Opinion: The Proxy War Between Discovery & Red Bull Is Official
Minnaar composed as always. Photo by Ross Bell.
Words: Brian Park
Disclosure: Pinkbike has long, complex relationships & partnerships with Red Bull, the UCI, and Discovery. Our parent company Outside Inc also has a broadcast subscription model. This shouldn't be read as an objective take by a neutral third party.
Last year I suggested there was a proxy war brewing between Discovery (parent company of Eurosport and Play Sports Network) and Red Bull, but with this week's announcement that Discovery is likely taking over the UCI's DH and XC broadcast rights for World Cup events through 2030, it's official.
Frenemies.
The mountain bike industry has always had a complicated relationship with Red Bull. The Salzburg-based energy drink brand has undoubtedly poured money into the sport, supported untold numbers of riders, and been the reason that the best events have had massive global audiences. They’ve provided the canvases for many of mountain biking’s biggest moments. But most of all, over the past decade they’ve entrenched their position as holding the keys to the kingdom of free access to the sport’s most important broadcasts. Until now.
Every year or two we see a groundswell of “is Red Bull good for the sport?” type articles and opinions pop up. Including on this site. And a lot of it is compelling—nobody believes Red Bull supports the sport purely out of the goodness of their hearts. Their revenue broke €5B in 2018, and free access to broadcasts isn’t free; they’re marketing to an audience they believe is important to their business. The money they bring into the sport comes from somewhere, and some critics have been uneasy about the ethics of marketing energy drinks to action-sport audiences.
Information is still scarce, but I suspect Discovery was willing to pay significantly more than Red Bull had paid in the past. Again please take this with a huge grain of salt, but several unofficial sources have suggested that mountain bike racing hasn't been a huge moneymaker for the UCI in recent years, so it would be unsurprising for the UCI to move forward with Discovery's even deeper pockets.
Room for improvement.
As much as Red Bull has given to the sport, its coverage has lots of room for improvement. Team and media access issues. Fairness in coverage for non-Red Bull athletes. Improving their camerawork and broadcast logistics. Insurance and prizing that's out of sync with risk factors. Challenging communication. And they’ve missed some of the most important racing moments over the past few years.
I'm sure Discovery has big plans to improve the content, and they certainly have the means and ability to do just that. But it’s hard to know what’s possible until you’re in charge. I bet some folks at Red Bull are looking at the cataclysmic, doom-and-gloom comments about the Discovery news and thinking “weren’t you the same people that complained bitterly about our coverage?”
The truth is that despite Red Bull’s issues, they’ve set an incredibly high bar for production and many of the key people running the broadcasts care deeply about the sport. It remains to be seen what kind of access Discovery is going to give for World Cups, but if it does become a subscription service, there will be higher expectations from the audience. Full disclosure, the subscription model is a cornerstone of Pinkbike’s parent company’s business and I’m fundamentally happy to pay for content I want to see, but to get the mountain bike world on board they’re going to need to step way up.
The truth is that despite Red Bull’s issues, they’ve set an incredibly high bar for production and many of the key people running the broadcasts care deeply about the sport. It remains to be seen what kind of access Discovery is going to give for World Cups, but if it does become a subscription service, there will be higher expectations from the audience. Full disclosure, the subscription model is a cornerstone of Pinkbike’s parent company’s business and I’m fundamentally happy to pay for content I want to see, but to get the mountain bike world on board they’re going to need to step way up.
Photo by Sven Martin.
Matt Wragg takes a deep dive into how Red Bull has developed the sport, including revealing viewing figures, and how racing might look now Discovery has taken over. Read on Beta.
Discovery needs to both elevate the coverage, give a better representation of the sport, and get it in front of more fans.
A huge opportunity.
If the American multinational is able to level up World Cup racing, it’s great for the sport—better content for core fans, and more visibility on traditional TV, bringing more non-endemic dollars to the sport. But if they don’t, and viewership falls, it’s going to be a hard sell for teams to commit the same level of funding in an arena where some of the most talented riders are already hurting for support. In other words, many brands will struggle to commit marketing dollars to race programs that will get seen by less people (or less mountain bikers). I know I’m beating a dead horse on this, but I don’t want a sport where only a few ultra-rich kids can compete, while everyone else is part time racers and full time influencers.
