Velominati Super Prestige: Tour de France 2014

View Comments

• @andrew     That's not how TV advertising works.  Mostly TV ads are sold based on "Hits" where a Hit is based on audience demographics.  The audience demographics are based on research that define various categories that watch programmes of certain types.  So say Reality TV, Science, Sports etc.  The TV systems then auto schedule the Ads to the amount of Hits the advertiser has procured.  The advertiser does not tend to buy a particular slot unless it is a key event e.g. Superbowl.

  So what seems to have been found is that cycling has been classified for soccer type couch potato demographic audiences!

• @Harminator Another great piece of writing. Thanks!

• @Teocalli Fair point; I suppose I wasn't thinking specifically about TV advertising, but rather the sponsors of the event and the teams themselves, but even then, your point stands as more than half the point then is getting the logo on TV.

  I remember having a TV ratings device in the house years ago and thinking how Stone Age the system was.  Perhaps with better demographic measurements and more targeted advertising with modern media, this will give event and team promoters who are savvy enough a better chance to define and reach their audiences.  But if I knew little about what I was talking about before, I'm well into the wilderness with this.

• Waiting on the mountains...... getting tired of watching guys crash (and motorcycles almost run them over) in the rain.

• @andrew

  @Teocalli Fair point; I suppose I wasn't thinking specifically about TV advertising, but rather the sponsors of the event and the teams themselves, but even then, your point stands as more than half the point then is getting the logo on TV.

  I remember having a TV ratings device in the house years ago and thinking how Stone Age the system was. Perhaps with better demographic measurements and more targeted advertising with modern media, this will give event and team promoters who are savvy enough a better chance to define and reach their audiences. But if I knew little about what I was talking about before, I'm well into the wilderness with this.

  Actually that's still pretty much how it works. Like democracy, it's the worst possible system except for all the others. Although you are correct that targeted advertising is the  next big thing, probably through your TV, which becomes more feasible with IPTV and OTT systems.

  But to the point about advertising and cycling, if you are an advertiser seeking let's say a female audience, you don't have many reasons to put your budget into women's cycling. The people who watch women's cycling are by and large the same people who watch men's cycling, just in smaller numbers, so what do you gain. I suspect women are more likely to watch men's cycling than women's cycling.

  It's called incremental reach. How can I put my ad in front of someone I want to see it but who wouldn't have otherwise have done so ?

  The trouble with women's sport - and this is a general problem - is that women don't consume it.  If the UCI wants to do something about it then this is the fundamental issue they have to address. Pious hand-wringing and arm-twisting sponsors is not a long-term solution.

  Like him or loathe him, the brilliance of Bernie Ecclestone is in the way he has marketed F1 and hugely expanded its demographic. Barry Hearn is trying to do the same with snooker. Cycling needs the same.

• @Mike_P

  @Teocalli Slow day?

  Multi-tasking on conf calls.  But forgot about the bread proofing in the airing cupboard, two things I can do but 3........

• @Fausto Crapiz

  Waiting on the mountains...... getting tired of watching guys crash (and motorcycles almost run them over) in the rain.

  Really? Have you actually been paying attention? There has been some fantastic racing so far in this Tour. Even yesterday in the rain. That wind caused some real havoc in the peloton and made for some very interesting stuff. Winning a grand tour isn't just about the mountains. If you don't do what's necessary in the "boring" stages, the mountains won't matter.

• @Fausto Crapiz

  Waiting on the mountains...... getting tired of watching guys crash (and motorcycles almost run them over) in the rain.

  I actually took you literally. Doh!

• @ChrisO Interesting points, thanks.  I guess the general point that cycling overall needs an Ecclestone figure means the point about women's cycling will remain moot.  I know my wife is more interested in women's cycling than men's, but she'd also rather be riding or spectating at the event than watching the telly, and her enjoyment of it has less to do with the racing than it does with the effort and the lifestyle.

• And we just can't let Stage 5 go, can we?

  Now Terpstra thinks the pave shouldn't be in the Tour.

  "...he says that non-classics riders should not be forced to tackle them in a Grand Tour.

  "I think cobblestone races are made for Classics. For a Classic you can chose to ride over the stones, but if you participate in the Tour de France you don't volunteer to take the cobblestones," said Terpstra. "It's just the organisation that puts the cobblestones in and you have to survive it. If you see that Chris Froome is out because of that stage, I don't think that we can be happy about that."

  Hey Niki, you know that Froome crashed out before he even reached the cobbles, right?

  I'm really tired of all this nonsense. A GT winner--hell ANY World Tour rider-- needs to be a complete rider, and handle anything that comes their way.

  For fuck sake, Merckx, Hinault, LeMan and all the hardmen of old didn't just win all those races in the GTs. They won races all fucking year. Quit your fucking whining and race your damn bike.

  BTW, it occurs to me that maybe Froome's first crash on that stage into the road furniture might have been avoided if he wasn't looking at his stem all the time and, you know, steered his bike around the obstacle.