shouldn't the bike manufactuers start a cycling channel ?

Yeah that makes about as much sense as a car maker to start making
vaccuum cleaners.

Bike manufacturers make bikes, not TV stations.

Get over it. Cycling is, and always will be a fringe sport in
America. We have the internet. You can read coverage of just about
every race in the world somewhere.

Running TV stations is expensive, and aren't companies in it to MAKE
money, not shell it out on useless wasteful projects? Yes, yes
indeed they are.

Tom

Laz said:

just wondering, we are all expecting fools at oln to give us racing
coverage, but they never will. so, lets try to get the bike industry to
start a cycling channel. it shouldn't cost too much especially if the cost
is collectively shared and they could expect a boost in revenues as coverage
should lead to greater interest and acceptance of the sport, increasing
advertising and team sponsorship.

thoughts ?

Goddamm, that is stupid.

The market has spoken. Only the TdF and a few other classics attract
enough viewers.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Kurgan Gringioni said:

Laz said:

just wondering, we are all expecting fools at oln to give us racing
coverage, but they never will. so, lets try to get the bike industry to
start a cycling channel. it shouldn't cost too much especially if the cost
is collectively shared and they could expect a boost in revenues as coverage
should lead to greater interest and acceptance of the sport, increasing
advertising and team sponsorship.

thoughts ?

Goddamm, that is stupid.

The market has spoken. Only the TdF and a few other classics attract
enough viewers.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Prediction for '06 - If Lance doesn't race, Tour coverage will be one
hour highlight shows Sat and Sun shown once each day - non prime time.

The folks at OLN are not fools. They took a channel that had a very
limited audience and figured out a way to attract another (completely
different) audience and significantly boost their ratings overall.
Before the Tour, they were pretty much just showing repeats in July to
an audience that was mostly all away on vacation. By August, their
normal audience is starved for Bassmasters and that boosts their August
ratings. The TV industry should give OLN's CEO an award for good
thinking.

And you benefitted too. They gave you first-rate, live coverage that
you've NEVER seen before in the USA. Feel lucky that you even got any
Vuelta and Giro coverage at all, because those were also firsts in the
USA. CBS, NBC, ABC, ESPN...None of them ever covered the Giro or
Vuelta, not even in delayed broadcast.

Besides: America is a land of fat-asses. The only thing they can
generally appreciate about bike racing is that it's tough, and the Tour
adequately reminds them of that every year. America is getting its
fill already. As Kurgan said: The market has spoken already. OLN is
a channel that almost no one watched before they carried the Tour. For
a channel like them to drop a cycling event because of poor ratings is
really saying something.

Laz, that's an interesting idea, notwithstanding the [censored]
responses that have been posted. The bike companies would not, of
course, operate such a channel, they would only put up the $$ to back
it. The cost would be extremely low, since 95% of the programming
would be re-showing past races. Have you checked out cycling.tv? It is
a 24hr cycling channel on the web that covers road, cross, mtb,
interviews etc. As long as you have high speed net access, it serves
the purpose you describe. The only drawback is the reduced size of the
screen. It clearly gets its advertising funding from bike
manufacturers, shops, nutrition products, etc.

This [censored] about "the market has already spoken" is just that, [censored].
That's like saying "don't going throwing new ideas into the
marketplace, people don't want it - after all, innovative, creative
ideas never catch on."

I volunteer you to be the venture capitalist to fund such a new
channel. Laz can be CEO.

With cycling.tv's stellar revenues as a projection model, you just
can't lose!

Quoted message said:

Laz, that's an interesting idea, notwithstanding the [censored]
responses that have been posted. The bike companies would not, of
course, operate such a channel, they would only put up the $$ to back
it. The cost would be extremely low, since 95% of the programming
would be re-showing past races. Have you checked out cycling.tv?

The TV channel has to pay the races for the right to show them.
cycling.tv presumably has to pay less for web rights, and even
then they don't show the biggest races. Then the TV channel
has to persuade cable companies to carry it. There are still
a limited number of cable channels. And most people beyond us
fanatics aren't going to spend a lot of time watching old races.

When bandwidth makes quality streaming TV realistic, or at least
as available as streaming radio is now, then special purpose
channels like this will probably spring up.

I don't know what the budget or capitalization of OLN is since
it is part of Comcast, but I bet it is significantly larger than
any US bike company. Bike companies are a marginal business.
Expecting them to underwrite a TV channel is unrealistic even
if the channel eventually turned a profit.

