It seems I’m in the minority here, but when I look at the current Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) situation, I actually see some clear positives. It’s evident that they’re aiming for a "trickle-down" approach: build the brand, increase exposure, attract sponsorships, and eventually raise rider salaries. This strategy makes sense from a business perspective.
Racing bikes is a career that athletes have chosen to pursue. If it’s not seen as a career by some, then income might not matter as much. But for those who have committed to this path, it’s reasonable to expect a livelihood from it. That said, the question is: are athletes entitled to a wage just because they choose to compete? Or is it their responsibility to market themselves effectively, build their personal brand, and become valuable assets that justify higher earnings?
Yes, there are certainly issues with commentary and, of course, the paywall—both of which are frequently brought up. Personally, I struggle to understand how you can argue that athletes deserve higher pay while simultaneously complaining about paying to watch them compete. However, there have been significant improvements in coverage under WBD’s management. Junior races are now broadcast, and we typically get LCQ coverage for free on YouTube (though not always). And let's not forget: anyone still has an equal opportunity to qualify and enter the race.
So I’m curious, If you don’t like it, how would you do it better?
The problem is their ‘path’ to increased exposure seems pretty poorly planned and executed.
If you really wanted more eyes on it, you would put it somewhere free (or cheap) and easy for longtime fans and then you could also put it in the sports package for the general public who have MAX to stumble upon.
Right now you have a product that is only marginally better than the previous RedBull version. However the RedBull version was free and super easy to access. Now you are requiring people to pay a substantial amount while also making access harder. That’s a big ask if the product isn’t also simultaneously much much better. You have to be a hardcore fan (I myself do pay) to jump through those hoops. Bottom line the current set-up has likely lost eyes from the knowledgeable mountain biking public.
You’re only hope then is that outside fans stumble in from having MAX and take up the slack. This is a futile effort. People who don’t ride bikes are never going to get invested in niche mountain biking as there is too much nuance and disconnect unless you have first hand experience.
So bottom line, you have an uphill to impossible ask of increased eyeballs with the Warner Brothers model.
There is no way this ends with more money in the riders pocket.
A better solution would be free broadcasts on YouTube with surrounding media to try and build viewership similar to other specialized channels. Then leverage this to outside sponsors. There are NYC based street bmx dudes (Billy Perry) with ~1.6 million subscribers on YouTube. A well run, well produced World Cup DH channel could probably get 10 million. That seems like a way better strategy than whatever WB gets now.
I see what you're saying. If I were a new fan, I totally get why I'd hesitate to pay to watch a sport I just discovered. I’d probably stick to free content on YouTube to get a feel for it first. It's a bit like Formula 1 for me. I’ve never really been into it, but this year I decided to give it a go. Now, I watch the free highlight packages on YouTube every race weekend. Maybe in a couple of years, I’ll get hooked enough that I’ll have the time and desire to spend money to actually attend a race or subscribe to a service to watch live.
So, if we remove the paywall and set up a YouTube channel, what's the next move?
It’s also worth mentioning that, before WBD, finding downhill MTB content was tough. It was mostly confined to Red Bull TV, which, while great, has a more niche audience. This meant the content mainly reached action sports fans who were already familiar with the sport. But could it be that some of the pre-existing subscribers to Max might have stumbled upon downhill MTB and started following it, even if they weren't hardcore action sports fans to begin with? That kind of accidental discovery could be a key opportunity to pull in new fans.
I’m up to be proven wrong, but I really don’t think anyone who doesn’t have at least minimal connection to bicycles is stumbling upon World Cup DH randomly and get hooked. If WB really believes that, I think it’s a fools errand.
The F1 analogy gets thrown around a lot but I believe it’s completely different. Most adults who have access to a TV and the internet also have experience with a car. They’ve driven one or ridden in one. It’s a much smaller step to imagine yourself in a race car than as a mountain bike racer for most people.
The YouTube route just requires shrewd managers to navigate the algorithm. However done right, DH content is going to end up in front of outside individuals who have some aspect of their viewing preferences that might make them interested way better than just hoping that select group just stumbles upon it navigating through MAX trying to find golf or the like.
