Originally Posted by chasm54

I'm a european, so clearly this article isn't really addressing the culture I live in - though as far as cycling is concerned, the UK is closer to the US than to, say, Belgium.

I think the author has a really good point. He isn't suggesting changing the races, but merely packaging the TV presentation to make them more accessible and potentially interesting to the general audience that is interested in sports but doesn't understand bike racing. Even over here that would be extremely useful. It would take a bit of skill in both editing and scripting in order to make it both entertaining and educational to the non-cyclist - ultimately we want them to have some clue about the context of what they are watching - but it could be done. I've shown "Chasing Legends" to a number of people who know nothing about cycling, for example, and they have all been enthralled. No reason that couldn't be done with other races to build an audience. And bigger audiences mean more sponsors.