All UCI Mtb Coverage to now be free!

evObda2

Likes Bikes and Dirt
http://freecaster.tv/blog/72/en/free-access-to-uci-mountain-bike-world-cup-2010


"With immediate effect all UCI Cross-Country, 4X and Downhill World Cup LIVE webcasts and replays will be accessible without need to purchase an access code, in an unprecedented move to continue the growth of mountain bike race viewership on the internet.

Freecater.tv was created in 2004, at a time when large-scale access to action sports videos did not exist on the web. In 2010, lack of sponsorship revenues forced Freecaster to go pay per view, negating our purpose and undermining the company vision of building mass awareness of our favourite sports. Pay per view was undertaken as a temporary and limited measure during a period of challenging economic circumstances.

IMTTO, the International Mountain bike Trade Team Organisation, worked hard during the interim to reach an agreement to support Freecater's efforts to offer the rest of the 2010 UCI World Cup free-of-charge.

"International Mountain Bike Teams, Technical Support companies and Event Organisers enjoyed a steady growth in viewership in mountain bike races throughout 2008 and 2009" observes Martin Whiteley, President of IMTTO. "A key factor in this is the LIVE webcast technology Freecaster has developed, allowing race fans around the globe to watch simultaneously as one online community. Such technological development and support comes at a cost, and in most sports, such costs are borne by the viewer through subscriptions to pay-per-view services. However, our IMTTO members feel that mountain biking is more unique, and should be accessible to the widest audience, as much as possible. As such, key members of our organisation have chosen to contribute towards maintaining a free live webcast service on Freecaster."

"We would like to thank the IMTTO members and our existing advertisers for their shared vision in the future of mountain bike racing on the internet" says Raymond Dulieu, founder and CEO of Freecaster.tv "It was a tough, but necessary, decision to charge for the World Cup coverage and we welcome the return to free access. The World Championships will now be the only paying event this season. We hope viewers will acknowledge our efforts elsewhere by tuning into this season finalé in Mont Sainte Anne, Canada. With six free LIVE World Cup events still to go this season, viewers have plenty of opportunity to tune in and check their system can handle LIVE streaming prior to the World Championships."

"On a personal level, I'd also like to thank those amongst you who understood the reality that nothing is free in this World and respected our decisions" Raymond added. "We're already looking at an appropriate way to give something back to those who supported us thus far. Freecaster was created out of a respect and passion for a great sport, and our friends within it and we will continue being fair and providing the best service we can to the action sports community."

The next free World Cup will be the Cross-country in Offenburg, Germany, LIVE on Sunday 23rd May from 10:45 CET with the Women's Elite race, followed at 14:30 CET by the Men's Elite."
 

pharcyde

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Ahhh .... a win for the masses. Victory smells so nice.

But in all seriousness, IF they got 500,000 people to pay $2.00, just to watch the crappy LIVE stream last weekend, you dont need to be a rocket scientist to work out that their profitability went sky high over the weekend. AND for them to NOW claim that its all been fixed and its back to FREE doesnt matter, they have already banked the $1MIL ....... thanks for coming !!!!!!
 

Incontinent

Crusty Juggler
Big thanks to IMTTO for bank rolling Freecaster for the remaining WC races and thanks to Freecaster for providing live coverage of these events. Keep up the great work guys.
Personally, I wasn't fazed by the charge for Maribor, $2 was stuff all to fork out to be able to watch the WC racing live.... even with the intermittent freezing etc. I felt there was value in the subscription.
Looking forward to thge remainder of this year's racing.
 

Ivan

Eats Squid
Ahhh .... a win for the masses. Victory smells so nice.

But in all seriousness, IF they got 500,000 people to pay $2.00, just to watch the crappy LIVE stream last weekend, you dont need to be a rocket scientist to work out that their profitability went sky high over the weekend. AND for them to NOW claim that its all been fixed and its back to FREE doesnt matter, they have already banked the $1MIL ....... thanks for coming !!!!!!

You think half a million people payed to watch the DH last weekend? I think your overestimating the popularity of DH racing.

IMTTO has done something awesome here and certainly get my thanks. I guess I will look at buying the end of year DVD if it is a way of supporting the DH coverage on freecaster.
 

cressa

Likes Dirt
Ahhh .... a win for the masses. Victory smells so nice.