Discovery is, in a sense, a competitor to Pinkbike/Beta/Outside, but for the sake of the sport, I’m rooting for them on this. They have the opportunity to do something amazing, but the stakes are high. At least with the benefit of hindsight we’ll be able to better understand Red Bull's contributions to the sport.
The UCI, Red Bull, and Discovery have declined to comment for now on this evolving situation.
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339 Comments
Also, I wish the world's providers of 'information' offered disclosures similar to this article... "This shouldn't be read as an objective take by a neutral third party."
Eurosport do realise that right?
"Look at the time!"
This move has its parallels. Attempt at mainstream by discovery with the ultimate cancellation due to revenue flow and a new big boss doesn't like it.
Dude, this is a terrible take and actually very racist. First, spell the man’s name correctly, Selema Masekela.
Second, even if it’s a ‘joke’, threatening a bounty on somebody because you don’t care for there commenting style is absurd. Would you make the same statement about Claudio or Warner if you didn’t like them? Making such a statement against a POC sure makes it sound like you value their life less than others. Even if you didn’t intend it this way, that is the underlying message to others and why it is important to learn and improve. You could have simple stated, “I hope they find a mountain biker to commentate and don’t bring in an outside individual.” You chose to single out the one Black commentator and then threaten physical harm to him as if it was his fault the new company might offer him a job. Micro aggressions are real, and this is a prime example. This is a perfect opportunity to reflect, grow, and do better.
Third, Selema is one of the most passionate and genuine people in the greater action sports community. He has done invaluable work to help these sports grow and represent them as honestly as possible to the masses. Learn about the man and I’d hope you’d gain some respect for him even if you wouldn’t choose to listen to his commentary as a first choice.
If you feel the need to negatively prop this there is likely some inherent bias in your views that you haven’t yet acknowledged.
Now the problem for Discovery is that this is not a race driven sport. Win on Sunday and sell on Monday doesn't really apply since those bikes are either too uncomfortable (XC) to ride or are fun sponges (Enduro) on regular trails. Most riders have no idea who Nino or Loic are so the question is whether they can make racing more mainstream and therefore drive ad dollars. If they are successful then team sponsors and racers salaries will follow.
I could care less about spelling.
I could care less if you like my joke.
I could care less if you see racism where there is none.
I could care less about you feeling triggered.
I could care less if Sal is your hero.
Pretend English isn't my native language and I misspelled his name.
Nobody wants Sal "X-Games" Mufasalasadingdong turning our sport into the same old cookie cutter stuff of the 90's.
We are our own sport. Don't need mainstream.
Go defend someone that needs defending.
#dungeonbeastsellsfakenews.
If someone sees racism, it’s because it’s probably there. You may not be racist, but the comment was. That’s the whole point of systemic racism, it’s engrained and pervasive and continues through apathy. We can all help make the world better by learning and evolving. Myself included.
And a native tongue does not pertain to spelling anyone’s name. That transcends language.
A suggestion may be to listen to “The Bombhole Podcast” episode with Selema. You may find in interesting and enlightening.
Seriously, calling me a racist again for not liking someone's commentating.
There are not enough bad names on the planet for shit stirrers like you.
You desperately want attention so this is your route to internet glory.
I used to beat the living crap out of bullies that picked on, kicked and belittled the weaker kids in school.
You're trying to be some big bad internet bully. Just know that me and every one else here talking about BIKES just punched your little down arrow right in it's internet bully face.
Fokk off with your psychosis.
No, Selema. He has been on record multiple times saying that he does not want to be referred to as ‘Sal’ any longer. His name is Selema. ‘Sal’ was a nickname he felt forced to accept in his earlier years. Listen to the podcast.
I also never called you a racist. I called the comment racist. Learn reading comprehension.
And threatening physical violence and calling names sounds much more like bullying behavior than pointing out how a comment can how what you may view as an innocuous comment can actually contain undertones that uphold a harmful ideal and suggesting it’s a learning moment.
I hope you can get out on your bike and find some peace soon. Cheers bruh
But yeah, the biggest problem with producing a 10, 11, 12 round World Cup is the teams getting to them.
