Why would you watch limited coverage on tv ? when you can watch full coverage in hd online and on your tv

Redbull followed PL from his pass to the finish

The single most annoying thing was lack of distance splits. They had the race clock. Distance splits would have been helpful.

Commentary was awful.

Not knowing the splits did suck.

The announcers were okay in talking about what they were able to see (just what's in front of them on the computer screen)... But they just echoed each other's comments the entire race. They could use a format like different sport announcers use, a guy calling the game and a color guy to throw in a different view or some kind of stats.... it was especially bad when they'd both team up on sanders non stop.

There was a lot of commercials, but if that's what it takes to have the live broadcast, I'll live with it for once a year.

College football. My team played at 2:30. So I watched that game for most of the bike and early portions of the run.

Personally I thought the first and last 90 minutes live on NBCSN was great with the 30 minute live updates. Do not need much more than that on live tv. Great way to give exposure and a taste of what it is without the drag that it can be watching people ride bikes for hours in a lava field.

The little I watch of NBC was horrible. But that is how NBC is treating endurance sports so it is not just triathlon.

On the online feed I was mostly shocked about the lack of knowledge about the athletes from the commentators. At least they should have printed out Thirstein Radde from trirating.com guide.
It was not a shock that McNamee ran fast.

The total lack of splits is also an ongoing problem. The GPS is helping a lot. But I can get more updated splits from a local orienteering race in the woods of Norway.

It was fun to follow twitter :-)

The live feed off ironman.com was excellent. The way they captured the look on sander's face and body as he was passed, and watching him dig deep and just try to hold on was incredible. You could just feel the pain and determination, even in a futile effort. Contrast that to Lange with such a beautiful stride and who looked like he could go another 26 mile, one of the best sporting images I've seen in a long time.

Biggest knock was the lack of reliable splits. And since the commentators mostly had the same info as us they really couldn't comment properly in the context of what was actually happening during all parts of the race.

Repetitive commercials were annoying, but no way around that for 8+ hrs. At least it seemed they held off running them for a while leading into the finish for the men.

Not much drama in the women's race, don't know if there was much they could do to spice the coverage up there. Ryf just felt like a foregone conclusion.

The bike went surprisingly fast. The first couple of hours being SK, LS and CW going through field like knife through butter.

Run was just hunter hunted

It went quickly but agree most would have little interest in it

Get rid of Greg Welch.

I watched on Ironmanlive and loved it. The commentary wasn't over the top and for the most part, just let us watch the race. I sat in front of my computer for 6 hours and I've never been able to watch more than 15 minutes in the past.

I thought the coverage on ironman live was pretty decent. Captured Lange passing Sanders quite well as previously stated. Great race on the mens side, "yawn' on the ladies side everyone was just outclassed by the Dani-Bird. Kudos on the young Brit for holding onto second after leading the bike the whole way. Saw Chrissie giving her props and hugs at the finish line, pretty cool stuff.

Watched on redbull.tv and the quality of the feed was much better than in previous years. But still the lack of timing information makes the pictures a bit pointless unless you are also keeping up to date with the timing system (and it seemed like I did this much more than the commentators!). Bike races have been doing this for years, distance to go for the leader and how far in arrears various key groups are. The Lange/Sanders chase would have been so much more compelling with this info

I watched on dual monitor with coverage on one TV, and GPS tracking on the other. If only they could combine the two...

Interesting as I watched the online feed and didn't feel any different from years past broadcasts. I did feel like they went to the sideline reporter woman for more "in depth" reports when the racing was lulled (or likely bad areas of signal to broadcast race). I noticed they had a gps tracking thing on the tracker for your computer, I don't know how recent that was added.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Now you are just talking crazy

Interesting as I watched the online feed and didn't feel any different from years past broadcasts.


To be fair, I said it was excellent but that's based on a comparison of the last time I watched Ironman coverage. It was way back when NBC had their 1 hour segments and about half of that was spent talking about someone who beat all the odds to get to Hawaii. I gave up watching triathlons then and haven't really followed since.


