Ashley Hill
Established Member
Barry Hawkins has been playing phenomenally better during this tournament. He thrashed Sean Murphy and has now given Judd Trump a hiding. He must now be a contender for the final.
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Other Sports....
- Thread starter dangie
- Start date
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Howardh
Established Member
- Joined
- 17 May 2011
- Messages
- 9,770
Scotland have made it to the Curling world final later today ( Sun) which should be shown live on the iPlayer.
10pm I understand.
What's remarkable is that they beat the strong favourites Canada on their own ice twice to get there, the only team to actually beat them all week!
The other finalist is Switzerland who best China in the other SF.
10pm I understand.
What's remarkable is that they beat the strong favourites Canada on their own ice twice to get there, the only team to actually beat them all week!
The other finalist is Switzerland who best China in the other SF.
dangie
On Moderation
One of cyclings ‘Monument’ classics the Tour of Flanders is on today.
It’s a shame cycling fans in the UK won’t be able to watch it unless they’ve subscribed to TNT Sports for £30.99 per month.
Similarly, unless a new deal is found, this years Tour de France will be the last year it is broadcast live on ITV.
It’s a shame cycling fans in the UK won’t be able to watch it unless they’ve subscribed to TNT Sports for £30.99 per month.
Similarly, unless a new deal is found, this years Tour de France will be the last year it is broadcast live on ITV.
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
TNT Sports costs rather less if you have BT/EE broadband. The problem some cycling fans have is that they have no interest in any sport other than cycling. The idea that they could have cycling coverage on the cheap, as used to be the case, was always going to come to an end eventually. The end of free-to-air coverage of the Tour de France is somewhat concerning especially as the 2027 Grand Depart will be in Scotland. I suspect some sort of deal will be done.
As for the Ronde van Vlaanderen Tadej Pogacar came to top form and won with an impressive breakaway. Can he repeat the effort in next weekend's Paris-Roubaix?
Howardh
Established Member
- Joined
- 17 May 2011
- Messages
- 9,770
Always thought that alongside subs (which are too expensive anyway due to the £b's they pay for so-called "premier" football) fans should also be able to buy a sporting event, whether it be one game, one Test, or in this case all the days of the Tour. That sub should not be weighted towards the cost of the football!!
How much is it worth to a fan of cycling to have that option? £10 for the month? More? Less?
dangie
On Moderation
This is quite true, but it probably applies to many other sports as well. Tennis fans may have no interest in cycling…. Snooker fans may have no interest in golf…. etc etc. TNT are saying it puts all sports into the one package which is what all sports watchers want. No they don’t. I used to pay £6.99/month for cycling which I was happy to pay. I’m certainly not going to pay £30.99/month for sports I have no interest in.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
On form he probably can, but the cobbles can throw many a spanner into the works. One race where you hope for some wet weather.
StarCrossing
Member
- Joined
- 27 Jul 2015
- Messages
- 227
As you mentioned curling in your previous post (bravo!)...
The Curling Channel is a great example of this. You can buy four different types of subscription: (1) a season pass; (2) an event pass, typically lasting around a week; (3) a day pass; or (4) a pass for a single match.
However, the economics of curling on TV are clearly different to other sports! I guess TNT are thinking that one person paying £31 per month is better than four people paying £7.
Howardh
Established Member
- Joined
- 17 May 2011
- Messages
- 9,770
= Curling!Fair point about the subs however sponsors/advertisers are getting their signs watched by four times (at £7/each) more subscribers than one at £31. Must mean something as everything from football stadiums to curling rinks are plastered by them!
As an aside I bought the curling pass for a previous event, however not this time as most Scots games were covered by the BBC - if you could find them tucked away on the iplayer. Curling fans don't have a long wait until the next "major" _ World Mixed Doubles at the end of this month - Apr 26 from Canada again. I expect to sub to the channel for that!
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
There are a number of factors in play which I suspect are not appreciated by many.
