the WC commentator for my country. Broadcast has been done today, on Monday, on something like a live replay. I am actually on my way back to my home town, from the main studio. I prepared for 10+30 riders for the finals, with info on bikes, team changes and what not. I think I ended up doing 5+10 at best. Broadcast was sandwiched between snooker and Giro. I am honestly curious what the viewership is on DH compared to snooker and Giro. I don't know what was on when these events were live, but it's possible it has something to do with the fact that it's Easter over here. Round 2 is scheduled to be live. From what I know, scheduling is done by the European HQ for each country. Last year we had occasions when we did both the semis and the finals, full length, plus prize giving ceremony. To me, this kind of full menu adds value to the viewer, because it gives you time to provide extra info and thus create context and make people adhere to sport. Something very hard to do in 1.5h for both women and men, ads included.
Aaron sounded good in my headset, for the time I was able to pay attention to him.
Cheers and much love to all people who follow the World Cup,
Mx
Edit: And on the Downtime post-race episode Neko said he'd heard similarly and added some details: 60 for qualies, and 20 advance to finals, then a LCQ and 10 advance to finals (no semis).
Edit: And on the Downtime post-race episode Neko said he'd heard similarly and added some details: 60 for qualies, and 20 advance to finals, then a LCQ and 10 advance to finals (no semis).
I've been saying for the past year that the obvious fix for all this is Last Chance Qualifiers.
Exact same thing as it sounds like Martin is proposing (maybe he read my posts on here)
Saturday: Qualies: top 20 men and top 5 women, advance to finals.
Sunday:
Junior Women Finals
LCQ Elite Women: top 5 make it to finals
Junior Men Finals
LCQ Elite Men: top 10 make it to finals
Elite Women Finals
Elite Men Finals
It would create a lot of drama on race day. The big names who didn't qualify Saturday would still be there racing on Sunday keeping the broadcast and in-person more interesting. The turn around time from LCQ to race would be fairly fast, but that's part of the drama. Mechanic has to have bike ready, etc. Like in Supercross. There would have to be some way to limit LCQ however to keep rider count down. You can't let the whole 80+ riders who didn't qualify go again on Sunday. ... It will have to be something like the top 30 men who didn't qualify + protected riders (protection should be easier to achieve for LCQ) get to go again.
Did it ever start live? I watched replay and there was a big gap(just showed event starting soon) between end of women's coverage and start of men's? Then the men's pre race started.
Redbull always had two separate streams for them so probably wouldn't have had that issue.
Supposedly in lap 7, but by then I had switched over to the bootleg stream site.
I've watched the XCC and XCO races this season and will say that ESO/WB/Max is doing a better this year, than last. Great to see that they're doing more interviews of riders--especially after the race. It's not a major jump up from last season, but they have made improvements to the overall package.
I think the biggest issue right now for XC racing is that they are not displaying a ticker along the bottom of where people are throughout the race. Basically, they just display the graphic of the the top 20 occasionally in the first two laps, then after that it's just the graphic of the top 10, sometimes just the top 5. It's ridiculous. You basically have no idea where anyone else is in the race. If you're 11th you might as well not even be out there. I can't believe the teams are not pissed at them for this. I understand the 'video coverage' will be focused on the leaders, but the fact that the graphics aren't telling you where any of the other 50+ riders are in the race are at, is ridiculous.
And even the video coverage is too focused on the leader often--for instance, someone might have a 40 second gap on the field, leading, solo. The camera just follows them around the entire time, meanwhile they are missing tons of awesome battles for the top 10 behind. In Supercross, when the leader gets out in front the coverage switches to showing the battles for other positions, which is how it should be with XC.
Gwin confirmed in the commentary booth with Ric for the first 4 world cups this season! Bummed he’s not racing but we will enjoy his insights!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6bpEeIsPVZ/?igsh=dTFtOTQ1b25scHZv
This is good news!
All I need to figure out now will be how to watch the race in Asia.
Looking at discovery and Eurosport in Europe and it doesn’t look like there’s any coverage of the qualis or semis this year? Even more concerning is that the elite men’s final is a 25 minute slot?!!
Edit: not a 25 minute slot. I just need to learn to tell the time
AFAIK there has never been coverage of qualis. Pretty shit that they've dropped the semis coverage though, I didn't tune in to many of them last year as I found it was too much to view in one day, but I had thought I'd be more interested to watch this year as they're a day earlier. Now there's no coverage it makes them seem more pointless than ever.
I hate these guys.