But in all seriousness, IF they got 500,000 people to pay $2.00, just to watch the crappy LIVE stream last weekend, you dont need to be a rocket scientist to work out that their profitability went sky high over the weekend. AND for them to NOW claim that its all been fixed and its back to FREE doesnt matter, they have already banked the $1MIL ....... thanks for coming !!!!!!
How the hell did you manage to find a negative in this news FFS.
 

russthedog

Likes Bikes and Dirt
How the hell did you manage to find a negative in this news FFS.
its is really good news and great for coverage of course. I cant help but think that charging such a small amount may have injected more money into the sport; which i think everyone agrees the sport needs. More money means more professional usually.

It is good news for the masses, just not sure if it was the smartest idea considering theyd just laid to bed the first round.

Would be interested to know how many watched.
 

evObda2

Likes Bikes and Dirt
I didn’t mind the $2 charge either.. If it gets more cameras on the track, and better quality filming, and watching more than just every 4th run then i say do it!!

Seriously we pay more just for our internet fees from our ISP than from freecaster..

Is still great news to hear more money being pumped into the coverage. A win for all!
 

pharcyde

Likes Bikes and Dirt
You think half a million people payed to watch the DH last weekend? I think your overestimating the popularity of DH racing.
Very likely.
Average group of MTB friends = 10
Avergae number of MTB riding groups worldwide = 50,000
Cost per watcher of Freecaster = $2
Takings = $1,000,000
Cost for Freecatser to stream a LIVE feed to the web via a laptop at -28b/s = $5
Profit for Freecaster last weekend = $999995.00

For 4 hours work, not even the world oldest profession pays THAT good.


Thank You IMTTO .... keep the bastards honest.
 

eyes

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Very likely.
Average group of MTB friends = 10
Avergae number of MTB riding groups worldwide = 50,000
Cost per watcher of Freecaster = $2
Takings = $1,000,000
Cost for Freecatser to stream a LIVE feed to the web via a laptop at -28b/s = $5
Profit for Freecaster last weekend = $999995.00

For 4 hours work, not even the world oldest profession pays THAT good.


Thank You IMTTO .... keep the bastards honest.
Average number of people around the one computer = 10
Your already ridiculous profit number divided by 10 = $99,999.50

A more plausible profit. Plus you missed a years wages for Freecaster guys, paying for hire of camera people, media passes - you name it - you missed it as a cost.

Not for one second do I think they made any more than a reasonable profit for their efforts.

Don't be an idiot and bring the good news down...
 

Dozer

Heavy machinery.
Staff member
Great news, now we can just hope for a good feed and a good replay to boot.
Thanks Freecaster! For the record, I don't mind paying my $3 for the telecast as long as it works!
 

Ivan

Eats Squid
Very likely.
Average group of MTB friends = 10
Avergae number of MTB riding groups worldwide = 50,000
Cost per watcher of Freecaster = $2
Takings = $1,000,000
Cost for Freecatser to stream a LIVE feed to the web via a laptop at -28b/s = $5
Profit for Freecaster last weekend = $999995.00

For 4 hours work, not even the world oldest profession pays THAT good.


Thank You IMTTO .... keep the bastards honest.
Your making a lot of assumptions there, so I'll give you some actual numbers that Ray from freecaster wrote on ridemonkey. He mentions viewerships below 100,000.

Ray_Freecaster on Ridemonkey.com said:
Finally before someone does the stupid maths of Freecaster will make a fortune 80.000 viewers times 3 USD = 240.000 USD, let me be very straight. If all 80.000 of you were to actually to pay 3 USD once you'd finance the webcast, twice just about the current TV production, 3 times you'd start seeing twice as many cameras, at every race you'd have a sport with tremendous marketing power and an awesome product to look at. No sport grows without initially the fans fuelling the process, they are the ones buying the grandstand tickets, the merchandise, the cable TV access fee, etc. I've tried to do my part and invested more time and resources than is worth when I read some comments. If no one supports our effort than so be it but if we manage to actually make it a viable project, trust me the sport will see the benefit of it. I've known the days of the Grundig World Cup, have you? There is no reason why it can't be even better, but in today's world a project starts and ends with the fans, not with sponsors or the governing body. The fans.
 