Firstly to what extent do sports viewers, as opposed to those who regularly attend events in person, have an interest in multiple sports. My guess is that there are in fact many such people though most will have an obvious primary sport. Then factor in that TNT Sports is effectively US owned: fans following multiple sports are very common there, helped by the relatively short seasons of each major sport, so that sort of thinking is going to filter into TNT Sports' decision making, for good or bad.
Secondly subscriptions form only a part of broadcasters' revenue, advertising is also important. In order to maximise such revenue it's necessary to have plenty of content and preferably to broadcast 24/7. It's very difficult to do this on a single sport channel. Yes repeats will be part of that content but some sports lend themselves to repeats rather better than others. I would suggest that most ball sports are reasonable prospects for repeats but racing sports, for the most part, are not.
Then factor in the cost of the actual tv production. Indoor sports will generally be relatively cheap as fixed camera positions, possibly with a degree of remote control, can provide adequate coverage. Move to large stadia and the cost starts to rise. Try covering a mobile sport, and cycling is the ultimate example, and costs start to pile up very quickly.
As for pay per view be careful what you wish for. In order to cover less popular events there are two main funding choices. Either bundle multiple events (or sports) together or maximise profits by using dynamic pricing. Neither option is likely to produce many bargains. A quick look at the Curling Channel site suggests that TNT's price for a multi-sport package is reasonable value unless you are a die-hard fan of just a single sport that isn't football.
In closing I would add that based on my experience with US sports forums we are paying quite a lot less for our sports coverage than they are. Yes the £31 that TNT want for a free-standing subscription is a little high (though the Sky equivalent appears to be £43) but maybe not by all that much. It also seems that the accompanying access to Discovery Plus has become much more useful of late. The idea that £7 per month is a viable price for a sport with quite high production costs like cycling is frankly laughable. The closure of Eurosport UK & Ireland tells its own story regarding financial viability.
Firstly to what extent do sports viewers, as opposed to those who regularly attend events in person, have an interest in multiple sports. My guess is that there are in fact many such people though most will have an obvious primary sport. Then factor in that TNT Sports is effectively US owned: fans following multiple sports are very common there, helped by the relatively short seasons of each major sport, so that sort of thinking is going to filter into TNT Sports' decision making, for good or bad.
Secondly subscriptions form only a part of broadcasters' revenue, advertising is also important. In order to maximise such revenue it's necessary to have plenty of content and preferably to broadcast 24/7. It's very difficult to do this on a single sport channel. Yes repeats will be part of that content but some sports lend themselves to repeats rather better than others. I would suggest that most ball sports are reasonable prospects for repeats but racing sports, for the most part, are not.
Then factor in the cost of the actual tv production. Indoor sports will generally be relatively cheap as fixed camera positions, possibly with a degree of remote control, can provide adequate coverage. Move to large stadia and the cost starts to rise. Try covering a mobile sport, and cycling is the ultimate example, and costs start to pile up very quickly.
As for pay per view be careful what you wish for. In order to cover less popular events there are two main funding choices. Either bundle multiple events (or sports) together or maximise profits by using dynamic pricing. Neither option is likely to produce many bargains. A quick look at the Curling Channel site suggests that TNT's price for a multi-sport package is reasonable value unless you are a die-hard fan of just a single sport that isn't football.
In closing I would add that based on my experience with US sports forums we are paying quite a lot less for our sports coverage than they are. Yes the £31 that TNT want for a free-standing subscription is a little high (though the Sky equivalent appears to be £43) but maybe not by all that much. It also seems that the accompanying access to Discovery Plus has become much more useful of late. The idea that £7 per month is a viable price for a sport with quite high production costs like cycling is frankly laughable. The closure of Eurosport UK & Ireland tells its own story regarding financial viability.
dangie
On Moderation
Having wall to wall 24/7 television sports coverage sounds good, until you actually think how much time you can actually devote to watching it.