I guess World Cup downhill always gets compared to moto or F1 due to the racing connection, but I think it’s broadcasting should really look more toward the WSL (World Surf League) as a model to aspire to. There is clearly substantial money going around there.
something forest for the trees etc.
the reason we complain about the rider pay issue is because they did, ultimately, increase the cost of competing. rider fee/pit fee. whatever.
all while making coverage paid and not free. all while not touching rider pay. that's why.
admittedly, that's not a concern of mine because the money was NEVER going to come from UCI/WBD. you could DOUBLE the rider pay for finishing and it would still be a laughable amount. it is what it is.
pay ultimately comes from the brands endorsements. and i don't see that changing. on one hand, it removes in aspect of privateers racing... on the other hand, it increases the value of notable privateers who are actually riding well and a team can use the points, etc.
i feel like within the wildcard system, so far, we haven't seen anybody miss a world cup that 'should' be there, if you will.
I like some of the changes even if it is a ) just improving how shitty they were at the start and b ) literally copying whatever they see succeed on the internet. Notably Vital RAW and now even stealing vitals podcasts name for their post race recap show (which hasnt been great imo).
The NUMBER ONE thing i'd change, as of now, that is easy to change and won't quite cost money to do... Is (since we're in the mood for stealing) steal the old style of Red Bull race recap, where you told a STORY. Technically, Pinkbike has taken this over with Cathro's story of the race. And Vital is starting to do a different version of the same/similar concept with 'how was ur weekend'.
Gracey was down by 3 and finished up by 3 at Loudz... THAT NEEDS TO BE A MINI DOCUMENTARY. If you're the brand SELLING us the content. Who ended up doing the mini doc for it, being the only people invested in that story? Norco. How many general MTB/UCI fans would have seen their mini doc on their brand youtube channel? Probly not THAT many.
I mean, going even further, Canada has gone BACK TO BACK both catz last 2 races... that needs a FULL documentary (eventually)... But if Red Bull was at the helm that would be an EPIC mini documentary and they would probly turn it around in a week or less AND it would be fully produced/edited with proper sound and narration.
That's how you get views... That's how you sell a product outside of the most committed fans who are already willing to buy to watch.
And if you put all that content on a single YouTube channel which also broadcast the races live, you’d have a couple million subscribers by the end of the first season.
Ok So the Answer to the question is - Free on YouTube
I just can’t see it happening.
Me neither. Redbulls business model seems very odd, and if a company like WBD wants broadcasting rights and make money from it I don't think Redbull would wanna pay the price for the rights. UCI sold DHI in a package with a whole lot of other disciplines if I'm not mistaken?
The best way to reach a broader audience IMO, would be to put DH on the olympic programme. I think DH is perfect as a tv-sport like that and could potentially be a success in the olympics.
WSL broadcasts all their events live on YouTube. Between the Championship Tour and Challenger Tour they run 20+ stops across the globe, some in much harder places to get to (Fiji) than any World Cup. They have awesome production value too. The podium of each Championship Tour stop get $100,000 - $63,000 - $40,000 respectively for both Men’s and Women’s.
There is a model for free access to work.
You are never going to grow MTB viewership in the lay public to any substantial degree through packaging it with other sports and hoping people latch on. How many elite track meets do any of us watch in non-Olympic years? If you have never been a skier, how much DH ski racing or moguls are you watching? People who don’t ride bikes are going to be a very hard sell without a foot in the door in their day to day lives.
You would be much better served getting DH in front of every mountain biker (avid or recreational) that you can for free and then hoping they pull non-riding family and friends with them.
Doing the opposite, alienating riders by making it hard to access in exchange for the hope that Brad in Nebraska might click on the broadcast when navigating MAX (or any other pay streaming service) is not going to work nearly as well.
The trade off is this. The current WB model generates income by charging for viewership. This is inevitably a limited number of people especially at the current price. Viewership will likely stay low and selling high paying sponsorship of events stays difficult.