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B.utters

Likes Dirt
I was quite happy to pay $2 to watch the race either. They would have a huge cost with all the equipment etc that they use for the casts so it's a bit harsh to be criticising them about charging such an insignificant ammount of money for you to watch the race
 

Morgan123

Likes Dirt
Awesome news, although was happy paying such a small amount to watch. Maybe next year they should charge for the season and get better equipment etc.
 

russthedog

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Your making a lot of assumptions there, so I'll give you some actual numbers that Ray from freecaster wrote on ridemonkey. He mentions viewerships below 100,000.
exactly, I think anyone claiming that free is better for the sport has no idea what they are talking about and should really just shut up whingeing. I bet you dont whinge about your $400 mobile phone bill from texting ur m8s LOLZOR!

I really dont think they would be profiteering. And Pharcyde; your short-sightedness shows you really dont have any clue into what goes into a broadcast like that.

If we were all paying $8 per view, we might actually get something similar to other sports like rally, f1 etc. Once the fans are on board and epxposure goes up, then so does sponsorship and it starts getting its own momentum. Then the fans would deservedly get the stuff for free.

Its attitudes like most of these above that are the reason mtb (in particular DH) is stronlgy marginalised and under-exposed. Im not saying I want it mainstream; Im saying reap what you sew.
 

Wisey

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Very likely.
Average group of MTB friends = 10
Avergae number of MTB riding groups worldwide = 50,000
Cost per watcher of Freecaster = $2
Takings = $1,000,000
Cost for Freecatser to stream a LIVE feed to the web via a laptop at -28b/s = $5
Profit for Freecaster last weekend = $999995.00

For 4 hours work, not even the world oldest profession pays THAT good.


Thank You IMTTO .... keep the bastards honest.
$5 cost for Freecaster????? You're not serious are you? Maybe your opinions are better kept to yourself Einstein or at least think about what you say before crapping on...

Great news for the MTB community, hopefully we can see more cameras and better coverage altogether. I personally had no problem paying $2.20 even with crappy coverage. Such a privilege for us to be able to watch DH/MTB live on the net.
 

Rider15

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Very likely.
Average group of MTB friends = 10
Avergae number of MTB riding groups worldwide = 50,000
Cost per watcher of Freecaster = $2
Takings = $1,000,000
Cost for Freecatser to stream a LIVE feed to the web via a laptop at -28b/s = $5
Profit for Freecaster last weekend = $999995.00

For 4 hours work, not even the world oldest profession pays THAT good.


Thank You IMTTO .... keep the bastards honest.
Dumbest post post of 2010 so far goes too...


What I dont understand is that "Ray" from Freecaster says that if we pay X times more that it equals more cameras. He also says that the number of cameras is controlled by the UCI so does that mean if they had *this much more money* they would be able to request more cameras from the UCI?

The problem with "every 4th rider" is that on longer tracks there may be 2-3 riders on the track at anyone time so they have to decide which ones to cover.
 

pharcyde

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Dumbest post post of 2010 so far goes too...


What I dont understand is that "Ray" from Freecaster says that if we pay X times more that it equals more cameras. He also says that the number of cameras is controlled by the UCI so does that mean if they had *this much more money* they would be able to request more cameras from the UCI?

The problem with "every 4th rider" is that on longer tracks there may be 2-3 riders on the track at anyone time so they have to decide which ones to cover.
Dumbest post post ? ...... ok what ever.

But with the rest of your post I actually agree 110%. I agree with ALL of you, I really do. Paying money should improve the service .... that is what we ALL agree on.

I know you all think I am a dick for what I said, but isnt this what a community forum is deigned to do. Give people an opportunity to voice how they feel and points of view.

For the record, I paid my money last weekend and I intend to buy the DVD again this year. I am also planning to up my bandwidth for the next LIVE feed, hopefully completely changing my opinion of Freecaster and the service they offer. $2 or $200 I will always pay what ever to watch World Cups, I just hope that as the webcasts develop the service and camera coverage improves aswell.

Cheers
 

Rider15

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Ok maybe not the dumbest but im interested to know how you came up with it costing them a grand total of $5 to broadcast the race?
 

dilzy

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Personally, I would have paid again, though they need to change their proxy in Australia, because no one I know got a good feed.

Captain $5 up there, by my calcs with 100k views, Freecaster needs 200k Giga Bits of band width to supply everyone at 200K/s, that isn't cheap.
 
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