Just wait until you see the hot garbage of a practice edit they put out.
I got in last night, ready to catch up on my stories: Dialed, maybe a Cathro, some rider vlogs…buoyed by the press conference vid, I was hyped! Got the coffee ready for this morning. Ready.
Didn’t see a Dialed (hm) but watched the RAWs and some POVs…watched the dude Flo (English subtitles!—sick!) then i saw the screenshot for the UCI practice vid. Said out loud, “what is D N B? Is that another new abbreviation?” Cued that piece up and went out to the kitchen for a snack. My partner was now involved in trying to decipher this new D N B. A few calls from the kitchen back to the bedroom and we settled on “Down Hill Bike,” because obviously it’s not drum’n’bass, drum and bass, or drumNbass…
cracked a Modelo and pushed play…
Thousand yard stare. Wasted beer…
“Well shit. At least I have all morning set up to watch semis!!!”
Chris Ball’s face is back on the dartboard.
Oh. “DowNhill Bike.”
doomed from the start hahahahah
If the semis concept was not pointless enough, the lack of coverage makes the whole thing just silly.
It's beyond me the number of riders who will return home on Sunday after a very expensive trip with almost no trace of coverage (thank god for the RAWS and several vlogs on YT)
Also, as an spaniard, I still don't know how am I going to watch the race. Best bet right now is a replay on Eurosport on monday, probably with terrible spanish commentary. This is just wrong.
Good to see Rachel speaking out.
While I definitely agree with Rachel that 30 men and 10 women is too few for finals (by a lot).
The semis stuff doesn't make sense. It was only introduced last year . They trialed coverage and with the small time gaps between riders it was canned cos it's a mess to produce I imagine.
So seen as RB TV never broadcast qualis and semis is a new thing (that sucks) I don't see how it's gone backwards.
🥱
I actually think the 30 men 10 women is necessary for the sport going forward. I think it's fine.
We need a better TV product, 60 30 isn't it, it's terrible. It takes way to long, you don't see most people's runs anyway, and then we arbitrarily swap timing for the top 10 to have full viewed runs anyway.
What we need is a proper continental series behind the WC and to develop a legit feeder series. Look at how many men's entrants there at Fort Bill. It's ridiculous, they're racing for 60th and get no coverage or prize money.
Cap the WC to the actual elite of the sport, develop an 8 round continental series where the up and coming can challenge for podiums, and you can distribute prize money.
The only way we get more prize money is through more sponsorship, and that means a better TV product.
Since there wasn't a legit way for me to watch this in Asia, I've tried: Kodi plugins, pirated IPTV channels, suspicious online streaming links, and even scoured Facebook Live (ugh). No dice.
I wonder how they plan on growing the sport when the most populous countries in the world can't even see it.
Nope, it's Drum & Bass, as in the music used on it. Some people abbreviate it to DNB.
The fancy studio shots before the big dogs ride showing off the bikes and kit look fairly pro, and the amount of course covered was nice, but that's totally undone by not broadcasting semis, zero communication about why, and then making it so hard for people who either want to or indeed have paid to watch the finals live.
It was easy enough for me to find on the Discovery app, but it doesn't sound like many people shared that experience.
As a fan of anyone who lines up in a DH start hut it hurts to admit that 30 is enough for an elite men final (as long as I get to watch Saturday). 10 is too few women, though.
Ten women in the final was way too few after seeing half the finalist share the podium afterward. How does this look for those new watchers who don't know to follow qualifier or the semi, which wasn't even broadcast? If they have more racers available for the final, then they should utilize them for the big show.
30 men in the final was alright, but again, so much of the story is missing if we can't watch the up and comers who are battling with the top guys to get a good result. I miss seeing guys like Atwill, Frixtalon, the Masters Brothers, etc, putting it all out there for a shot at the podium. We had that in the past when they took the top 80 qualifiers to the final. I'd sacrifice entire course runs to see more riders going balls out on the more interesting sections of the track. This could be accomplished by putting on a semis show that didn't show as much of the run.
I feel they'd have a good show if they actually broadcast some version of the qualifiers/semis the day before the finals, then do what they did today except with at least 20 women (if available) in the final.
