This video is just about as timely as Versus’ Paris-Roubaix coverage. You would think the Queen of the Classics would deserve minimally same day coverage. Yet Versus goes to the Lance well again to cover the Boston Marathon live to focus on the star cyclist in his post career challenges.
Seeing the schedule last Sunday showed that Versus was stuck with covering Davis Cup tennis and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Couldn’t Versus at least show the coverage on Monday night or even dare we ask Live? Cycling.tv is simply too horrible to try and play. I like to use Firefox as my main browser and cycling.tv has a hard time dealing with that fact. Even if I use Internet Explorer 7 then I stil lget problems playing a video. Cycling.tv I love your concept, but can’t you make it work better somehow? Look at the video portions of the Tour de California Tour Tracker.
Who needs Versus, when Time Warner Sports is getting into the game too. The WCSN-TV coverage of the Chris Thater Criterium will be shown on Time Warner Sports channel. Good news for the sport in getting coverage locally. Time Warner Sports covers lots of local sporting events such as High School Football, Basketball and Lacrosse. (Disclaimer: I used to work for the local Time Warner Cable Division)
I’ll be racing at Thater on Sunday morning, but probably won’t be on TV since my race is at 8am. Weather looks to be better than last year which was cold and rainy.
SYRACUSE, N.Y.—Time Warner Sports is partnering with WCSN-TV, an online sports programmer, to carry the 24th annual Chris Thater Memorial cycling competitions (men’s and women’s professionals) live on Sunday, August 26 from 12:00 noon to 4:00 p.m. Those races take place at Recreation Park in Binghamton.
Time Warner Sports will offer WCSN’s live feed of this event on its Syracuse station (channel 26) and its Binghamton station (channel 23).
The Chris Thater Memorial, a weekend-long event with numerous running and cycling competitions, is named in honor of a young man whose life was taken by a drunk driver. This world-class event attracts more than 1,500 participants from all over the U.S. and from around the world, who are cheered on by 12,000 spectators and visitors to the Binghamton area. Weekend activities include pro, novice and elite cycling, with a 5K run and a 3-on-3 basketball tournament. The Broome County Stop-DWI program promotes and benefits from this event, recognizing the need for continued awareness regarding this widespread issue.
Doug Logan, Director of Time Warner Sports, said, “We’re pleased to offer this coverage of a major cycling event happening right here in our own backyard, and we thank WCSN for allowing us to pick up their feed so we can let all of our customers in on the action.”
About WCSN
World Championship Sports Network (WCSN) is the popular destination for fans of Olympic and lifestyle sports, delivering an immersive experience via exclusive live and on demand coverage of world class competitions, interaction with top athletes and in-depth access to sports news and information year round. Its website is wcsn.com .
About Time Warner Sports
Time Warner Sports, a network found exclusively on Time Warner Cable, features a wide array of high school, college, amateur and professional sporting events – most of these, carried live — as well as coaches’ shows and other sports content.
The RAI Click website has an archive of the entire Giro D’Italia coverage as seen on RAI. Relive the domination of Ivan Basso and listen to some great Italian commentators too. The Processo alla Tappa program is also available and that is worth seeing too.
Click on “VENTUNESIMA TAPPA – 28/05″ (the 21st stage) to view the confrontation between Gilberto Simoni and Ivan Basso at the start of the final stage. Ivan Basso says to Simoni to not tell lies to which Simoni replies to Basso “you don;t exist to me any more, go away”. Forward to the 8:00 mark to view the rare moment of an emotional confrontation between cyclist. Watch Basso keeps his cool while a weasally Simoni waves his hands telling Basso to go away.
RAI Click TV
The next few stages will fun interesting to watch even though Ivan Basso looks to have everything under control. Watch the race live as the Italians see it with the commentary of David Cassani and Aurio Bulbarelli.
http://www.gazzetta.it/Speciali/dirette/giro/real_Dsl.shtml
I was watching the OLN TV coverage of Paris Nice this Sunday. I did not get to see the program in its entirety yet, but it was good to see cycling coverage back on television. OLN is promising to show a good deal of racing much like they did last year. Although, after the Tour de France the race schedule is up in the air. At least they are planning the live daily internet feeds for the Giro. That is a good option for OLN to straddle the line with TV and Internet coverage.
