I personally have no issue with it being on GCN (Iām assuming it will be since thatās Discoveryās only bike product that Iām aware of), and they do a pretty good job of what they do now. I do hope they get dedicated MTB people though, as I donāt think they have good enough people currently on staff, but it seems like they are putting some capital behind it. However, itās not free anymore, and thatās a real bummer, but alas, times change.
I use Redbull to go back and watch all the racing from 2018 onwards, thatās going to be the worst thing for me. GCN hasnāt worked properly for me to watch past races for a while. I canāt go further back than December which is all Cyclo-cross not the stuff I want.
In general I like the GCN coverage and commentary though. At least for road, they had the European XCO Champs and the commentators lacked the charisma of Warner and co.
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Pooās 
I really do hope that all uci races are on GCN+. I wonder what made this happen? Money most likely.
That is literally heartbreaking. The races are some of the most anticipated parts of my year.
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āMainstreamingā of our niche extreme sport, sucks hey.
The distro deal with Red Bull was more āpartnershipā than spliced with advertising. Whatās to come is likely the default streaming media model of
- pre-roll ad
- pre-show
- mid-roll ad
- race start
- mid-roll ad
- racing
- mid-roll ad
- racing
- mid-roll ad
- post-show
- post-roll ad
FARK! This shits me. Red Bull did some great work developing a timeline interface for key moments, representing the edgy nature of the sport with appropriate commentators and pushing the corporate junk elsewhere.
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indeed. Not just for payment but quality
Why couldnāt ESPN 8, āthe Ocho,ā have picked up the world cup series?
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Personally I donāt mind if itās on Discovery / GCN+ if the production is done well. Letās be honest it was always impossible to find anything on the Red Bull website / app.
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If they put Marty on commentary itād kill it for me. I cringe every time I hear āwelcome aboardā at the start of a cyclocross race.
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Hopefully all content will be available on GCN+ or Eurosport, and not their own streaming service (wich is absolute shit).
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Sky NZ have first right of refusal for UCI events produced by the UCI. Red Bull had the rights to MTB before Sky bought the UCI rights so we got the World Cups, but not the World Champs as the Champs are UCI produced. This is why NZ is one of the few countries that GCN will say ānot available in NZā. We can get GCN+ for non UCI world cup CX and some lower level road events. Sky carries pretty much all road events and all of the UCI world cup CX races.
If, and itās an unknown if, Discovery uses GCN+ to screen events there is a chance NZ wonāt be included thanks to Sky. Which would suck for many in this neck of the woods. (I only have Sky for the cycling and have GCN+ for the non UCI stuff and their specials)
As for commentators, Rob Warner and Martin Ashtyn started GMBN together, so I would very much think Rob will follow the move to Discovery. Plus he is the voice of MTB.
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Thatās true. I always have to take a few deep breaths and know that finding the race Iām looking for might take a bit of timeā¦
So true, its horrific! Youād think with the revenue and clout they have theyād have done a better job!
I agree that navigating the RBTV site was and still is rough but once you found it the coverage and energy that they put into XC was unparalleled. Before redbull XC was in real danger of becoming a fringe sport.
I just donāt see Discover/GCN doing as good of a job in coverage, promotion, commenting and just he overall quality that RB did. Their road coverage is just ok. The CX coverage at worlds this year kindāf sucked (whats up with not putting JPOW as the main guy in an American race!! Blasphemy BS) with bad camera angles, boring commentating and just mehā¦they donāt know dirt. So predictable and not showing the race within the race and no tire checks at the start line.
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Hmm, that was interesting. A lot of whinging about lack of support and coverage for Rampage etc.
Perhaps a legitimate issue, but seems separate to the UCI MTB coverage.
As Brian says. Iām happy to pay for a subscription for content I get value out of. I still fear it going behind GeoBlockers and being sold to local cable companies which cost 10x GCN for example to fund the coverage of 50 of 51 sports I wonāt watch.
Ugh.
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Itāll be interesting to see if they do employ any improvements in coverage.
Iāve been watching some Cape Epic coverage and itās amazing how good they do for whatās a pretty limited audience/small race.
Droneās and mobile cameras capturing speed and new perspectives is pretty cool. Red Bull seemed to play with it a couple times last year in the XCO coverage.
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Oh yeah I completely agree. back to watching bike racing through a VPN maybe?
Yeah. Iāve just managed to get myself set up. But the GCN app is ghastly. I donāt know if itās my AliExpress Android TV box, or the app itself, but it sucks to use.