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Unbound 2021


Razors Edge

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...was oddly "boring".  Not sure if it was the coverage compared to "normal" races like a TdF or a cross or MTB event, but the race just seems one long flat dry & exposed farm road, followed by another long flat dry & exposed farm road.  :(  I had only watch the "packaged" post-event recap videos in the past, so watching the full broadcast - 7+hours of the 12 hour 200 miler - was pretty much a LOT of Frankie Andreu & his cohost talking, and a lot of guessing where everyone was on the course and who the person on the screen might be.  It was all about single riders or pairs after about the 3/4 mark, so the few video cars/trucks/ATVs on course couldn't capture much.

Anyway, interesting to see how their gravel scene (at the premiere race in the world) is so - seemingly - one dimensional.  At least, on the TV coverage.  Looking at the XL women's winner (Lael Wilcox), it looks like almost 19,000 feet of elevation over that 350 distance and over 11,000' for Ted King over the 200 miles, so it isn't actually "flat" but seemingly a ton of rolling hills.  I feel like some races - like the Belgian Waffle Ride - are a bit more "rough and tumble" and, while they would also suffer from coverage issues, they might be pretty exciting with some more intense racing?

Just some thoughts.  Fun to at least see the racing broadcast at all!  Baby steps to take it to the next levels.

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Live coverage of people going really slow for very long periods of time and you find that boring?  Huh?  A more important question, you couldn't find something better to do in southern California than to waste spend your time watching it?

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2 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

Live coverage of people going really slow for very long periods of time and you find that boring?  Huh?  A more important question, you couldn't find something better to do in southern California than to waste spend your time watching it?

Their "slow" is your "can't do" :)

But, yeah, it RAINED yesterday!!!!  I watch after dinner - turn it on, do the dishes, prep the morning coffee, etc., and I can get through a good bit of most races.

From a interesting to watch perspective, it definitely beats any regular season sporting even in baseball, football, hockey, soccer, etc..  Or, god forbid, Home Improvement!!!

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I don’t think the appeal of gravel is directly correlated to media coverage.  Unlike the World Tour, I can sign up for an event and see the stars of the sport line up in the same chute.

Im gonna ride the same route, hit the same gravel, cross the same stream, worry about equipment, tire pressure, nutrition & water just like  the top riders and afterwards gonna crack a brew and have some BBQ with them.

It’s just a totally different vibe but yeah watching a bunch of people ride 200 miles on dirt farming roads is kinda meh.

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1 minute ago, ChrisL said:

I don’t think the appeal of gravel is directly correlated to media coverage.  Unlike the World Tour, I can sign up for an event and see the stars of the sport line up in the same chute.

Im gonna ride the same route, hit the same gravel, cross the same stream, worry about equipment, tire pressure, nutrition & water just like  the top riders and afterwards gonna crack a brew and have some BBQ with them.

It’s just a totally different vibe but yeah watching a bunch of people ride 200 miles on dirt farming roads is kinda meh.

For sure - and that creates some problems as well as some opportunities.  Businesses and advertisers do like big audiences, and a few races can attract national sponsorship, it is probably tough to keep things going with mostly small sponsors.  Emporia really embraces the race, but how do you expand the model so that more folks can race (capped at maybe 2,500 or so riders)? Or to other areas of the US/world?

I think the tech is there to make it more media friendly - drones can follow individual racers or more on-road footage - but since 99.9% won't get to do Unbound, it really is not that different from the 99.9999% of us that won't do the TdF. :(  We can all line up at a local crit or gravel race, but these "big" events do have a component of being watched on TV as well as ridden in person.

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2 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

For sure - and that creates some problems as well as some opportunities.  Businesses and advertisers do like big audiences, and a few races can attract national sponsorship, it is probably tough to keep things going with mostly small sponsors.  Emporia really embraces the race, but how do you expand the model so that more folks can race (capped at maybe 2,500 or so riders)? Or to other areas of the US/world?

I think the tech is there to make it more media friendly - drones can follow individual racers or more on-road footage - but since 99.9% won't get to do Unbound, it really is not that different from the 99.9999% of us that won't do the TdF. :(  We can all line up at a local crit or gravel race, but these "big" events do have a component of being watched on TV as well as ridden in person.

I hear you but the events are huge and growing with large sponsorship  without major traditional media coverage. They know it’s working because people pay the registration fees and show up. The YouTube presence is huge though.

I think Medalist Sports and other defunct event sponsors would rather have 5 thousand people pay $150 to watch a sport live than whatever they were doing that didn't work.

Events like Unbound, Leadville, BWR & many others are successful, albeit not like the TDF or classics, for different reasons and I think the sponsors are good with that.

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I think another sign of the growth and means of making more $ through registration fees is single events like Leadville & BWR are now a series of events.  Leadville has a whole qualification system with 6 or so qualifier events around the nation.  BWR went from one event to 3-4 events.  

I think the key difference is organizers are successful because the athletes are paying to play instead of needing advertiser or sponsor support. I think this is a more sustainable business model in the states than huge media coverage & corporate sponsorship.

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Lifetime Fitness owns Unbound and Leadville so these have gone from small underground events to big corporate events. The first DK had something like 15 riders. 

Watching gravel races is boring as shit. I tell my GF to meet me at the start and finish and find something to do for the day. It might be 10 or more hours before I finish.

 

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