Three Race Runs at Each Round of World Cup DH?? - Vital’s B Practice Podcast 4

The crew chats about the mental fortitude needed to do three timed, points-paying runs per World Cup DH round and ponders why Warner Bros. Discovery felt these format changes were necessary.

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4 comments

View replies to: Three Race Runs at Each Round of World Cup DH?? - Vital’s B Practice Podcast

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mntnmrtn
1 year ago

Maybe my memory isn't perfect, but I thought I had read an interview with Chris Ball saying that for the first year of the Discovery deal, there would be no big changes to facilitate a nice transition.

Now hearing racers talk about it (here and in other podcasts), they did not see those HUGE changes coming at all, and most think that it will deeply change the sport of DH racing (that's what I'm thinking too). It's sad to see that everything happened without consulting the racers and that they are the reason why thoses races exist.

Plus the fees went up considerably and the prize money did not.

Like the guys said in the last podcast (paraphrasing here) : So if we compare this to acting in a movie, we're going to spend twice more time on the screen, the organisers get way more money, people will pay to watch us, and we don't get any more money. We're basically paying to be actors in the movie ?

I wouldn't be happy if I was in the racers' situation as from here, Discovery's process seems pretty disrespectful.

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hogfly
1 year ago

I think you (and this podcast) kind of arrived at one of the issues with these changes:

 

They haven't exactly made clear what their goals/vision is for the future of DH or EDR. Like.. are you trying to make it safer? Are you trying to make it more viewer friendly? Are you trying to enforce more consistency? Do you want to transform it into a better TV package. I mean... I assume they're trying to do all those things, but they need to be explicit about their goals. Then they can explain, "The reason we're going to 3 race runs is because it helps us achieve our goal of X." right now, though, a lot of the decisions just seem nonsensical and just like change for the sake of change.

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bulletbass man
1 year ago

Chris has stated the goal is a more traditional sports tv package.  Few riders, shorter run, a 2-3 hr broadcast including commercials, recaps, interviews, etc.

 

im prettt sure that’s the opposite of what’s current fans and riders want and I do not see remotely how this will help bring new fans into the sport.

 

hopefully it goes great next year and all these changes they are planning down the road work in a way i don’t expect. 
 

I also kind of hope the test event is such a disaster that the teams demand eso uses Red Bull for production.  Not like red Bull doesn’t sell their products to cable network frequently.