When I raced I was so far back I never saw the leaders so seeing them actually bike and run with a camera at their side was a giant leap forward for me. :)

One small thing that bothered me was when Ryf was running down the last road before turning onto Ali'i Dr., an AGer happened to be right next to her and so he paced with her for that little stretch. The commentator kept saying statements along the lines of "well he's going to be walking as soon as she turns, there's no way he can maintain this pace, he's way beyond his pace right now" and so on. Said it a couple times. I remember it happened during the 70.3 WC too with Javier Gomez. To be fair it's probably not an incorrect statement, but it also doesn't add anything to the commentary. The guy is probably loving the fact that he gets to run alongside the world champion for a small stretch, even if it blows up his race for a small stretch.

So many commercials, but understandably so. I'll never forget that Ben Hoffman once ran himself sick or that cheekly little girl who kept splashing Phelps.

I actually thought that was both funny and spot on. I did think he made it clear that it was a cool situation for the AGer and wasn’t criticizing him for it but just pointing out that he has a long way to go. If I were in the same situation on the course I would have done the same thing and buried myself.

Did anyone catch the guy’s bib number and look up his run? Would be cool if he had crushed it.

Pretty crappy coverage. I watched the redbull version showed in Europe. No comparising with the groups.. too much commercial
Commentators didnt mention Wurf overtook Sanders. Didnt show how far Kienle dropped back and how far it was between groups..
Also quite bad on guessing/ beeing wrong about the run part of the race.
its nice that they are showing the race but it can be so much better.. Compare it to some other bike or run race and its really lame..

I muted a lot of it as I was trying to work so I can't comment on the commentators too much (haha)! But what really pissed me off is how they played an add right during the men podium and champagne spraying... They had like 10 hours to play their stupid ads (which they did constantly), do you really need to play it during the podium...

i wish they some how were able to catch the audio of the chat he was having with her. why on earth bother a pro going for a win?

regardless, the online redbull tv coverage was excellent, and I am an ironbrand hater to boot..

Like a few others, I was watching the Redbull coverage via Apple TV and had the laptop up with the ironman.com Athlete Tracker. I didn't have access to the NBCSN coverage so can't say too much.

Here are a few observations:
- Greg, Matt, Mike and Charlie did a great job. The production team continues to improve the watchability. Clearly a ton of prep work goes in and it showed...
- If you used the livetracker, you were getting far more reliable splits than Matt and Greg were citing from their "spotters". If I was calling it, I'd drop the use of splits from a spotter. Absolutely retain the subjective feedback, but they were too far off on too many occasions and it detracted from the race. Second, they would do well to have an assistant using the Ironman.com live tracker for time check support / stats. It was highly accurate and insightful for supporting the race dynamics. A well coordinated approach in that regard would add a ton of detail to feed into the booth (one for men's and one for women's)
- There is a very real and challenging constraint trying to watch / call a race with a lot going on. The guys in the booth do a great job for the most part, but Matt seems to let his friendships / biases interfere with the race and this year it reduced his accuracy and he tended towards making definitive comments while the race was still unfolding. I kept getting the sense that if he had access to more briefing notes and data beforehand that some of the errors would be minimized and there would be less off the cuff and "in my experience" type comments. These are minor nits in what was overall an incredible job and a show I watch almost uninterrupted for the entire day. A thousand thank you's to the whole team.

Overall - In what other sport do you have live commentary for 9+ hours. Amazing job..

Agreed, best coverage to date. Loved it!

I've watched the video coverage every year since they starting doing it on ironman.com so I knew what to expect. Change that I really enjoyed: More helicopter shots. Especially loved those shots of the rollers before Kawaihae and the approach to Hawi.

Charlie, I enjoyed your enthusiasm, but please turn it down a bit next year. Thanks!

They didn't miss any key passes and they were right there for the money shot of Lange passing Sanders. The expression on Sanders face when he tried to respond was an all-time classic, as was their hug at the finish line, and I may even watch the NBC show for the first time in several years just to see how NBC presents those moments. I may well mute it, however, so I don't have to hear Trautwig.

 

Anybody know if the finish line video has been/will be posted somewhere?