I actually prefer it the way we have it now. If the news stream became
dominated by broadcasters, the smaller peeps like velonews would go
away and not bother anymore. Because I have to read my most of my
news, I feel it is more comprehensive.

Maybe instead I'll throw around a little MBA jargon to give the false
impression that I know what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's a great
idea!

Laz Sep 15, 10:03 am show options

Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.racing
From: "Laz" <[email hidden]> - Find messages by this author
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 10:03:09 -0400
Local: Thurs, Sep 15 2005 10:03 am
Subject: shouldn't the bike manufactuers start a cycling channel ?
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show
original | Report Abuse

just wondering, we are all expecting fools at oln to give us racing
coverage, but they never will. so, lets try to get the bike industry to

start a cycling channel. it shouldn't cost too much especially if the
cost
is collectively shared and they could expect a boost in revenues as
coverage
should lead to greater interest and acceptance of the sport, increasing

advertising and team sponsorship.

----------------------------------------------------------------

well, to a certain extent, we've seen that with the whole
Lance/Trek/OLN/Carmichael/ bundle, the OLN
coverage was partly financed by the cycling industry, who
sold millions of Treks as a result - but that is gone
for now, since it was held together by Lance's popularity.
but other reasons include:
- There is not much money in the USA bike industry, it's not like
car maufacturers. It's kind of a "hobbyist" industry, like
RC cars or something like that, ...bikes are mostly
made in china and taiwan, or they are a few american
"boutique" makers, who aren't gonna have money
to give to a cycling channel few people are gonna watch
and will lose money - people involved in the USA cycling
industry like to KEEP the slim profits, if you've ever been involved
in getting sponsorship you know that getting cash from anyone
in the cycling industry is close to impossible unless
you are one of the top three pro teams, they are
very generous with equipment and they do support the sport
better than in some other non-traditional cycling countries,
where even equipment is hard to get.

They also know that you are gonna watch whatever
you get - even 15 minutes
of tour coverage on ESPN like it used to be, so they
can just invest in a commercial there and reach
%100 of their target audience .

I worked in a few bike shops, and most make a living
selling $250-$500 bikes, with a few display $1200
shimano 105 bikes, you have your exceptions,
in San Francisco, Boulder and other areas,
but the economics of cycling are kinda weird -
there is the "gym membership" thing - %80
of the bikes you sell to adults aren't really
gonna be used much anyway, they will sit in a garage
anyway. BMX bikes for kids is more profitable,
they go through a few every couple years.
Bike shop owners and reps and everyone in
the bike industry think of 'road racers' very cynically:
you want everything free or pro-deal,
you order mail order off the net, you are
very fickle and want only the newest
lightest stuff, and then when it breaks
you want a new one. They hate you.
They want to sell bikes to a fat dude who
is gonna ride the bike path, realize it hurts
his butt, and then hang it in the garage.
There are many more of these guys than
you...
they do like the elite guys to ride their
stuff because it legitimizes it, but they
don't make any money at all off that -
it's just advertising really, used to add
prestige to an entire brand (Trek,
Cannondale, Spez) so they can
sell more of the cheap stuff to bike
path freds.

so a cycling channel isn't going to sell more bikes,
maybe a small amount of high end bikes, but
the average US cyclist is not one of us,
they don't spend thousands on bike gear,
and race, and obsess on the sport - we
are a very small group of people.
Look at licensed racers in the USA, the
numbers are very small, and I can't see
that many non-racers cracking open
a bud on sunday and watching paris-
brussels.

the only way to make it a "mainstream"
sport is to extremify it - like the X-games,
Mountain Dew, Nascar style - made
up rivalries (Floyd Landis screaming at
Levi Leipheimer after a stage, WWF
style trach talking, etc). The only sports
that have become popular in the last
10 years in the USA have been EXTREME.

remember the usa pro city league?
where each city had a pro team and
they'd do crits and like beat up on each
other back in the early 90s?
yeah...that didn't work. so it's been tried.

Yes, it was funny to watch Mike McCarthy and his buddies duking it out
each week on late night TV as they rode laps around spectator-free
courses. The majority of viewers that did see it thought they were
going to see a tractor pull instead and could only choose between that
and Tom Vu.