Make it free, market the hell out of it and get way bigger viewership numbers (lose subscription fees), but then have a product that get substantially more eyes (10x, 20x, ?) and sell expensive sponsorships on the free broadcast. Again look at WSL, events are sponsored by companies like Lexus and broadcasts have multiple high paying sponsors. Hell bump the numbers of finalists back up a bit and have a 10 minute break every 10 riders for commercials integrated into a quick re-cap of where the results sit at that moment and who is left to come.
Imperfect numbers, so grain of salt, but a quick google search says there are 20-25 million surfers WORLDWIDE. Mountain bike numbers are less available, but there look to be about 9 million mountain bikers in the US ALONE in 2024. In 2020, 44 million mountain bikes were sold worldwide. There is very likely as many or more people worldwide who ride mountain bikes as who surf. I truly think there is a way to make a WSL model work for bikes.
I can’t argue with your reasoning, and its a perspective I hadn’t thought of, I just fail to see WBD doing so. Interestingly it’s Pretty much what crankworx are doing so it would be cool to know if its profitable at their level.
I would assume its an alien concept for a company like WBD where everything must be paid for - i wonder how transparent they are being with viewership to allow teams and riders the chance to leverage that for sponsorship
I agree with you also. I don’t think it would be. WBD to do this in the short term, I don’t think they have the vision, but a person could hope! Maybe down the road it’ll get peeled off and placed somewhere for this to happen.
To the second point, they must have amazing stats and data internally. I’d hope they share some, but would not be surprised if they were super tight lipped. I remember hearing stuff from show creators on Netflix in the past where they couldn’t even get viewership numbers for their own shows given to them.
I hope someone at WBD (even an intern) sees that I pay for a MAX subscription and only watch DH content.
That's a very relevant point. As someone who isn't very 'TV-centric'... What would the max sub give me as a DH fan? What are people using it for otherwise? Or even, before the DH coverage, what are ppl watching on MAX?
I did the netflix thing ages ago and really only enjoyed a handful of shows and then never touched it again. The only one that kinda interested me recently was Hulu. But not a huge fan of the sub format, if I can't continue to expand its value.
Tho I imagine nothing will ever be done about that. As cool as a much cheaper DH only service would be.
I’ll bite since i have certainly complained enough.
45 men
20 women with eventual goal of 40 of each.
Upto 8 additionally protected riders. Top 5 from last season overall. Top 3 from last race.
if these spots are not used they are not attributed to anyone else and instead that time is dedicated to an extra interview or segment.
Return to timed training-single qualifying-finals format.
3 minute gaps till last 5 riders. Approximately 90 seconds of live racing to 90 seconds of finish line strut, highlights, interviews, etc. full runs for last 5. Film all sections to create highlights, full race runs for podium in highlights package. But the focus for the live show should be showing a large field in a digestible way. Consistent camera angles in consistent sections that are either separating riders on the clock or visually more than others.
Move the pre race package to a separate broadcast. Last elite race was like 140 minutes of people talking before each race.
Pre race show, finals, highlights, press conference are free on YouTube. Qualifying and other bonus content is for sale for the super fan when it’s available.
change junior class to a lites class. The most talented kids can still enter at 17. Let everyone else race a continental series. Qualifying to enter lites class requires 40 uci points or an entry from an elite team/national federation.
Entry to elites requires a lites world or overall championship or entry from an elite team. You additionally qualify if you have a world champ or overall title. Or have won an elite World Cup. (Hart, loic, gwin, etc would all qualify to enter without an elite team or a lites title.
rider may switch between classes but must register for a specific class. A rider must move to elites if they win either 2 world championships or two overalls.
Have a reasonable way for more teams to gain elite status. Similar to the rules that created 15 elite teams. One team entering the paddock every season will be very good for the sport.
Teams only lose elite status if they don’t submit a team. In which case that spot becomes available in addition.
Hire rob and Elliot to do their thing. Just say commentary brought to you by Red Bull.
I'm just going to chime in on the free vs subscription broadcast debate. I'm totally on the side of free for a sport the size of MTB.
