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How the Tour de France became a $100M business

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Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#81

Post by mrweasel »

haunter wrote: post #80
mrweasel wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's currently a little less than €18 per month, if you get the online service. I think they're running a discount at something like €130 - 140 per year right now, still not unreasonable if you're into various types of sports. I can see myself having a subscription just to have Tour de France running in the background while I'm working, had I thought about it and if I had an extra monitor or TV in the office.

Really? It's 25€ a year for me, maybe depends on the location (I'm in Hungary) https://files.catbox.moe/dhq7ne.png

Oh wow, it's 999DKK per year in Denmark, and that's a special offer, or or 129DKK per month. So €135 for a year or €17-18 per month.

I think it has to do with the cost of the various right for different events in each country, and purchasing power. It's really an area where the EU has absolutely failed, licensing of content should be union wide, but in reality it's still country by country. That might be a good thing, because €135 is a hell of a lot more in Hungary, compared to Denmark.

Don't get me wrong, 999DKK is actually a pretty good deal. I'm not into sports in general, I only watch Tour de France, rowing and a few winter sports, but 999DKK is actually within what I'd pay for that.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#82

Post by haunter »

mrweasel wrote: post #81
haunter wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? It's 25€ a year for me, maybe depends on the location (I'm in Hungary) https://files.catbox.moe/dhq7ne.png

Oh wow, it's 999DKK per year in Denmark, and that's a special offer, or or 129DKK per month. So €135 for a year or €17-18 per month. I think it has to do with the cost of the various right for different events in each country, and purchasing power. It's really an area where the EU has absolutely failed, licensing of content should be union wide, but in reality it's still country by country. That might be a good thing…

But you are subbing through Discovery+ right? Maybe that’s the difference because here it’s just Eurosport only, nothing else

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#83

Post by foruhar »

sidibe wrote: post #74
paganel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m optimistic about the big tours’ “image” presence in the US because I think that the future of pro cycling is represented by Anglo countries, plus a few Colombians and some European sporting “freaks” like Pogacar. Ah, and some Benelux guys. Italy is as good as dead when it comes to pro-Cycling, the same goes for Spain, and France... France is always on the edge of the precipice and of “we’ll never ever going to wi…

Spanish and French teams still haven't embraced the science like in England, central and northern European countries where the training is very monitored and using modern findings. Looking at Frances most popular recent riders in the Tour, Voeckler supposedly just used to basically just go on long rides to train and was drinking Coke during races a few years ago. You never see Alaphilippe looking at his wattage and g…

As a side note, drinking Coca Cola on the Tour is almost a tradition at this point.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#84

Post by mrweasel »

haunter wrote: post #82
mrweasel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, it's 999DKK per year in Denmark, and that's a special offer, or or 129DKK per month. So €135 for a year or €17-18 per month. I think it has to do with the cost of the various right for different events in each country, and purchasing power. It's really an area where the EU has absolutely failed, licensing of content should be union wide, but in reality it's still country by country. That might be a good thing…

But you are subbing through Discovery+ right? Maybe that’s the difference because here it’s just Eurosport only, nothing else

Interesting, it's the same price regardless of you buying it directly on Eurosports Danish website, or going via Discovery+. So you can either get Eurosport for 129DKK per month, or get Discovery+, which includes Eurosport, for 129DKK.

It doesn't look like you can get Eurosport as a standalone subscription.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#86

Post by hilbert42 »

As someone who used to be involved in outside television broadcasts I have to give full marks for the fabulous TV production. Not only is this a huge technical undertaking but also it's consistently almost flawless—it's outside broadcasting par excellence. (Unless, one's been involved outside TV production, it's difficult to realize how complex and involved such productions are especially if they're to go without a hitch—and this one is about as complex as it gets.)

Naturally, modern tech—smaller cameras, better microwave links and television drones etc. have helped enormously but even so it's a huge credit to all those involved.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#87

Post by loeg »

tokai wrote: post #59
loeg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it has already happened. Not sure what "it" is here or how it is responsive to my comment.

>not explicitly forbidding mixed fields, but I suspect [mixed fields] won't happen even without a rule against [mixed fields]. So I point out that in a tiny sliver of pro cycling a mixed gender field is happening.

The mixed relay is a format that mandates 3 women and 3 men. It's not an open format -- if it was, teams with 6 men would dominate and there wouldn't be women in the event at all -- much like a hypothetical mixed field TdF.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#88

Post by devilbunny »

arp242 wrote: post #66
jillesvangurp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably corrected for inflation, it's worth less now than it was when the likes of Greg Lemond, Jan Ullrich, Lance Armstrong, etc. still dominated the sport. Of course doping scandals eroded the value a bit in recent years. That kind of stuff depressed ratings quite a bit in recent decades. But that happened long after that became a public secret in the early eighties. My grand parents when they were still alive abs…

> It was the closest thing to super human performance you could watch outside of the cinemas. That's kind of the problem, right? The tour was (is?) set up in such a way that you practically need to be "super human" – even by professional athlete standards – to even finish it. This is different from, say, the 100M dash or even a marathon which anyone can finish with a bit of training, and you only need to be "super hu…

I knew a professor of physiology who claimed to have spoken with another professor (somewhere) who had actually done some measurements on Miguel Indurain.

IIRC, his resting heart rate was 25. The average human heart at rest pumps ~5 L/min, so his was pushing out ~200 mL/beat. According to the story, his wife wouldn't sleep in the same bed as him because his heart shook the bed so much every time it beat.

Since the stroke volume of the heart is more or less fixed in the short term, the fact that he could meet his needs at such a low heart rate indicated that his maximum cardiac output was in the neighborhood of 35 L/min (max heart rate 175 x 200 mL/beat, he could probably get his rate higher but the heart would not fill completely and so stroke volume would be a bit less).

I have no way to know if this was true, but he wasn't known for exaggerating.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#89

Post by SkyPuncher »

Photogrammaton wrote: post #43

I wonder whether Netflix will boost American interest in the Tour de France. Something of the kind happened with Formula 1. Interest in it here (I’m in NYC) was generally so-so, whether or not one of the races occurred here. But the 2019 launch of the Netflix documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive roughly coincided with the expansion of American F1 races, of which I think there are three this season, and ther…

I’m a casual racing fan. I enjoy it, but typically don’t follow it or go out of my way to put it on.

For me, constantly seeing /r/formula1 in my feed was an inciting factor for me. F1 also did well to adjust race durations to make them short and sweet.

Lastly, the variety of locations is extremely interesting to me. F1 is one of the few global sports.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#90

Post by JCharante »

Photogrammaton wrote: post #43

I wonder whether Netflix will boost American interest in the Tour de France. Something of the kind happened with Formula 1. Interest in it here (I’m in NYC) was generally so-so, whether or not one of the races occurred here. But the 2019 launch of the Netflix documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive roughly coincided with the expansion of American F1 races, of which I think there are three this season, and ther…

There's already a documentary series following Movistar (one of the team that competes in the TdF) with 2 seasons on Netflix. It was popular within cycling circles but I don't think people outside would be interested. It's kinda weird to focus so much on 1 tour when there are so many in a season, so I wonder how the series will do.

It's true that a race from the TdF won't be in the US, but I don't believe there's anything other than a lack of interest stopping UCI from having a 3 week race inside the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Least_Expected_Day:_Inside...

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