The comments coming from those "in the know" around the World Rally Championship are suggestive of an FIA in deep crisis. It's impossible to imagine why else such bizarre proposals as have emerged over the last few weeks would be given even scant consideration by the sport's governing body.
Without a massive underwriting from the WRC sponsors, such a huge, prestigious series would not be possible but sponsorship of the scale required is not an altruistic undertaking - the sponsor wants and needs a commercial payback, not just a feel-good from the sport's fans - it must make sense at a marketing level.
And that's the trigger for the headless chicken reaction we're seeing from the backers of the current shootout and pitstop proposals. Following the working formulas of other large motorsport events, the powers who run the organisation and teams have fixated upon some contrived bolt-on approach to try to emulate the perceived audience draw such events routinely deliver.
The apparent urgency, or more accurately, panic, that currently infuses the WRC suggests strongly that the major sponsors are not seeing the expected return on their investments and are questioning the commercial viability of the championship. And without sponsors, the WRC will die.
But are things really that dire?
The undertone of all this navel-gazing and hand-wringing is that there needs to be a one hour telly-friendly package that can be sold to broadcasters around the globe to reach not just the current rally afficiandos, but to tempt a whole new audience. Makes sense, right? Well, no. Rallying doesn't really lend itself to any such re-packaging and still retain the very character that makes it appealing to so many.
For those who feel a reminder is necessary, a rally is a time trial, run on closed public and private roads with less than perfect surfaces, whose winner is the crew who complete the multi-day event in the shortest recorded time.
Anything else is not rallying.
The World Rally Championship then is that same formula, contested by the world's best drivers in the world's best cars in a number of different countries across the globe. A WRC that doesn't deliver that at the very least, will not be a true WRC.
Contriving pitstops and shootouts to shoehorn the marathon nature of rallying into a live TV hour will alienate its current fanbase and provide something far less than the spectacle required to entice new fans.
So what's the answer?
On every WRC event, professional camera crews capture the action from various points around each stage, footage that's used to compile the 30 minute highlights packages that find their way to broadcasters around the planet at the conclusion of each day, and the one hour summary of the event on its conclusion. There's no technical reason why that footage cannot be broadcast live and streamed on the net. The Power stage is broadcast live now.
What's even more exciting is that there are invariably amateur videographers scattered around the stages who capture incidents and accidents and whose video could be intercut into the live feed. All it takes is a dedicated upload portal for the footage, and temporary Wi-Fi points erected around the stages for the fans to connect through.
So, live streaming of the event as it happens, with freelance video and stills to complement it, would make for a three day spectacle a fan could become immersed in, or just tune in and out when able. And I can think of four knowledgeable presenters who would be brilliant at covering everything from narration, interviews and results updates, to analysis and overviews.
How the sponsors would monetize the webstream would of course be up to them, but clearly there can be sponsored results updates, reviews of recent action, 30" ad spots and so on, as happens with Indy, Nascar, Bathurst and other events. Given the amount of on-screen time devoted to the cars. that would surely please the manufacturers and team sponsors, especially given the massive number of rally fans there are already.
Then there would be no need to mess about with what is the very soul of the sport, the against-the-odds marathon stuff that makes rallying so special. So there you go, FIA. A starter for 10 that makes sense and gets more of the sport in front of more of the fans, wherever they are.
No, no need to thank me. Just seriously look into it and save our sport at the same time.
Showing posts with label shootout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shootout. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Monday, June 16, 2014
WRC '15 - Will you recognise it?
Autosport Magazine is reporting that big changes are afoot for the 2015 WRC, seemingly driven by sponsor pressure to generate a bigger television audience. Sadly, so far the leading contender is apparently a Made-For-Live-TV event that seeks to package the conclusion to the event as a one hour "shootout".
In other words, all that happens over the first two days will in effect be the longest qualifying session in motorsport history. To be blunt, that approach simply beggars belief. Even in Formula One, the qualifying sessions total only 45 minutes of competing against the clock, and of course, the qualifying in F1 is telecast live. Thereafter, once start positions have been sorted, the racers are still free to compete for first place regardless of where they start, or their likelihood of succeeding.
Not so in the suggested format we're hearing about for the WRC.
There won't be two days of live TV while the drivers battle for ascendancy. We're still going to get a second-best situation of a 30 minute delayed broadcast summary of each day's competition, so no benefit there from the changes mooted.
And for reasons best known to the concept's promoters, 9th and 10th placed drivers following the first two days will only be able to compete for 9th place, 7th and 8th compete for 7th place, and so on up to 1st and 2nd competing for 1st. Are they serious?
I would have written this suggestion off as fanciful mischief-making had the proposal not been associated with none other than VW WRC supremo Jost Capito! Also, the Voice of Rally himself, Colin Clark, is making the case for it on his Twitter feed.