The usual cast of commentators was on hand again except for one notable exception, the main man himself Phil Ligget. Ligget was not on hand for the ESPN Tour of California coverage. This was no big deal since it was probably expected that Phil Ligget was prepping for the cycling.tv coverage of Het Volk and Kuurne Brussells Kuurne. Now that OLN is up and running, I did not hear any mention of where Ligget was or when he will be back.
Is Phil Ligget going to be part if the OLN coverage team? Or is he totally committed to Cycling.tv, or did I just not hear the coverage properly?
I could also title this entry as No Respect I Tell Ya.
The Tour of California TV coverage….what can I say…no respect.
Tonight as the images of Levi Leipheimer storming up to Coit Tower make their way onto TVs of insomiancs everywhere, I will be tucked into my bed snoozing away as my DVR hums along recording the action. As I write this report ESPN2 is showing some Poker tournament. It probably gets better ratings than the Tour of California would get in the same time slot…I woud think.
I am still surprised that folks watch poker being played on TV and so many channels have glommed on to the wave of popularity. With the oversaturation of Poker on just about every channel I would expect that the popularity of the showings to be waining. Apparently, that isn’t the case, who would have thunk it?
I would totally understand if ESPN2 was showing College Basketball. I actually love College BB, but not so much this year as my Syracuse Orange is a bit sour.
Read the rest of this entry »
OLN released their spring cycling coverage schedule, but it would be hard to tell looking at their website. There is no category for cycling except for the Tour de France which is last year’s coverage information. Velonews provided the info via a press release. The schedule looks much like last year with Paris-Nice kicking off their usual one-hour Sunday coverage on March 5th.
“Cycling continues to be an important part of OLN programming,” said OLN president Gavin Harvey. “With Lance Armstrong’s retirement, fans are eagerly waiting to see who will emerge as the sport’s next star. Through our coverage of the spring classics, we will be able to chronicle the drama leading up to, and including, the Tour de France.” — Velonews
March 5 & 12 – Paris-Nice (France) 5 p.m. ET
March 19 – Milan-San Remo/Tirreno-Adriatico (Italy) 5 p.m. ET
March 26 – Critérium International (France) 5 p.m. ET
April 9 – Paris-Roubaix (France) 5 p.m. ET
April 23 – Liège-Bastogne-Liège/Flèche-Wallonne (Belgium) 5 p.m. ET
May 7 & 14 – Giro d’Italia (Italy) 5 p.m. ET
May 21 & 28 – Giro d’Italia (Italy) 4 p.m. ET
July 1-23 – Tour de France (TBA)
Interesting point is that Tour de France coverage is TBA. In the Lance Armstrong days, I think they would already have announced that they would provide live daily coverage. Will the live daily coverage of the Tour de France continue in the post-Lance era?
I also hope for a few other things:
1) OLN will abandon the name “Cyclism Sundays” for the one-hour Sunday shows.
2) Show regular repeats of the races shown on Sundays.
3) Show more domestic racing in general. I’d be fine with a 1am showing of the Tour de Nez. Just don’t give up on the US Circuit. The Tour of Georgia is not even listed in their schedule. (ESPN2 is showing the Tour of California)
4) More usage of the video streaming. Since OLN has the rights to show many of the races, I would be willing to pay a small fee to view cycling coverage throughout the year on the web. I am planning on buying the cycling.tv subscription too.
5) Objective reporting. I was sick and tired of the Lance Armstrong hype that was exuding from the entire OLN on-air crew during the Tour. Sure, I expect it from Bob Roll, but not from Phil and Paul too. The lowest point of the “Fox News” style favoritism of Armstrong and Discovery came during the Trek Sweepstakes commercials. Not only were the commercials poorly produced, but Phil and Paul seemed to have lost some journalistic integrity when they would jump around screaming that they won a Discovery Channel team jersey or a Trek Madone bike. Hopefully we will not see Phil and Paul blatantly pimping a specific team. These guys are reporting the race, they should be neutral.
Luckily there are several American riders on several teams so there can be enough US pride to go around so that the OLN crew can at least appear neutral.
Hopefully cycling can get back to a more prominent position on the OLN schedule. Looking at their primetime lineup shows 5 straight hours of “Survivor”. I am a big fan of the show, but seriously, I cannot imagine myself watching five hours of Survivor.
