MichaelinTN

I just watched the recap show that aired on ESPN last night and it was horrible! No clock on the screen; I think they only showed 2 riders split times; They also never showed a ranking of the times until the very end of the show - no updates whatsoever - so you had to remember exactly when Cancellara came in to know if Danielson beat his time. They had a lot of coverage in the first 45 minutes showing riders on the course(showing lesser known riders ride the whole course) and then in the last 15 minutes they packed all the big names in. They didn't show David Z., hardly any coverage on Hincapie. Very poorly put together. I hope it gets better.

feltdude

Well from now on they'll be covering the peloton not an individual TT so it won't be so hard to figure out. And after about 2 stages, they'll be covering who ever is winning.

Cleave

Hi,

Even A.L. (After Lance) cycling in the US is not a hot media sport. So in my book, any coverage is better than no coverage. Was it bad? Yes, but at least there was coverage.

worker4youth

I think I saw more empty road (waiting for a rider to crest a hill) that anything else.

TCR

I couldn't stay awake to watch it so I tried setting my new DVD/VCR from xmas. It was the first time I'd tried to use the record timer and it didn't work - got nothing but static. Oh well, doesn't sound like I missed much.

yellowjeep

2nd.

This is my thinking also. It wasnt the best coverage in the world but at least it was coverage (albeit at midnight here in good ole' Kansas)

bitingduck

That's a function of the start order-- the faster guys generally start last.

The rest of the comments are valid, though, but it's still better than the coverage we used to get of the TdF with 30 minute recaps packed with Fresca commercials. I bet it will improve a lot next year, and possibly even over the course of the week.

furiousferret

I agree 100% with the original poster.

zero

It had the feel of watching a home-video of a bike race.

Tarmac_Editor

They clearly didn't have their camera positions set up right and the cameramen on the motorcycles were extremely shaky (perhaps it was their first time shooting in this way?). The editing (which I do for a living) left a lot to be desired. While the turnaround time from shooting the event to broadcast was pretty tight, they still had enough time to balance the coverage out of the riders throughout the hour. To cram the biggest names into the final 10-15 minutes was ridiculous.

HJR

Even my wife agrees with everything said here and she is not that big a fan. Yet! I'm goign to try to get her to go with me to the last stage in Redondo.

RockyMtnMerlin

Yep: I agree it was pretty scetchy. But at least it was coverage.

squeegy200

At least you saw something. My parents in San Jose told me it was at least reported in the local news stations. But down here in Southern California, I found absolutely nothing.

I watched the sports reports late Sunday night and didn't catch one single note on the event. Not even an honorable mention. But they showed plenty of the NBA All Star game where multi-millionaires played street exhibition ball. The last quarter was a slamdunk contest. What a total waste of TV bandwidth. They showed NASCAR and even a local rodeo. But no bicycle racing.

It did make page 3 of todays Los Angeles Times Sports Section.

I hope it gets better or there'll be no one aware there's a bicycle race going on when it reaches the final stages here in Southern California.

DocRay

zippo on TV in Canada.
NBC pre-empted the olympics for Bon Jovi at Daytona 500

TV sucks

jbhowat

Thats how the start list goes. I would have liked to have seen Ullrich, Basso, Armstrong, etc spread out in the TdF prologue (mostly to save Jan the embarassment) but they don't do that because the best guys always start last...

aham23

totally agreed with this. i am excited to see this event on tv even if i have to tivo it and watch it a day late. however, come on, lets edit this think a bit better. i saw no dave and very little george. at the end it was just finish finish finish at the end. come on show us some bike porn. at least its on. later.

shawneebiker

Contact ESPN and let them know how sh1tty their coverage was.....

Fans deserve better......

https://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/...contact/espntv

Tarmac_Editor

I'm not saying ESPN is at fault for the order they presented things... I know the order was set by the race officials. What I'm saying is ESPN 2 allowed too much of the produced/edited program hour to the early rides and had to cram the last riders (many of the biggest names) into the final segments of the show. This was purely a producer's call, or error.

1955

I'm happy to see any coverage of this race on TV, but I was very disappointed with the horrible show put on by ESPN. I was yelling at the TV through the whole thing, asking what was going on, where everyone was placed etc, etc. I'm not expecting much more in the future from this crappy basketball and nascar network. I really don't watch sports on TV (hockey being the exception) but I've seen a few things, and I know they can do better...they just don't care!

bitingduck

When the rides are only 5 minutes long, and they're going out a minute apart, the top ten guys are all going to ride in the last 15 minutes of the event. If they're on 30 second starts you get 20 guys in that time. It's not anywhere near the size of the TdF, so they can't put a camera on each of the top riders for the full ride, so they do what they can with the motos they have and the stationary cameras.

Tarmac_Editor

Okay, that makes more sense to me then. Still seems like there were problems with their coverage, but, like someone else pointed out, it's good to get anything cycling related on TV here so really I shouldn't complain.

The_Convert

jeeze, it's the first decent stage race in the country in far too long, one of the first times cycling has been on something other than OLN, it was a 5 minute prologue, the coverage wasn't even BAD, and all you guys do is b!tch still?

Jakey

I thought it was bad...but...it should get better the rest of the way.

chzman

even if the coverage gets better... it is still on at 1am EST

Pizza Man

I agree that the coverage was poor. I was at the start watching, and they had a big TV to watch the guys finishing. They had a moto with Dave Z the whole way, so I was surprised that none of his ride was shown. As I was watching Dave Z's ride, it looked like he threw his chain near the bottom of the hill, because he stopped pedaling, almost stopped, and looked down at his chain, then started pedaling very slowly. I didn't read anything about it. On the plus side, all of the local TV stations showed a little coverage of the race during the sports news, and it was fairly well covered in the SF Chronicle (though they only had results for top 10).