Road Cycling UCI World Championships 2020

[Olympian1010 7,946]

2 minutes ago, OlympicsFan said:

Who exactly said that? I think women’s (beach) volleyball, women’s athletics, women’s gymnastics (except for floor) or women’s swimming are interesting to watch (sometimes also women’s tennis). 

Quote

This is the first time in years that I watched a women’s race and now I understand why women’s cycling doesn’t get more tv time. This was even worse than watching women’s football, the depth of talent is really poor.

[OlympicsFan 858]

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

 

So? Could you maybe quote where I was talking about women’s sport in general?

[Grassmarket 3,362]

Afraid this is true. There’s a group of about 10 riders that basically win 90% of the races and the rest don’t have much of an incentive to stay in the sport long.

[heywoodu 14,917]

23 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

It’s hard to grow a sport when it isn’t given TV time though. People really just expect women’s sport to get better on it’s own without advertising, television, funding, etc. 

 

I’m not saying this wasn’t a boring race, because it was, but let’s calm down with the “women’s sports sucks” comments.

The problem is, you need to have at least some interesting things to offer before getting advertising, television, funding and so on. Women's cycling sometimes does, which is why it's on TV (or live streams) relatively often nowadays, but of course main channels are not going to pour more and more money into something that offers their viewers two hours of basically nothing of any interest.

[Grassmarket 3,362]

4 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

The problem is, you need to have at least some interesting things to offer before getting advertising, television, funding and so on. Women's cycling sometimes does, which is why it's on TV (or live streams) relatively often nowadays, but of course main channels are not going to pour more and more money into something that offers their viewers two hours of basically nothing of any interest.

You saw that with the breakaway today.  In theory it was a strong group, but none of them wanted to do anything on their own initiative because they were all just placeholders for someone else.

[Olympian1010 7,946]

2 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

The problem is, you need to have at least some interesting things to offer before getting advertising, television, funding and so on. Women's cycling sometimes does, which is why it's on TV (or live streams) relatively often nowadays, but of course main channels are not going to pour more and more money into something that offers their viewers two hours of basically nothing of any interest.

Right, but how do you get to that level without the same opportunities as men?

 

Women’s cycling does have a semi-privileged standing amongst women’s sports as it actually gets some air time like you said. That’s a good start, but there’s a lot more that needs to be done if people want better racing. I think it’s trending in the right direction, but it still needs help.

[Olympian1010 7,946]

1 minute ago, Grassmarket said:

You saw that with the breakaway today.  In theory it was a strong group, but none of them wanted to do anything on their own initiative because they were all just placeholders for someone else.

Which happens in men’s cycling as well. 

[Grassmarket 3,362]

3 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Which happens in men’s cycling as well. 

Not every single person in the group!

[CCB 563]

37 minutes ago, OlympicsFan said:

I guess once Evenepoel reaches his peak a lot of men’s race will also look like that ...

One guy just randomly destroying the field by multiple minutes.

Exactly. Men's cycling will be boring too. And women's cycling will become even more boring when Chloe Dygert participates more often in women's races, because Dygert is way better than Van Vleuten and Van der Breggen (at least when she stays at her bike :-)). 

[heywoodu 14,917]

7 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Which happens in men’s cycling as well. 

It's not the default thing in men's cycling as it often is in women's cycling  

 

Plus in men's cycling there are 100+ riders who can realistically win good races with strong fields, in women's cycling there are maybe 20. I know that has it's reasons, lack of opportunities and so on, but there aren't going to be a whole lot more opportunities when simply a whole lot less people are interested.

 

It works both ways: yes, to make it bigger there needs to be some more support, but to get more support, there needs to be some more interesting racing. A ton of people follow the Tour de France, at least casually if not by watching most stages. Nobody I know watches more than a handful of women's races even if they're shown on TV or live stream. The opportunity to watch is there, but a lot of cycling fans just don't find it interesting enough.