UCI have made watching the DH become niegh on impossible

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1

*rant from the UK

If they wanted to get less people to watch the DH world cup this would be the way they would do it.

2022 - easy as… redbull TV broadcast on the app or YouTube. You could see the schedule, select a reminder, and watch everything.

2023 - GCN came along…bit of a faff but still easy to find what you wanted to watch as it was very bespoke to cycling and you could see the schedule, favourite upcoming races.

2024 - GCN app no longer operational. Have to go to discover plus or Eurosport to watch the DH.
So I log into Amazon…as Amazon prime has a discovery plus add on. Paid £6.99 for that. But then you can’t search anything or see schedule through the Amazon prime. So I deleted the discovery plus add on (got a refund). And downloaded the discovery app. Paid another £6.99 (don’t mind paying to watch DH but a) pay the riders etc and b) make it easy for me to watch).
The discovery app is shit. I think I’ve found when its live on Sunday…but can’t favourite or get a notification. I’m still sceptical that I’ll be able to watch this live. Plus then cast to the TV from the mobile… who knows.

Tldr: the move to discovery plus makes it super hard to watch the DH world cup.

Anyone else annoyed at this?

2

World Cup Downhill leaving Redbull TV was seriously disappointing. For an incredibly niche sport, why would these dumbfucks make it harder for fans to be able to watch it!?

3

I went from watching every race to watching none. I know a lot of people who did the same. I bet viewership tanked pretty hard overall.

4

I stopped watching it live and just wait ~24hrs for the youtube content.

5

Ed Bull Media, Moi Moi TV, WynTV, Ben Cathro/PB and Sleeper all have amazing, often hilarious, race content on YouTube. Discover just seems uninterested.

6

It’s probably easier to just go to Fort William and watch it live than try and figure out how the app works, probably more exciting to

7

In Canada the only option is something called FloBikes for $30 USD ($41 Canadian) per month or $150 USD ($205 CAD) per year. Absolutely insane.

8

Agree. I am actually in the fort (in a tent!) watching, but nice to have it to stream on the phone to watch the parts I cant.

The BBC shows snooker for gods sake…surely ONE day of DH racing at least, when it’s in fort William, would not break the bank.

9

UCI

making fun sports boring for over a century

10

I lucked out already having HBO Max in the states.

11

Ive given up in Australia. No idea how I would even go about watching it. No idea what I would have to subscribe to. Not to mention the races start anywhere from 11pm-4am. Which I used to get up for when it was actually easy to watch.

12

Or you could live in a country not deemed an important enough market to even have a paid option to watch it.

13

I paid for fucking discovery/eurosport last year to watch DH and Enduro. Only replays, since Im usually at work when there are live. Impossible to search for any replay. You can type in ‘enduro’, ‘downhill’ or 'mountainbike and find everything that is not that. It’s like they don’t want people to watch. Almost gleefully making a big dog and pony show on how they have all these subscription services for us to pay and then make them impossible to use. I did not read a comment section about these races wuere people weren’t complaining. I’m just glad RedBull has some really good new mtv content. Love the Urban DH series.

14

I can’t even figure out how to watch it in the us even if I wanted to pay.

15

There are free streams if you know where to look

16

what we need is for hardline to become a bigger event and take over from the UCI.

My dream is a hardline round in Whistler United states England Australia new zealand Switzerland germany and the finals should for it should be somewhere really insane.

17

Is this the UCIs fault? Or is it discoverys fault?

18

It’s a damn shame what they did to GCN plus, especially as a North American. Tried to subscribe to Discovery but they don’t like my non-Euro credit card and there’s no way in hell I’m paying Flo Sports extortionate pricing so I guess watching cycling is dead to me now.

19

The UCI could fuck up a wet dream.

20

I bought a few bikes and just bike rather then watch racing. Discovery is not a company I want to support.