It doesn't have the numbers to support a subscription broadcast, a free broadcast with advertisements would probably come closer to bridging that gap financially then a lot would expect. The increased eyeballs on the sport could lead to more outside sponsorship potential and I think most importantly a open stream broadcast means we're building the base of the viewership particularly with younger and less well off viewers who otherwise wouldn't be paying.
Think of all the young shredders out there who have parents that either aren't into the sport or won't pay and how much higher their stoke for mountain bikiking might be if they could easily watch. I was totally in that boat, mountain bike racing and trials were the only sports I ever connected with as a youth and without free broadcasts I probably never would've got into racing side of things.
I like a few of these idea, i think it was the OTB podcast out of NZ where one of the guys talked about scraping juniors and making it an under 23 class, with similar requirements to what you just said, if you win 2 overalls then you must move up, and you can elect to race elites when ever you want, but once you leave you can never come back. I think this type of strategy would allow more junior riders to develop into legit racers and lengthen the careers of many - it also means that you wouldn’t need to commit to world cups from the age of 17, you might actually be able to finish school and come into it at 20 or 21 after having developed your craft in your continental series.
But i have to ask, why do you want protection ?
Also, that’s an interesting idea - racing is free but qualies and q2 are only available for subscribers, A bonus package like that would likely be supported by a lot of core fans.
Another good take, can’t argue with that.
these are the perspectives i was hoping to see. I will say though that i still disagree with people refusing to pay to watch purely out of spite? Because i do believe the package has improved - though last year actually seemed to have more race coverage than this year. I dont think that not paying to support the sport helps anyone, but hopefully conversations like these may lead to better scenarios in the future.
id imagine people not paying 'purely out of spite' is quite small compared to the people not paying because of (insert literally any valid reason here, be it commentary or knowing they increased costs to riders will not increasing rider pay, or how what you ultimately get is fairly weak in terms of how many riders shown and how much of the hill, WHICH was a point they tried to pitch a la 'less riders will mean more full runs', spoiler alert thats not happened lol)
theres a lot more to this scenario then just 'mtb fans dont want to pay for mtb content'. WBD would have known from the numbers its a huge cost with not a great return regardless. its basically XC being used as a gateway drug for more average users to invest in MAX and find other things they value on MAX.
nobody is under the illusion DH is bringing in a large audience for some corpo-overlord types. and that is one of the larger crux issues that people like Rob Warner have addressed. DH still, in a way, lives in XCs shadow but its a completely different experience. its more action sports than... 'just sport'. which is why it does well on red bull and wouldnt suddenly bring in huge numbers if ppl tried to put it on ESPN or any other common sporting platform.
i think when youre within MTBing you lose sight of what it looks like to an outsider who doesnt bike at all, aka MOST people. its either psychos trying to kill themselves down a hill or spandex-clad freaks pedaling up a hill over and over. like MJT said, it will always be small compared to the vast concept of sports networking. lumping it in with larger things isnt going to do much for our sport. particularly when its paid now, is actually going to GATEKEEP our growth.
again, nobody is being offered a cheaper like ~5/month plan for 50/year for JUST bike racing. maybe some country is lemme know. most people are being forced into an expensive sub service they dont want and wont use outside of bike racin. that is bad for the sport. kinda objectively... kinda
I look at your argument as a bit of a “cut off your nose to spite your face” type of thing when it come to choosing not to pay, due to minor (in my option) inconvenience or disagreement with the broadcast and therefore missing out on the whole show. I might point out that I’ve never talked to someone that said they weren’t paying due to rider pay outs, increased costs or anything else like that - it’s always been bring back Rob and it used to be free on redbull so it still should be! but that’s just me - I’m in a financial position where that extra money doesn’t effect me, and whilst I agree that the commentary has taken a significant step back, I believe the racing to be better than ever and the production to have also taken a step forward. You also have to recognise than less racers means ultimately fairer race outcomes due to less track degradation and less chance of variable weather from start to finish of a race time slot.
And for what it’s worth, in Australia it’s just an added sports package on a popular streaming platform that you can cancel at any time, you can share the login with your friends by upgrading the the maximum screen package and split the cost, bringing the total cost per individual to significantly less than you just said.
