phil-mclean

@sino428: Same goes for every single professional sport on TV to the masses. Branding and promotion is what allows athletes to have careers and sports to thrive. This dude just has a weird obsessive hate towards Redbull. Of who's desire to exist in the sport of mountain biking, provides a whole lot more opportunities to athletes to compete and make a living riding bikes, and giving spectators something to watch and get excited about.

@owl-X: Redbull Canada pulled out of Joyride so they could put on Hardline Canada.

There's also no money in Fest series compared to Rampage, the coverage sucks in terms of every rider getting equal airtime, and only 1 of them really matters to the general population which is also under threat of coming to an end, so i wouldn't say it's the dream event you're making out.

Those events don't require builders, a lot of them unpaid, to take that extra time from their lives to wait around in the desert for the right conditions. Some of the riders can afford to spend weeks in advance hanging out in Utah, most of them turn up just before the event. Rampage has a lot of pieces to make the puzzle work and adding more time to it throws a huge expense at the organisers and also expense at the builders in terms of putting their lives on hold, for a lot less benefit than the athletes gain from riding.

What about all the diggers and even some riders that have to fly in from all over, booked a flight to arrive the day or 2 before the event begins and then are unable to change that flight to arrive early because flights are expensive? Easy to say bring it forward, but if that's not accounted for well in advance, then it's not very feasible. And not everyone can afford to take that extra time out of their lives to make it work.

Can you not read? Clearly states the process of what it takes to figure out making the event happen and that brand support is never guaranteed in advance until they've been all able to have these discussions. An organiser can dream up and announce they want to host an event any time. They still need the funding to be able to commit to actually making it happen...

@Mtn-Goat-13: But it's not just the riders you have to keep around, who arguably have the most flexibility of everyone as for most of them it's their job to ride. Most of the diggers have regular jobs they have to take time off from to attend. Travel from all over the world. Some are paid by the riders, some not. 2 weeks slaving away in the desert is a long time, by the end of that most people are burnt out and ready to leave... The event is awesome and I've never regretted my times spent out there, but 3 weeks is a very long time for everyone to be out there just to potentially get a clearer weather window.

@plyawn: People do want to see it though, and a large portion of viewers who don't comment on forums (surprise, the commenters are not the majority) are used to seeing it live and are unhappy when things change. As Todd addressed in regards to Natural Selection... A delayed video works, but it doesn't necessarily grab the same viewership as a live event, and not having the big numbers means not getting the sponsorship support that makes the event possible. In a perfect world, a longer timeframe would be great. But that also means riders have to find the money to afford to stay out there longer. Builders have to have the time in their own schedules to spend that extra time. And the event needs to bring in enough money to cover all the staff to be out there that much longer too. There is much more to it than just adding another week to an already long program.

The riders practice right up until the finals with a little bit of time to do a briefing and make their way back to the start gate, they ask for this. No one wants to go into a run cold turkey. The pre show happens while this is happening.

@bgoldstone: They don't. Unless it happens to be the only travel a rider does each year and their allocated travel budget is large enough. Speaking from experience as a digger from previous Rampages.