Yeah, and have Freddie Spencer there to interrupt them whenever they're doing play by play to tell one of his war stories. I worry that ratings will be so bad they'll drop it and ban it to the leper colony. To my knowledge the only 'merican in the whole show is going to be Joe Roberts and he isn't in the one class you'll see on NBC. If they'd have at least chosen a year where we had one or two USA riders (and competitive ones) to spur interest it would have a lot more promise. Back in the heyday of Schwantz, Lawson, Spencer, Roberts and Rainey my recollection is that Wide World of Sports was the only coverage they got. The agony of defeat. Maybe I'm wrong. Wouldn't be the first time, and I'd sure be happy if I was.
I think your recollection of Wide World of Sports is correct. Most were on a fairly substantial tape delay...as much as a week, but there was not an easy way to find out the results, so it wasn't that much of a problem. I don't even think the term spoiler existed to any great degree.
Catching a bike race was more a matter of luck in the WWS days. Isn't this NBCSN deal for only 5 races this year or was my diagonal reading too steep?
Looks like ill be buying a motogp subscription this year. Does anyone whatch on a smart tv or an Ipad?
For all the giving of a hard time I personally liked listening to Greg White, Freddy Spencer, Scott Russell and even Ralph Sheheen. Guy Martin, now that would be a bit of a stretch.
I don’t think the GP races were ever on TV. You had to buy a duke videotape to see them. I remember having to buy a Los Angeles Times newspaper early Monday morning, and going to the last page of the sports section to see the race results.
I watch on my iphone when away from the house, so an ipad should be an improvement from that, and I've watched in my browser on my xbox but never natively on a smart TV. If your TV has chromecast or similar built in that's worked for me as well.
TNT very late at night and sometimes weeks after the race. You had to buy US Today to find out the results or wait for cyclenews to come on Thursday.
Most races will be tape delayed. I saw a scheduled that showed many races not airing until 3pm, some as late a 9pm. I believe this is actually bad for the sport. We’ve had this kind of coverage before and it sucked. https://www.reddit.com/r/motogp/comments/ewd0n6/nbcsn_and_nbc_take_over_motogp_broadcast_rights/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Here’s a Twitter thread with some details. No idea how reputable the source is. https://twitter.com/A_S12/status/1221848029528981506?s=20
Makes no difference to me. I watch it live Sunday mornings central time, on at least 7 Huge screens, at Fuel Cafe- Milwaukee WITH some current racers, x racers, and all around seasoned motorcycle riders- for free. Most all of us ride there too. Most of us then go for a spirited country ride afterwards. They of course charge for breakfast, etc. It's awesome camaraderie of the locals around SE WI!
This sort of thing has been said about motorcycle coverage here in the states for years. In theory, I want to agree, but in reality, I don't think it matters one bit. Motorcycles are not part of the culture here like they are other places and I don't think them being on Network TV will make any difference or attract more fans. I hope I am wrong on this.
I tend to agree. The only way to increase viewership would be having an american regularly race and sometimes beat MM. Maybe...
Well, to be fair....NBC has been airing MXGP for a couple of seasons now and there's plenty of riders in those fields that are a bit of a mouthful to pronounce.