I myself usually chose Tom Vu and his bikini clad entourage.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

Bike shop owners and reps and everyone in
the bike industry think of 'road racers' very cynically:
you want everything free or pro-deal,
you order mail order off the net, you are
very fickle and want only the newest
lightest stuff, and then when it breaks
you want a new one. They hate you.

The bike shop owners I've worked with (and around) agree with that, but you
know, they hate triathletes even more. Those guys seem to be even fussier, and
you just can't make any money because of the time that gets spent nursing them
through a sale. ANY sale...

--
tanx,
Howard

Butter is love.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

Yes, it was funny to watch Mike McCarthy and his buddies duking it out
each week on late night TV as they rode laps around spectator-free
courses.

Didn't Fran Tarkington own one of the teams? I remember when they did a cover
article on that league in Winning Magazine, they put him on the cover. That is,
if it was him - I'm certain it was an ex-football player.

Quoted message said:

The majority of viewers that did see it thought they were
going to see a tractor pull instead and could only choose between that
and Tom Vu.

I myself usually chose Tom Vu and his bikini clad entourage.

Haha, it was pretty funny to see that guy on some big-ass boat with a bunch
of Silicone Sallys.

--
tanx,
Howard

Butter is love.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

Howard Kveck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

Yes, it was funny to watch Mike McCarthy and his buddies duking it out
each week on late night TV as they rode laps around spectator-free
courses.

Didn't Fran Tarkington own one of the teams? I remember when they did a cover
article on that league in Winning Magazine, they put him on the cover. That is,
if it was him - I'm certain it was an ex-football player.

Franco Harris. He owned the Pittsburgh franchise, of course.

Carl Sundquist Sep 15, 10:05 pm show options

Howard Kveck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Yes, it was funny to watch Mike McCarthy and his buddies duking it out
each week on late night TV as they rode laps around spectator-free
courses.

Quoted message said:

Didn't Fran Tarkington own one of the teams? I remember when they did a cover
article on that league in Winning Magazine, they put him on the cover. That is,
if it was him - I'm certain it was an ex-football player.

---------------------------------------------
carl -
were you on a team? I remember seeing an article with a carney
and some other guys doing it, LA wings, bunch of other teams.
I think wordin was even a rider...
where is wordin these days?

In article <[email hidden]>,

Carl Sundquist said:

Howard Kveck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

Yes, it was funny to watch Mike McCarthy and his buddies duking it out
each week on late night TV as they rode laps around spectator-free
courses.

Didn't Fran Tarkington own one of the teams? I remember when they did a
cover
article on that league in Winning Magazine, they put him on the cover. That
is,
if it was him - I'm certain it was an ex-football player.

Franco Harris. He owned the Pittsburgh franchise, of course.

That's the guy. Thanks, Carl. I guess I got those two mixed up because all
football players look alike.

--
tanx,
Howard

Butter is love.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

mike said:

Quoted message said:

Bike shop owners and reps and everyone in
the bike industry think of 'road racers' very cynically:
you want everything free or pro-deal,
you order mail order off the net, you are
very fickle and want only the newest
lightest stuff, and then when it breaks
you want a new one. They hate you.

Howard Kveck said:

The bike shop owners I've worked with (and around) agree with that, but you
know, they hate triathletes even more. Those guys seem to be even fussier, and
you just can't make any money because of the time that gets spent nursing them
through a sale. ANY sale...

WADA hates them too after one of them messed up their EPO test.

Laz said:

Cycling is boring ? No it's not. It is as least as exciting as F1.

Dumbass -

You've got your head up your ass.

F1, to the typical American viewer, is boring, as is cycling.

The problem with road racing is it generally doesn't televise that
well. Great in person, televises like [censored]. Mountain climbs, for
instance, don't look steep in 2 dimensions.

Hence the lack of success of Grand Tour telecasts outside of the TdF
(which have all been cancelled by OLN).

good luck w/ your delusions,

K. Gringioni.

I didn't say watching cycling was boring to you, but yes, to most of
the American public it is. And as Kurgan says below, so is F1.
Fringe sports my friend, fringe sports that don't carry a lot of
interest or viewership in America, and they never will. That's the
bottom line really.

I would rather watch cycling, but most of the American public would
rather watch reality TV. Ratings have proven this out. When was the
last time a Tour de France stage, or any bike race for that matter,
took in 30 million viewers in the US? I'm betting that would be, umm,
never. American Idol (stupid ass show) does that every week. So what
would you show to maximize your profits? Exactly.

Be realistic. Cycling, does not sell in America.

Tom