But there's more. The proposal also introduces a points system whereby at the end of each qualifying session, (each day, in other words), points are awarded based on that day's total times and allocated to competitors. How that would work is anyone's guess, but it seems highly unlikely that any competitor other than the first 10 or maybe 15 would be eligible for those points.
So the combination of points accrued across both qualifying days would dictate the ten finalists for the shootout.
However, it doesn't stop there. This proposal also uses a calculation of each competitor's times to work out a seconds-per-kilometer advantage going into the shootout. The example written about by Autosport is that if competitor A has a total time advantage over competitor B across the qualifying sessions of say, one tenth of a second per km, and the shootout stage is 10 km long, then competitor A gets a one second time advantage over competitor B. (0.1 seconds/km times 10 km equals 1.0 seconds advantage).
Of course, the same applies to all of the competitor pairings in the shootout, based on their per km comparisons. Simple? Not so much...
My question to those promoting this proposal is "why"?
Rallying, by it's very nature, is a marathon type of event - in a similar vein to le Mans 24 hour race - and making the changes proposed will remove the very thing that makes the WRC what it is.
I get that the sponsors want a return for their investment, and not so very long ago, the WRC was in real danger of being lost altogether. So clearly, to avoid the catastrophe of there being no WRC, something needs to be done. But regardless of the best intentions of the promoters, this proposal is needlessly convoluted and it robs the sport of the character that makes it as popular to its millions of followers as it is.
But taking pot-shots at others' suggestions is easy. Coming up with a better idea is not. However, I would suggest that the FIA and promoters strongly consider video streaming the whole event across the web in much the same way WRC Live radio already does with audio, except that it features video of the cars in action, including perhaps in-car footage, not just end of stage reporting. If I can get a big screen experience from the likes of Netflix over the internet, the WRC should pose few issues.
It does require the will to make it happen though. So I assure the promoters that I would gladly tune in during the wee small hours to watch that from the other side of the planet. And I know a number of others who would do the same.
Food for thought, WRC?
In other words, all that happens over the first two days will in effect be the longest qualifying session in motorsport history. To be blunt, that approach simply beggars belief. Even in Formula One, the qualifying sessions total only 45 minutes of competing against the clock, and of course, the qualifying in F1 is telecast live. Thereafter, once start positions have been sorted, the racers are still free to compete for first place regardless of where they start, or their likelihood of succeeding.
Not so in the suggested format we're hearing about for the WRC.
There won't be two days of live TV while the drivers battle for ascendancy. We're still going to get a second-best situation of a 30 minute delayed broadcast summary of each day's competition, so no benefit there from the changes mooted.
And for reasons best known to the concept's promoters, 9th and 10th placed drivers following the first two days will only be able to compete for 9th place, 7th and 8th compete for 7th place, and so on up to 1st and 2nd competing for 1st. Are they serious?
I would have written this suggestion off as fanciful mischief-making had the proposal not been associated with none other than VW WRC supremo Jost Capito! Also, the Voice of Rally himself, Colin Clark, is making the case for it on his Twitter feed.
But there's more. The proposal also introduces a points system whereby at the end of each qualifying session, (each day, in other words), points are awarded based on that day's total times and allocated to competitors. How that would work is anyone's guess, but it seems highly unlikely that any competitor other than the first 10 or maybe 15 would be eligible for those points.
So the combination of points accrued across both qualifying days would dictate the ten finalists for the shootout.
However, it doesn't stop there. This proposal also uses a calculation of each competitor's times to work out a seconds-per-kilometer advantage going into the shootout. The example written about by Autosport is that if competitor A has a total time advantage over competitor B across the qualifying sessions of say, one tenth of a second per km, and the shootout stage is 10 km long, then competitor A gets a one second time advantage over competitor B. (0.1 seconds/km times 10 km equals 1.0 seconds advantage).
Of course, the same applies to all of the competitor pairings in the shootout, based on their per km comparisons. Simple? Not so much...
My question to those promoting this proposal is "why"?
Rallying, by it's very nature, is a marathon type of event - in a similar vein to le Mans 24 hour race - and making the changes proposed will remove the very thing that makes the WRC what it is.
I get that the sponsors want a return for their investment, and not so very long ago, the WRC was in real danger of being lost altogether. So clearly, to avoid the catastrophe of there being no WRC, something needs to be done. But regardless of the best intentions of the promoters, this proposal is needlessly convoluted and it robs the sport of the character that makes it as popular to its millions of followers as it is.
But taking pot-shots at others' suggestions is easy. Coming up with a better idea is not. However, I would suggest that the FIA and promoters strongly consider video streaming the whole event across the web in much the same way WRC Live radio already does with audio, except that it features video of the cars in action, including perhaps in-car footage, not just end of stage reporting. If I can get a big screen experience from the likes of Netflix over the internet, the WRC should pose few issues.
It does require the will to make it happen though. So I assure the promoters that I would gladly tune in during the wee small hours to watch that from the other side of the planet. And I know a number of others who would do the same.
Food for thought, WRC?
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