2025 Racing Talk

"has anyone in ski jumping said "we're gonna make this the next F1?"

You are pretty close to the truth. Rumors say that the television station RTL, that had the F1 rights at the time, tried to find a sport to get their audience to watch on weekend afternoons in the F1-less winter months. So they started building up ski jumping as must-watch "events". Later, when they lost the F1 broadcasting rights, they went all in on it. 

DH has too high of an injury rate to reduce the field. It'll make it harder to develop and maintain stories around riders, teams, and sponsors.

a variety of different sewing circles this week have rumored that 2025 will only feature 15-20 elite teams at WC DH. if true, riders and teams that race now won't be able to race based on the criteria of what it means to be an elite team (something to the effect of having at least X riders with a certain number of UCI points on the team...so no trade-style teams with *privateers* banding together to create an eligible squad).

to be clear, this is all rumor mill and my understanding of how it works may be inaccurate. it's all really interesting and potentially sad and detrimental for world cup DH. i wish it were as easy as teams/brands/riders all just saying "this is lame, we'll race crankworx and hardline and monster pro DH series." but then world champs may not be an option for riders and so many other cycling disciplines are tied to the UCI that it could be more complicated than that. we'll just have to wait and see i guess.

So what’s going to happen to teams like transition factory racing or frameworks?  Teams with last years overall junior women’s leader and with this years junior men’s top athlete so far.  

They'd likely ignore WC/UCI and start stomping national races. They of course want to win, but quite a bit of their pull is through content creation imo. Would likely save them money and still get the same viewership they've already gotten doing national series stuff.

During the Poland broadcast Gwin alluded to being excited for 'big things' coming to DH in the next 1-2 years and seemed genuinely excited for what's to come for the sport... Wonder what that could mean but at least it seems positive?

I know its probably an unpopular opinion because its easy to say every one should be able to race. But it is pretty wild that you have guys like Loic, Pierron, Brosnan, etc. All using the same track, lifts, pits, and resources as realistically 50-80 guys that probably have a very small chance of even making semis. 

Also yes its cool when a relatively new or unknown rider is just on it and has a great run but take last weekend for example Lachlan was on it and did awesome but he qualified well and did well in semis. There just isn't going to be a guy that qualifies 60th and makes it on the podium, nobody is magically going from a 60th place guy to a 1st place guy. 

This part. There are a lot of ways to do competitions. But it kinda makes me think about surfing. It's very important to separate pros and ams in surfing, because of the swell windows within you can even run heats with waves. And the WSL is notorious for chopping rider lists which has always been contentious but it results in better events for that top level.

Conversely, it means the AMs can run events in better waves and not be intentionally run in terrible waves to not compromise the important pro heats. I know the wave to bike track comparison doesn't work, but the scheduling and timing and logistics aspect is always relevant.

I guess the flipside is that if there are too many riders to schedule, why the hell did they ADD semis to an already awful schedule? Rider list is def arguably too big. But just cut less riders and remove semis. When it was free broadcast I understood it. Made total sense as a tasty teaser to get people to buy the final product... But without that now it's just another opportunity for riders to get injured chasing valuable points (but not so valuable right cuz its small reward in semis). I just don't get semis. Would love to have it explained to me lol

The semis were a way to get the final field down to 30 riders instead of 60 without pissing everyone off the first year, now everyone hates semis so those will be easy to get rid of next year. 

If they can fit in a semi run for 60 riders they can fit in an LCQ for the riders that qualified 30-60th and take the top 10 from that race. Reallly hoping this is going to be the format next year. 

I was thinking the solution would be more so cut the final to 40-45 riders straight from qualies. I guess it depends on if they want to keep the 'some points for semis' format or whatever. And I know MX guys do a lot more riding and deal with LCQs but... They also usually make more so. Dunno. I'm also still weirded out by the poor guy who wins semis but loses the final. Obviously if the times are faster than... That's that it's just qualies part 2. But if the weather/track goes to shit and the semis time is faster thats really awkward. Feelsbadman

I think the issue is with lack of feeder series, which at least in the US seems to be growing. I just dont think the best way to get to the top of the sport is to try to qualify for the premier elite class for 5 years until you are good enough to qualify. You could have qualifiers.