But I've always been of the mind that the industry tries to skimp on the rider incomes regardless of the number of rounds, so bring it. Let's see 10, 11, 12 rounds. The trust fund kids can make all the rounds on a YT and push the factory teams to pony up. Nobody wants the next Denim Destroyer to win the overall on his own dime or a trust fund kid to steal the series on his 4 custom chrome Treks.
Pro Teams would step up if they added the rounds.
I learned 3 new expressions today. Thank you.
Get it? Because bulls
If the order is correct please drink more Vodka we miss the WAKIness!
I know their media player could be frustrating at times, but it was free as far as I am concerned, you never HAD to buy a RB product in order to watch.
With Discovery we will have to pay (at least I will be astounded if we don't) and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we also have to suffer adverts during the broadcast. I haven't watched their coverage of road racing, but I've heard very little in praise of it.
Have Discovery had to pledge improved coverage over RB? That remains to be seen. Personally I don't think the UCI have too much interest in DH, at least not as much interest as they have in lining their own pockets.
I really hope I'm wrong in my fears, but I can't help feeling this will turn out to be a step backwards for the sport I love and I feel if ever there's been a time for DH to cut ties with the UCI it's now.
That being said, I do believe he embodies what mountainbiking is about. Just as you stated, it is a multifaceted thing. Here you have somebody who loves the sport, understands it, and once again is an icon within it. What other criteria do you need?
All that means that you have to obtain sponsorships of any kind. So you are piecing together as much free bikes, parts and swag as you can get, your accomodations and means of transport have to be as cheap as possible. So while you are doing something quite expensive and spending loads of money on it, you are still broke as fuk. You may be spending far more money per month total, than your peers from school/work but you are far poorer than they are. Even if you have parents who are either rich or established in racing with all possible networks and assets, you have to count every damn penny.
And that's a rather punk life as opposed to a XC racer, who's biggest worry is to find time for enough riding volume, lots of which happens on a road bike. You don't need to dig trails, worry for injuries as much. There is a reason why wealthier executives, engineers, salesmen, IT folks at 45-60yrs old train for marathons, road races, triathlons almost as much as elite athletes. My former boss trains 3-4h a day every day. That reason is that endurance training is far easier to fit into regular Western lifestyle than skills training.
There will be exceptions but the average elite DH racer from top 20-top 80 WC is a one broke mdr fkr. Listen to Downtime podcast with Paul Aston.
DH is too niche and there is small perceivable growth in the market.
The UCI would not uncouple the two disciplines and so we are where we are.
Discovery is a media company. Their main product is broadcasting shows / events. They make most of their money from selling subscriptions to their service, and selling advertising on their broadcasts.
So the pretty obvious result here is that coverage will require a paid subscription to watch, and there's gonna be a bunch of advertisements to sit through. Maybe that also comes with a higher quality broadcast? We'll see.
sorry for missing the maybe, @toast2266, I agree it's a wait and see. There was nothing low quality about RB's broadcast imo, and based on what little EWS coverage I was able to watch last year, not holding my breath on this change, because I went from consuming the EWS coverage pretty regularly, to almost immediately ceasing watching it as it was pretty terrible overall.
That said, there's only so much that can be done with the DH race format. They can pack more cameras onto the track or whatever, but the coverage is inherently limited by the intervals between the riders. If there's two minutes between riders, they can't really show more than two minutes of the run unless they abandon being a live broadcast.
And the media/broadcasting company mostly makes shitty scripted reality shows about hillbillies looking for gold.
I'm keeping an open mind but I don't have high hopes.
RBTV already had that though? At least on the desktop site. You can hover over the little circles to jump to a rider.
Personally I would like to see fewer riders on the broadcast with full runs / bigger gaps. Drone footage could probably fill in a lot of gap time too. Realistically it probably stays same/worse and goes behind a paywall.
I'm confident that Discovery has the resources to make this happen.
in all seriousness, google "bear grylls products". It's insane what he's slapped his name on.
Can we get an outside opinion on this?