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
Very handy when you're on shift work! In the long term streaming could make 24/7 broadcasting irrelevant to viewers but advertising revenue will still need to either be earned somehow or replaced by higher subscriptions. Thinking about the bigger picture broadcasting/distribution of content is currently in a significant transitional phase: traditional broadcasting could disappear completely.
dangie
On Moderation
Yes having something to watch whenever you want is good, but unfortunately you can only watch one sport at once, unless you have 10 televisions on your wall each showing a different sport, and how many of those sports will you be interested in?
TNT’s argument that putting all sports onto the same subscription, giving sports lovers wall to wall 24/7 multi sport coverage is what customers want, is simply not true. As always it’s to get more money. Whether this works is for the future. Of course I have only referred to cycling, but many other sports will be impacted by TNT’s (Warner Brothers) course of action.
StarCrossing
Member
- Joined
- 27 Jul 2015
- Messages
- 227
Looking forward to it! Mixed doubles used to be just a bit of a laugh, but there are some seriously good pairs in this year's world championship.
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
You are of course absolutely right that nobody is able to take full advantage of 24/7 programming. But there are two parts to "24/7". The "24" is especially useful to advertisers as it provides more "opportunities". And they do take an interest: the last two nights' baseball games featured teams that are reasonably popular here and the adverts were predominantly mainstream as opposed to the solid diet of gambling ads that normally prevail in the small hours.
But for viewers its the "7" that is probably more attractive. I'm old enough to remember there being only 3 channels and the weekly line-up of sports consisted of Grandstand and World Of Sport on Saturday afternoons, Match Of The Day on Saturday nights, The Big Match on Sunday afternoons and Sportsnight on Wednesday nights. In terms of regular weekly coverage that was it and of course no football in the summer. There were other recurring events of course, Olympic Games or World Cup in alternate summers and annual domestic events such as RL Challenge Cup and FA Cup finals, Five Nations (as was) RU, the Grand National and Epsom Derby, and Wimbledon fortnight. Over time other events appeared on our screens like Open golf and snooker World Championships. And all the time there were conflicting opinions expressed about either not enough or too much sport on tv.
It was no surprise then that liberalisation of tv broadcasting soon led to dedicated sports channels though Sky totally dominated for quite a while. The fact that such channels exist surely demonstrates an ongoing demand for what they offer and content being available every single day is hugely attractive for many even though no major sport (in this country) has daily events.
The other factor is the increasing commercialisation of elite level sports. This is somewhat unregulated so while there is more money going in to most sports it's also almost inevitable that the price of watching, whether in person or via tv/streaming, is going to go up. Indeed without government intervention it's more than possible that spectator access to pro-sports is going to be subject to social division with poorer people becoming increasingly excluded. I think this is essentially the root of the current complaints about the cost of watching cycling: not only has it been subject to a market adjustment in price, it's also rather less affordable even if the previous pricing was simply too low. No easy answers here!
dangie
On Moderation
Put the TV on for the lunchtime news and saw it was the University Boat Race today.
I remember when I was but a lad, the Boat Race was one of the ‘must watch’ events on the sporting calendar. Now I didn’t even know it was on until it was.
Didn’t bother watching it. Hardly the most riveting sporting event, doesn’t float my boat(!).
I remember when I was but a lad, the Boat Race was one of the ‘must watch’ events on the sporting calendar. Now I didn’t even know it was on until it was.
Didn’t bother watching it. Hardly the most riveting sporting event, doesn’t float my boat(!).
43096
On Moderation
- Joined
- 23 Nov 2015
- Messages
- 18,728
It's an utterly pointless exercise.
Same two teams in the final every year... how dull!
I used to watch it too, that was in the days of limited TV channels.
A non-event for me.
Johann Zarco has won the French MotoGP at Ke Mans in tricky wet conditions. He is the first French rider to win the race since 1954. Marc Marquez finished second & strengthens his title challenge in a weekend which his main rivals failed to score decent points.
