UCI grant Discovery WC rights from 2023 to 2030

Yeah juniors is the day before to make time for semis. They said somewhere (iirc, which is a big IF with my memory) that the junior races will be filmed and will have some sort of recap or highlights reel shown. Probably in the preshow for the live stream. So more exposure potentially. Less exposure to onsite fans that mostly only go for finals day. 

New GMBN racing channel dedicated to UCI mtb series

https://www.youtube.com/@gmbnracing

here's the intro vid for gmbn racing

Grab My Balls Now

I'm about as hyped as Pidcock in there...

a youtube highlights channel aint it, Mr Ball! Tell me how many cameras you got, who's doing the talking, and why my favorite riders are racing more for less money

It's pretty much April and still not info on broadcast team and other key details? We would be nearing season opener in Lourdes in past years now.

Here's our first glimpse of actual race media produced under the new format - practice highlights from the Maydena Enduro World Cup: https://www.vitalmtb.com/videos/member/round-1-practice-day-uci-mountain-bike-enduro-world-cup-maydena.

I wouldn't call it "next level" but it's a lot better than their prior stuff. Basically vital raw (and I mean that as high praise) but with a some annoying voice over at the start, a few artsy/fartsy slow mo landscape shots which I sorta like, and some annoying graphics. Not terrible. Not something anyone would pay for tho. 

Image quality looks on point. I could pay for good coverage like this. Better than the garbage of Netflix. I just hope that the live DH coverage is good though

I just hope the live coverage actually happens at the first few DH and XC races.

No live coverage of any sort from the Maydena Enduro World Cup (except for the race feed and live timing), but we've got results and a report: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/courdurier-and-meier-smith-win-australia-2023-enduro-world-cup-season-kicks.

 not even 4k

If you want daily action videos uploaded hours after the last rider crosses the finish line, from remote locations, 4K is not an option, right now. Just my opinion.

There's a 24 minute (!) race highlights now up: https://www.vitalmtb.com/videos/member/maydena-race-highlights-uci-moun….

I only watched the first five or so minutes, but it seems like it's a stage-by-stage recap with a decent amount of riding footage and 'story of the stage/race'. 

It's not a photo epic/slideshow, but it seems pretty ok so far 

Solid recap that feels more like the pre COVID 2018 and 2019 style of edits with Ric McLaughlin.

Just curious why not? Would assume even laptops (with GPU acceleration) can export a 4K edit and uploading compressed 4K 20ish minutes to YouTube shouldn't be a problem with 5G cell or even 100mbit hotel internet? It seems pretty common in the car vloging world anyway.

I'm guessing you haven't traveled to rural Australia where the Enduro races are being held. The population of Maydena is 222 and is the last "town" on a road to nowhere.

they just put a short up on youtube saying to watch the mtb racing you will need a GCN+ subscription

https://youtube.com/shorts/dOMMVXHNWUo?feature=share

This is a better explanation about what's shown where https://ucimtbworldseries.com/watch

Good to see that they're not only live streaming the DH juniors, but it's going to be on YouTube 

Free to air live streams of the U23 cross-country races, as well as the Junior and Semi-Final downhill races will be on the UCI Mountain Bike World Series YouTube channel, GCN+, Eurosport, discovery+ and GMBN Racing.

Cross-country marathon and enduro race day highlights shows are hosted on the UCI Mountain Bike World Series YouTube channel

Ric McLaughlin will be lead commentator with Cedric Gracia as an expert commentator in downhill, and Bart Brentjens will fulfil the same role for cross-country.

They’ll be joined by reporters Josh Carlson and Hayley Edmonds track side in the pits  

Kate Mason will act as the anchor.

Full announcement about the new broadcast schedule and team: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/uci-mountain-bike-world-ser…

God it's messy. This will play hugely in CW's favour. #ruinedbycorporates

In the beginning at least I think the  sporadic nature of where you can tune into the coverage is gonna kill the growth/hype/interest.

And of course if you commit to a platform and it has more issues than a rival platform or whatever.

Hopefully it pans out for the fans and everyone settles in. 

So surprise that everyone who's commentating (except Kate Mason) has already worked on WC broadcasts that were defused by RB TV in the past.

live junior and semis on youtube is freaking sweet!

I've never heard of Kate so looked her up, here are a couple links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Mason

http://www.katemason.co.uk/bio "...she's a keen runner, swimmer, and occasional chess player. Kate has also played squash to a high level."

Stoked to see a woman anchoring, less stoked she appears to have zero experience w/ any form of cycling.

by having jrs and semis live, is finals day appearance de-valued? race results are what matter, but how many viewers will pay to watch finals day live w/ freebies a day or two before? from a dollar-per-view perspective, juniors and mid-packers just became great deals!

I'm guessing junior and semi live streams are just to ease the transition for those skeptical about paying for it. If it's quality they might end up paywalled next year too. 

Looked at what GCN offers and for Canada worlds still had a blackout even with a paid subscription. 

My guess, and this is only a guess, is that someone else has bought the rights for Canada. So its not a "blackout" per se, just a "we don't have this for Canada"

I don't recall any sport which grew because of paywalls outside of MMA.

One can even argue that the golden age of boxing ended when pay-per-view began.

I wonder if the "partial paywall" model they're implementing for mtb this year will succeed.

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