I think I see your problem with not understanding why people don't want to pay lol
I suppose I just look at it as one of the most value for money things in my life, to me riding bikes, and bench racing the world cups every year is one of the highlights and the net positive compared to the cost is massive.
When approaching a topic, it's best to take out ones biases as much as possible if understanding it is your goal.
Unless understanding it was never the intention.
I was under the impression, from the title, this was gonna be more of an open air discussion to gauge the community better. Not find new and creative ways to re-affirm ones own beliefs. (Although, we are on the internet after all.)
Or as Bill Burr likes to call it: imright.com
I'm fine with the way things are. That said, I ain't getting a MAX subscription for access to the slower runs... When effectively ALL the other content will be free online afterwards.
If it's literally ONLY paying for access to the non-winning runs, that don't even have highlights significant enough to show later... Uhhh that's tough value.
And in terms of like 'watching live' most of the events are in EU in the middle of the night for me I almost NEVER get to watch live so that benefit is out the window as well.
If I compare it to other subs or events or things I pay for... It's kinda one of the worst value propositions I have ever seen.
~17/month, needed for a minimum of 6 months i think? so little over 100 bucks a season to watch a few more runs where they tend to cut out half the run and stuff. i don't know what i'm missing. i must be missin somethin.
As a superfan I’ll pay for and consume content nobody probably should be interested in. But currently to follow the sport is time consuming and hard to do.
The real beauty of Red Bull was there was one live event for any mountain biker, action sports fan, family and friends of a participant, to watch. It was easy to digest and entertaining. The best riders were always in it. And there was a large field of supporting characters to easily root for. And most importantly it was incredibly accessible. There has been dozens of crankworks events I’ve watched cause it was raining outside and it was the first thing in my YouTube feed. Not because I could care at all about pump track or expect it to be some hugely entertaining watch. It used to be the same for world cups for a lot of mountain bikers and action sports fans. Red Bull paid money to google to promote the sport and make it accessible for both fans and someone to easily stumble across it.m on YouTube. If you turned on the Red Bull app it automatically plays their currently live event.
raw, wyn tv, an entertaining finals. That’s what I want to watch. I think that’s the package of media that grew Dh to where it was. And yeah if you produce a semi finals or a qualifying I’ll pay for it and watch it whenever I get some time. I got no problem nerding out on downhill. But making all the stuff I barely want to watch free and putting everything i do want to watch on diffirent platforms or behind a paywall is not how you make something popular. And no I don’t think being in eurosport in the background of a bar or office somewhere is making up for what has been lost. If cable was the answer then wbd wouldn’t be splitting itself up after millions if not billions in losses.
So yeah I think if wbd flipped their formula. Made finals free. Put wyn tv on their channel. Sell the super fans some extra content either via a subscription or rent/buy on a service. Not only would it get them some appreciation from the community. They’d have a much hotter product to sell to advertisers and for riders/teams to use to get themselves sponsors.
That's the elephant in the room that makes this conversation difficult, I suppose.
It's hard to gauge quite where WBD is, in comparison to Red Bull, because things were SO good. Straight up so good.
And of course things are DIFFERENT now, there are some good things now... But I think still as of now most people would see it as a 'net negative'.
For some its the paid live broadcast. For me so far it's the fact that they haven't nailed down a race recap format similar to Red Bull's mini docs. THATS what really sells the sport to more fringe audience imo. For others it may be more the politics/rules of less riders, increased fees, and same pay.
Don't want to derail things too much into a 'how things were' thread but... WBD needs to start making the mini docs the way Red Bull did. They can keep their paid sub service, they can keep their rider field and fees and what not... But they NEED to do media right. That's their job, right? A media company lol. Why are they so mediocre at it? Having to steal Vital RAW and the Vital podcast name because they are outrageously bankrupt in the creativity department. Sheesh. At least steal the RB mini docs then. Jackson and Gracey need one YESTERDAY. This is a SPORTING occasion. It's DH history. There BETTER be one during the off season or something. (They live like... Next door.)
Post a reply to: Downhill world cups - how would you do it?