All

I know this isn't the conspiracy thread but I have a feeling that many brands are secretly happy with the new World Cup format. The big teams have less competition and the small ones might secretly be excited to be able to say "Oh Shucks, we will have to disband given these new constraints." I am sure that many people at these companies want to continue the team, but World Cup team budgets must have been feeling pressure in the last year or two. I wonder if brands were more on board with the changes to the format than they...

The track in la Thuile is almost done. Almost full lap here:

WB reaches about bringing in outside sponsors, but almost everything they have done has made that less likely to happen. Putting race coverage behind a paywall reduces visibility of MTB, this makes the sport less valuable to sponsors not more. Even if in Europe it is now available on cable tv coverage, that isn't very valuable since the retention rate of viewers was very poor. That means the viewership is almost useless to sponsors. WB has made viewership numbers very difficult to find, the only thing I've seen was a German article months ago. WB has made DH less attractive...

WB/Discovery are trying to run the sport like other big money sports (mainly the many global motorsport model) - where huge registration fees apply. There's one tiny flaw in their plan.......MTB racing isn't awash with big money teams/ sponsors..... I've said it elsewhere - they've made too many big changes, far too soon. It all feels rushed so they can recuperate as much money as quickly as possible. It's not going to work........

The difference between the 2 is that Red Bull's events are private events, organised, produced & broadcast by them. They can invite whoever they want, no one can argue otherwise. WBD are organising World Cups on behalf of the UCI, the world governing body for competitive cycling events. They should be completely neutral & the only way to be free from bias/influence is to go off points for all teams. Personal opinion... I don't agree with handing control of the highest level of a sport to a TV production company to shape it how they want. I think I might've...

I hope he reads this, and it pisses him off.

I'm pretty sure the fine print was for an elite win. Otherwise Neko would zip tie a gearbox onto asa's bike and split it with him lol

Floated all the way to Scotland.. amazing. Glad to know he washed up somewhere safe.

Yeah. Their mum is Rebel Wilson and their dad was the volleyball in Castaway.

there was racing in Windham too, almost under 2min long I guess for TV, they like short intense tracks. Also much easier to set up cameras etc on a smaller hill. 400m of elevation is in line with most racetracks in europe if im not mistaking

Canberra was horrific 🤣

If Daprela felt he had a case for unfair dismissal you would think he would have taken legal action to the teams himself. The fact that he has built his own private program says a lot. Action, consequence.

You're missing out on the fact that the teams are private businesses and they don't have to hire anyone. If they don't want someone with potential baggage, that's their prerogative. Given that racing is essentially done exclusively for marketing, it's no surprise that the big teams are taking a pass on him. There's not some grand conspiracy trying to hold back your boy, just businesses doing cost/benefit analysis to what he'd bring to their brand image.

It's my understanding that the fees to the UCI are already one of the largest costs in putting on a WC. Maybe if the fees weren't so high, that money could be used for prizes.

What a great weekend. Dual Slalom drew the short straw weather wise, but there were some tight battles. Whip-off was a great time. It was awesome getting to watch the world cup riders with all the local/regional riders. It's wild how fast they are in person. It's a weekend that makes me almost want to race some dh. but, then again, it's also a great weekend to have fun, ride bikes and watch some great racing.

How to kill DH racing thanks UCI + Warner Bros + Discovery

They are kiwis in OTB podcast and andi kolb is Austrian couldn't be further apart lol.

The change in schedule meant a lot of people didnt get near enough practice runs in. Hardly seems fair not to mention it hurts the product

I mean, F1 has made up plenty of rules on the fly... Like every stewarding decision ever and who could forget Abu Dhabi 2021. So I'd say they are on par with F1 in that respect.