Be safe be well,
Incognito Robin
The worst part of Red Bull was the attempt to dramatize or click bait races. And then they zoomed the f*ck out and realized... You don't need to! Just COVER it. Let the cameras run. Get behind the scenes. The narratives write themselves. You don't need to chop up Rob's commentary and make things sound wilder than they are.
The best era of Red Bull is the one we are just leaving... And I hope we get another year of it to show Discovery how it's done. Generally ~2 videos, 10+ minutes long, that cover pre-race day (times and qualis), and race day itself. Then after that you release the male and female winning run as unedited as possible. That's it! Plus the livefeed, you get a ton of opportunities for engagement and you don't need to trick anybody to watch it. You just let people watch the event as if they were there. Cover as much of the race as possible. Get some behind the scenes in the pits/rider interviews. It's good content.
This comment makes me sad. The UCI shouldn't be about making money; it should be about making cycling a success and having as many people participating at every level...
1. Broadcast/programming is as good or better than Red Bull
2. No commercials. Advertising via content can be integrated in a tolerable way, but I won't put up with classic "commercials"
3. I can purchase only the MTB product
4. Price is fair - Max $10 per race - including both men's & women's broadcasts
5. It is on demand, and once purchased I have unlimited access forever
If any of those five pillars aren't there, then I will pirate the broadcast without batting an eye.
Makes no sense having better coverage or if there are less people watching
Rampage in the Southern Hemisphere Spring 2023?
Free Redbull coverage has been great for growing the interest in MTB, our forests are full of young rippers digging crazy jumps, which is awesome. You can tell its all a RB influence, as there’s always energy drink cans scattered about… ha, ha ( kids today hey!)
Paywalls can be positive however, here in Oz they are now putting most cricket matches behind them. So finally that mind numbingly boring sport, is starting to slowly die out at its grass roots. Which is a massive positive for all school kids across the country.
Real estate was so impactful because it’s a basic necessity, they don’t make it anymore, and a huge chunk of our economy is built on the idea it will never go down in value. Bikes… are none of that. Not that a bubble is a good thing - the pop will take several bikes shops with it - but it’s really not a huge problem for how we enjoy the sport.
Unless you derive a lot of self worth from the uniqueness of your bike. Then you might have a problem.
The biggest things in dirt bikes are MX World champs, the Enduro world champs and Dakar. Eurosport currently airs the coverage of all three and honestly, every, single minute is shit. Like, utter garbage, run of the mill TV. Not enough cameras, janky, barebones production, single commentator shit.
Discovery haven't touched that coverage with their brush and I'll hold judgement till they do but mountain biking is a really long way ahead of where the industry thinks it is. We look at it with envy, trust me.
(8X) DH World Cups
(9X) XC World Cups
not a lot of content!!
Side note, eurosport coverage of road cycling is superb, I’m sure they’ll nail it
Red bull happens to sponsor many of the top riders, so it makes sense that their athletes get slot of the coverage. I never noticed any bias. I never sensed that anyone deserving of more coverage was overlooked because they had a different sponsor. Just look at the riders sponsored by monster for instance. Thibault Daprela, Loris, Amaury Pierron, Danny Hart, Brosnan, Sam Hill, Steve Peat, etc. these riders were overlooked on the Redbull broadcasts?
Less people watching uci DH an XC WC
sponsors (€£¥) leave ....
MTB looses popularity (maybe for ebikes)
This, with the popularity and how easy it is to be an "influencer" gives rise to new wave of Freeeide popularity
Awesome for the shredders
Bad for the junkie racers
Win Win
Be careful who you choose as “friends”.
Done.
I've used Eurosport player a number of times. You can pay for individual months so was useful for the road bike grand tours, but then that is 4/5 hours of riding each day for three weeks, not 3 hours once a month. Yes there was adverts too
Pick a side and be a dick about it?
I bet the EWS folks are very excited about moving under the UCI umbrella now.
As much as I want to watch Minnar win again there is no way I am paying Discovery for the privilege.
I feel like Discovery has generally screwed audiences by pulling popular programs into some new $5 a month category and for the one or two things you want to watch, that's not worth it.
I'd prefer RB stay in charge.
