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I don't think people are hating on the coverage because it's trendy to do so. They (myself included) are hating on it because it's an objectively worse experience as a fan compared to the RB days. The commentary from Ric and Cedric is largely asinine. I realize there's a lot of time to fill, but was Ric paid per mention of the race venue? How many times did Cedric say, "he's not stopping the bike!" when someone was going well. Uh, okay, well it is a DH race, stopping the bike is antithetical to winning. Aaron Gwin was the only...

Well according to Josh Carlson there are millions of new viewers. I'm not sure what he was smoking when he made that claim though. In WB/Discovery's defence, we would never have had that "She said f*cking" moment without their involvement. Without doubt the highlight of the year as far as the interviews/commentary was concerned. Although getting Tahnee's name wrong and asking Nina if she'd be wearing the rainbow stripes in the bar that night both deserve honourable mentions.

agreed, but more money from subscription fees and team entry fees to UCI/WBD has made viewing more challenging and a lot of racers/team managers explained that last year provided a less valuable experience on site w/ pit space, access etc. to me those aren't benefits. we have not heard what the race-day product will actually look like next year (# of racers, format etc). if it's limited pro field (top 30 men and top 10 women only in finals), i won't subscribe. i love downhill racing, vital will continue to sink tens of thousands of dollars into having lawlor and...

similar to what @Fresh Bike Service, Inc. says, purely based on the countless anecdotal cases i've heard of people not tuning into 2023 live race footage, i'd be skeptical of live viewing numbers from 2023 matching 2022 and earlier. BUT neither red bull nor gcn/disco/wbd share those viewing stats, and maybe it's a USA-specific thing i'm hearing about. maybe the bulk of views come from other countries where people watched both seasons/platforms more equally. with that said, the "red bull years" can still be watched, free online. https://www.redbull.com/int-en/live/uci-mountain-bike-world-cup-2022-le… - this probably doesn't account for too many new views once the...

What is the data that you're referring to that shows an increase in viewership? Genuinely curious, as I've seen many fans mention they didn't pay to watch live racing, but ate up all the free YouTube content and highlight videos. That would coincide with the pb article, but doesn't mean the actual, live race numbers are better than RBs numbers. I don't watch much of the web content, outside of Vital raw, but I did pay for gcn+ for watching the live dh/xc races. My 2 brothers did not, but watched a ton of the free content and highlights vids...

That just freed up 7 Saturday mornings to ride bikes

Jan 1 is new contracts go into effect. Brands will spend the next few weeks/months to built content to announce the new athlete or team. UCI will release the official team rosters days before the brands are scheduled to make their announcement.

He's clearly walked it off enough

I think stating Jackson was “pushed” is a reason to disagree with that post. “Supported” is much more the scenario.

Barad-dûr

So now he's just Mike Leavy?

I don't see this aimed at Peaty but more at Santa Cruz/Pon execs turning the the team into a "trade team" run buy the accountants rather than what the syndicate stood for originally. I can see Rob doing in the future what Pete Fox and Jim Jannard have done and setup his own brand (or getting in with Unno) and creating a modern syndicate team.

i would have thought he'd be riding a Bronson

I'm at work, a colleague comes over to me.... he see's me concentrating really hard. He says "oh you must be doing something important, I'll come by later" Little does he know I'm trying to figure out these cryptic team rumor illustrations about dudes riding bikes. Bravo good sir, carry on. This is what this thread is about.

Respect to Pablo Cliparto for injecting a little fun back into this thread. The elephant / baobab / Fiat Uno sure has me puzzlin'

Well you can still have part of what you want. Just buy the Misspent Summers Hurly Burly year book for the old school in-depth reportage, geek facts, photography, BTS and storylines each year. More pages and less ads than Dirt too.

Thank you for that @metadav. Exactly what I was doing. This forum has always been fun and I just wanted to keep it that way.

I don't get the downvotes for this, its team rumors, not team news, that's for Jan 1 and One Ghost is teasing some stuff until then to make people question stuff. If he just said everything, he'd stop getting the info to do so. These threads have been, in the past, for cliffhangers, jokes, puzzles and falsehoods. Have fun with it and don't be so frickin serious, silly season on here used to actually be silly and everyone's making it out to be such a grind the last 2-3 seasons. Make some shit up and enjoy it. Give people some...