The number 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Robert Kubica, Phil Hanson & Yifi Ye has won the Le Mans 24hours race ahead of Porsche Penske number 6 & the 51 Ferrari 499P.
In the LMP2 class the winner was Inter Europol Competition.
In the LMGTE class the winner was Manthey number 92 Porsche 911.
In the LMP2 class the winner was Inter Europol Competition.
In the LMGTE class the winner was Manthey number 92 Porsche 911.
TheTTTEGeek
Member
Power Slap which is a "professional sport" that has had 12 tournaments so far with the 13th starting in 5 days
dangie
On Moderation
I first saw this on TV a few months ago when round at my son’s house.
It’s both hilarious & stupid in equal measures.
Of course it was from America……. say no more…..
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Women's tennis in Britain seems well behind other nations of UK size. I just cannot believe that a certain female player Emma Raducanu,that is fawned over by the tennis pundits, has received the no 1 UK ranking. That seems to show how poor the women's tennis game is if she is seen as the number one UK ranking.
In the current Eastbourne tournament, she was knocked out in the second round by a much lower rated 19 year old Australian, Maya Joint.
In the current Eastbourne tournament, she was knocked out in the second round by a much lower rated 19 year old Australian, Maya Joint.
Last edited:
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
The rankings are defined by the ranking points earned on the professional world tour. Raducanu has simply earned more points over the last 12 months than any other British player. The reality is that this country is not a big tennis nation so only occasionally produces players capable of reaching a high world ranking. As for the fawning I would suggest it's due to her having actually won a Grand Slam (US Open 2021), though nothing since, and also being reasonably attractive in appearance. Some in the media still delude themselves that Wimbledon being in this country somehow means we are some sort of power in the sport of tennis when very clearly we are not.
dangie
On Moderation
One can’t deny that at only 18 years of age she did wonderfully well in winning the US Open. It certainly set her up for life, both in the tennis history books and of course financially, and the best of luck to her. Unfortunately she has not been very successful since. She has suffered through injury, many many changes of coaches, and probably most importantly pressure associated with being such a young champion.
In terms of her tennis career, she probably won a major championship at too young an age. At only 18 was she capable of handling the pressure and expectation of winning more tournaments? I sincerely hope I’m wrong, but I think her best days are behind her, unless she can totally forget the past and concentrate on the future.
At the end of the day, when she finally hangs up her racket, she can look back and say ‘I won the US Open’. Better to have loved and lost than not loved at all…’
SuspectUsual
Established Member
- Joined
- 11 Jul 2018
- Messages
- 6,671
Whilst this is true, is it not also the case that Radicanu’s fame and grand slam win earn her more wildcards into tournaments than her British compatriots, and even a first round loss accrues some ranking points
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
You could well be right, I haven't checked and am not going to. The same query could also be made of Bianca Andreescu who won the 2019 US Open aged 19 and has not won a tournament since then.
Of course tennis being an individual sport makes it much harder for one competitor to be dominant over an extended period compared to say football. In the post Serena Williams era the spoils are being divided quite widely due to no one player being so far ahead of everyone else and this perhaps improves the chances of lesser players being able to have a short spell of greater success.
dangie
On Moderation
Tour de France begins tomorrow. That’s my next three weeks sorted
Tour de France begins tomorrow. That’s my next three weeks sorted
Last one on ITV as well
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
And TNT have done away with the ad-free stream on Discovery+ unless you can manage with the captionless quad-screen option. But the racing has been eventful so it's not all bad.
dangie
On Moderation
Afraid so. Alternative is to pay £30.99/month for TNT Sports subscription. No way would I do that for sports I have no interest in. However if it is still the same for next year, I may take out one months subscription for next July, then cancel it when the Tour de France has finished. For the 21 Stages this works out at approx £1.47p per stage which I can live with.