It seems from the outside looking in that if Discovery do a good job and make downhill racing more popular and bring people in it can only be good for Pinkbike/Beta/Outside. A rising tide raises all ships and all that, what is offered by the Outside umbrella companies is different from what Discovery have bought the rights to but is aided by there being a bigger market of DH riders and fans. The only way I could see this negatively impacting outside, from my layman's position, would be if Outside intended to buy broadcast rights for DH world cups and Discovery makes them so popular that the price becomes unattainable.
I can watch F1 for "free" assuming I have ESPN. I assume with discover, we will get an edited broadcast shown in more favorable hours. That will likely leaving me wanting for RedBull coverage.
If we are lucky, They will choose the F1TV model, and have a live stream, and access to prior events on demand. I pay about $100 USD a year for this service, and I'd happily pay that for good coverage of MTB races.
It really is the beginning of the end.
Rest in peace Beta.
One of the major issues that the UCI has neglected is that other than 3 minutes of your rider on a live stream, the teams themselves get very little from the TV and Broadcasting rights deals. The numbers, visibility, hospitality are simply not enough to drive any meaningful sponsorship. Additionally the TV rights deals themselves look to limit the ability of the riders and teams to leverage their own content.
Other sports like Football and F1 for example give the teams a cut of the broadcasting rights deals for exclusive on track/pitch rights to media and to ensure that the teams are financed appropriately to develop the talent that is needed to for the sport to progress.
Until such a time as the riders and teams are actually seeing a cash benefit form the TV deals directly the sport will not be able to develop at the rate it has the potential to do. Multi media deals that look to control the media narrative without investing in the talent itself will always see diminishing returns. This is the major downfall of the UCI and World Cup racing - without the teams they do not have a sport.
The biggest change made by Red bull was about the tracks, this is their Major fault, I think they've ruined the essence of this sport.
The broadcast wasn't so bad imho.
All they care is the income generated by us exposiored to their production.
It’s alway starts as free new way to get info and as soon they feel we are hooked they Chang policy. Including you pink bike
Somebody said the quiet part out loud.
And guys from Discovery: no Rob, no downhill event. Just to be clear.
We may have to wait a few minutes for someone to post a gif of the winning runs or crashes somewhere.
I wonder what RBs budget was for UCI, and how many Rampages, Danny Mac videos, or Stevie Smith documentaries that equals.
I'll bet this works out for Discovery the way the Olympics did for NBC.
For example, NBC has the rights to show all formats of the world champs in the USA. They buy it all from the UCI as a package and then they only show road and a little XC and don’t air the downhill races at all. So you can’t watch it in the USA, not even with a subscription to their streaming service, Peacock. It’s disgusting. Clearly the UCI doesn’t care about viewers in the USA (or many other countries which have a similar problem), they just want the money.
Still investing in a product that's currently freely available, putting it behind a paywall, and hoping to increase revenue has been done before, right?
Link for context.
youtu.be/xat1GVnl8-k
And there’s a second assumption that Red Bull’s coverage was bad so things should get better. I think we are quickly going to realise that wasn’t the case and that they were doing a pretty damned good job.
I’m not bitter about the loss of free, ad-free viewing but it was a beautiful thing while it lasted. I’ll pay a little to subscribe if I have to and the coverage is worth it. But I’m certainly not expecting this to be a beneficial change for the sport or the viewer.
I am going to stay positive. THese comments were filled with people slating the redbull coverage and saying its bad. Same people now saying its a shame redbull are going? People are fickle
p.s. fickle yes! I've said in other posts... Red Bull's coverage has been really pretty good. The grass is always greener!
I have no idea where you come back with targeting of energy drinks to kids....
Your quote is typical of cancel culture. If you don't like energy drinks don't buy them. If you don't want your kids to drink them, limit their exposure to the marketing and forbid them from drinking them. That is your responsibility. Don't blame RB.
Don't try to tell me what I do or do not realize. Get off your high horse and quit trying to force others to do something because you want them to.
You are confusing free speech with laws regulating advertising, which are two completely different things.
I am not butt-hurt in the least (not sure what compelled you to say that).
@mccarthyp
HOHOHOHOHOHOH
excellente muchos tiendas hacendas!
boom dadad boom big bright future for all yes please
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