For example: Top 10 amateur's at the windrock national in their respective class earn the opportunity to qualify at a world cup or something to that effect basically. 

I don't like always comparing it to Motocross but they have had this system figured out for about 40 years. They are very similiar in that they have a large amateur racing demographic but the pointy end of the sport is 40 riders allowed to compete at each race. 

afaik, domestic races with high enough UCI classification award UCI points to successful finishers an opportunity to race a world cup, so the "feeder" system exists in some way already. it would *seem* that points don't get you into a WC in '25, only being on a select team.

(the domestic/regional race promoter has to agree to pay for the UCI classification to award points and not many do that these days)

The way I could see it happening is the work is placed on manufacturers who want the UCI comp teams. Feeder teams are established rather than a point system. Infrastructure is already there, and it's technically already being done. Akin to the relationship that a G/D League group would have to a pro team.

A couple thoughts:

First I don't think the race format and the broadcast has anything to do with the audience.. The problem is not the engagement or the retention but the awareness.. There are just not enough people aware of the sports and the athletes... hiding the final behind a paywall on only one platform is never going to help.. 
I would reckon the finals should be available for free on YouTube and everywhere possible with tons of highlights, shorts, memes, and whatnot then maybe WB could try to monetize for behind-the-scenes, exclusive content, live content, replay of all categories...

Thinking the audience is going to flood to pay for something they are not familiar with is delusional
Also, TV is not linear anymore so instead of mutilating the sport, WB could just make the show easier to navigate.. I love that the Redbull app would let me select which run I want to watch. I would watch the run of my local rippers, some of my favorite racers that maybe are barely qualifying than the last 10 top dogs...
It looks like WB is catering for the live linear TV shoe but really what is the percentage of people watching linear live VS watching the replay on some app.

In general, MTB and DH are not very popular because it's just really expensive, and there is very little infrastructure.
I think that sub $1k bikes and trail centers, and bike parks everywhere (especially in cities) would do much more to the audience than tweaking the number of riders in Finals.

Another thought about a national series as a stepping stone for racing worldcup.. It's a great idea but I think we are a very long way. For many reasons, the tracks in the US are way different than in Europe, with different styles, steepness, and difficulty. The level would need to be elevated from the beginners to the pros. If an American kid dreams of racing World Cup, I would still suggest him/her to go ride in Europe (and race WC) as early and as often as possible...
(I'm shocked the US is actually doing so well these days)

I can't even think how we could foster riders and national series from South America, Asia or Africa to reach a global audience.

If we do end up with reduced numbers racing it'll be interesting to see what that does to live spectator numbers. Fort Bill seemed to be well down on spectators this year, I wonder how much of that was due to seeing a lot less racing than in the past? Poland can't really be used as comparison as it's the first time there. I guess we'll see as the season goes on if less people are turning up to watch live elsewhere.

IMO if live spectator numbers drop too much that'll also detract from the viewing experience if it leads to a flat atmosphere trackside.

More importantly without spectators, riders, and team staff paying for lodging, food, and other amenities; resorts, tourism boards, etc have no reason to pay the ever more increasing costs to host a World Cup.

people would get antsy and start asking me what’s going on today at the pro dh in mt creek during the several minute gap between classes.  I can’t imagine 3-5 minute gaps between all riders making for an exciting atmosphere you want to return to.

dh will always be a participation sport.  Sure a World Cup in a remote location has enough draw to pull some locals (especially at say ft bill where they give locals free admission) but the vast majority of spectators will always be mtbers interested in racing and their families.  I don’t see how cutting the field is going to make these people more inclined to travel long distances, pay elevated costs, and even just spend the time to be a spectator if the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.  And at the end of the day it’s the riders, the industry, and the on-site spectators who are making the show happen.  

Hardline Tazi 2025 Roster according to Warner and EJ's Podcast: Just Ride. Just rattling off the few I remember, but they went thru the whole list.

Dunn, BK, Gee, Jackson, Asa, Vali, Tahnee, Lou Ferguson, Gracey, Troy, Ferron, Lauri, the Colombians, Godzi, Matt Jones, Nina, Erice VL, Kade, Sam Hill.

Hardline > WCs?

Nah. Hardline is still an invite event. You get great riders, but do you get the fastest of the group? No.

Still gonna be hella fun to watch though just because the rider mix.