Having Gwin in the box was great---but (I can't believe I'm saying this) they need Cedric back or something. To replace the stoke, the hype, the excitement. The broadcast (especially womens) was very "meh" in terms of "energy". After the race was complete, the wife and I watched the RedBull Race Tapes episode about Finn and Loic from the '23 season. There was some audio overlay from the race commentary of Cedric getting hyped. We both remarked that it was more exciting w/Cedric (or Rob/Claudio). I think Gwin should LEAD over Cedric, but Cedric or someone else needs to be in there that is HYPED. Like Tahnee has some descent commentary but sounded like was ready to take a nap (not her fault, she's not a pro sports commentator!).
Miriam sounded half asleep if I'm honest.
A-A Ron was great, but yeah sort of miss the zany ways of Cedric I suppose. It was a bit "dull"
I wouldn’t mind an unhinged FAN in the booth…Warner did bring that, he was a part of the scene but relatable as a pure fan too.
Oh boy, after all the bashing of 2023 now people want CG back in the booth, shows you can never please everyone.
I honestly think commentating a race is a two people job. You bring in a third and then they start tripping on eachother, it is just too fast for three people at the same time (excluding a flash interview or something similar)
Ric is a decent communicator but he will never get us hyped as Rob did. But for now, the Ric/ Aaron, or even the Ric/ Tahnee combo is fine for me
Fun fact. According to StayAlive, the global provider for the World Cup, North Koreans can watch the World Cup. Korea (the Republic of) means North Korea now according to them. I could've sworn ROK meant South and DPRK meant North but maybe I've been confused all these years
Anyway, multiple emails have confirmed that I can't watch the races here in the South, but apparently people in the North can!
Haven't watched anything since the Discovery takeover and barely watched it before in the Red Bull era, but the exciting commentator should be the primary one. The second, backup commentator should be the knowledgeable one, the technical one.
Tiz-Cycling Live Stream (tiz-cycling-live.io) Tried this?
I personally enjoyed the commentary way more than last year. Ric seems to have improved a lot, there were far fewer interruptions and people (Gwin, mainly) being talked over.
As far as the 10 women and 30 men is concerned, one thing that hasn't been mentioned is that it's less compelling to go and watch live with fewer riders on track for finals. As one commenter on the other site said, it's questionable if it's worth taking the gondola to the top of the track as time is limited to get back down to the bottom for the last riders.
I don't know if that is the reason, but to me the crowd seemed a little muted when compared to previous years.
Just a thought: I am the WC commentator for my country. Broadcast has been done today, on Monday, on something like a live replay. I am actually on my way back to my home town, from the main studio. I prepared for 10+30 riders for the finals, with info on bikes, team changes and what not. I think I ended up doing 5+10 at best. Broadcast was sandwiched between snooker and Giro. I am honestly curious what the viewership is on DH compared to snooker and Giro. I don't know what was on when these events were live, but it's possible it has something to do with the fact that it's Easter over here. Round 2 is scheduled to be live. From what I know, scheduling is done by the European HQ for each country. Last year we had occasions when we did both the semis and the finals, full length, plus prize giving ceremony. To me, this kind of full menu adds value to the viewer, because it gives you time to provide extra info and thus create context and make people adhere to sport. Something very hard to do in 1.5h for both women and men, ads included.
Aaron sounded good in my headset, for the time I was able to pay attention to him.
Cheers and much love to all people who follow the World Cup,
Mx
On the latest MUTN Martin Whitely seems to think that "a select group and a last chance qualifier" are in the cards for finals for next year. (~57:00 or so: https://pod.co/making-up-the-numbers/fort-william-world-cup-1)
Edit: And on the Downtime post-race episode Neko said he'd heard similarly and added some details: 60 for qualies, and 20 advance to finals, then a LCQ and 10 advance to finals (no semis).
I've been saying for the past year that the obvious fix for all this is Last Chance Qualifiers.
Exact same thing as it sounds like Martin is proposing (maybe he read my posts on here)
Saturday: Qualies: top 20 men and top 5 women, advance to finals.
Sunday:
Junior Women Finals
LCQ Elite Women: top 5 make it to finals
Junior Men Finals
LCQ Elite Men: top 10 make it to finals
Elite Women Finals
Elite Men Finals
It would create a lot of drama on race day. The big names who didn't qualify Saturday would still be there racing on Sunday keeping the broadcast and in-person more interesting. The turn around time from LCQ to race would be fairly fast, but that's part of the drama. Mechanic has to have bike ready, etc. Like in Supercross. There would have to be some way to limit LCQ however to keep rider count down. You can't let the whole 80+ riders who didn't qualify go again on Sunday. ... It will have to be something like the top 30 men who didn't qualify + protected riders (protection should be easier to achieve for LCQ) get to go again.
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