Advantage Lance in regard to the Thunder Bear - "Can (Should) We Welcome Lance to Tri" thread.....

Well, he is ranked 58th and the top 40 get tickets into IMH from what it states in the article. Based on the fact that he has 4 more races to gain points, I think the debate as to whether he will qualify has rested. He will not need the celebrity spot. I suppose that was understood after his second place in a stacked field in Panama.

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Adrian in Vancouver

isn't it the top 40 in July, then the next 10 in August. So it's 50 total for men. But then there are the automatic qualifiers (Kona champs for last 5 years, 70.3 champ from previous year, 50.1 (or whatever that distance is) champ from previous year. So you could be 57th on the list and still get a slot based on the automatic qualifiers.

I'm guessing he's fine for getting a slot this year unless he gets injured. But I think he picked races based on points to help him get in the position.

There is the possibility that this could turn out to be a bad thing for us tri geeks. I for one enjoy sitting down all day watching the race unfold live on Ironman Live. If NBC signs up for this I can see them saying they want exclusive rights to the broadcast and no more Ironman Live. But, the catch for us is that I doubt there's anyway they broadcast the entire thing live. Instead, they'll do a pre-show and the swim. Come back a several hours later for the tail end of the bike and beginning of the run. Then back again for the run finish.

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"Unless you have a ... GF who might put out that night and that night only ... skip it and race." - AndyPants 3-15-2007

No kidding? I posted that very same question and reasoning just before his 70.3 debut. WTC/NBC: Just Do It!

Maybe Nike will through in Ad $?

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STIndiana
America Multi-Sport, Inc.
America's Half June 10, 2017
USAT RD Century Club
http://www.americamultisport.com

They absolutely need to have NBC or someone televise it live. Almost every year, the internet coverage has technical issues.


" Text updates of the event drew 150,000 unique visitors to Ironman’s website, Messick said, up from about 7,500 for similar races a year earlier."


Can you imagine how many people will be going to ironmanlive.com on race day? The servers don't stand a chance.

score

Lance: A lot!
Thunder dummy: who cares?

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

I suspect this will be right. No way will NBC show 10 hours of live broadcast, so we'll lose likely ironmanlive.com broadcast to exclusivity and gain live snippets during college football timeouts. And, frankly, if Lance stays healthy and makes himself a threat, this is one year I would actually follow the ironmanlive.com coverage. This is a winner for the Joe Q Public who is interested enough to follow for 10 minutes, but a big loser for the die-hard triathlete who otherwise would watch ironmanlive.com. I hope I'm wrong. It's happened before.

Sounds like exactly what NBC and WTC would want.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

he is already brining something good to the sport!

The WTC owns Ironmanlive, and the Kona broadcast, and the savvy to realize that the online viewer is becoming as valuable as the TV viewer. I don't know the terms/length of the WTC/NBC agreement, but the only thing NBC owns in this relationship is air. ABC has air, CBS has air. NBC Universal has a TON of air. The WTC won't buy air from a network, or sell the broadcast to a network, if it means giving up the ironmanlive broadcast.

I'd bet that they'd give up the NBC broadcast before they give up the ironmanlive broadcast.

I suspect this will be right. No way will NBC show 10 hours of live broadcast, so we'll lose likely ironmanlive.com broadcast to exclusivity and gain live snippets during college football timeouts. And, frankly, if Lance stays healthy and makes himself a threat, this is one year I would actually follow the ironmanlive.com coverage. This is a winner for the Joe Q Public who is interested enough to follow for 10 minutes, but a big loser for the die-hard triathlete who otherwise would watch ironmanlive.com. I hope I'm wrong. It's happened before.

I agree. Just like the Olympic marathon trials. 08 had great coverage on-line and this year nothing other than the condensed post race broadcast.

To me (a guy who has zero understanding of TV production, so I'm just babbling out loud here), this seems pretty tough to do. Perhaps an hour or hour and a half to cover the swim, another hour when they're in the midst of the bike, and another hour to catch the finish? The idea of live coverage seems difficult to do, especially on something semi-mainstream. I'd tune in, though.

Does NBC own The Ocho? :) The Lance Armstrong cameo in Dodgeball was great. It would only be fitting for Lance to be competing live on The Ocho.

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Travis Rassat
Vector Cycle Works
Noblesville, IN
BikeFit Instructor | FMS | F.I.S.T. | IBFI
Toughman Triathlon Series Ambassador

Or they could run a full live version through universal sports while having an live but not full version on NBC. That is a good possibility too.

I was able to watch the entire broadcast on my TV for this year.

Why would we lose the live coverage? NBC already has the exclusive TV rights to Kona, but we still get to watch the whole awful live thing online. Same with the Tour de France... they show it live online all day long and on TV. "Worst" case in this sceanrio is that they'll move the ironmanlive broadcast over to NBC's website, in which case it will actually be streamable, which is always nice.

I agree. Just like the Olympic marathon trials. 08 had great coverage on-line and this year nothing other than the condensed post race broadcast.


I was able to watch the entire broadcast on my TV for this year.

How did you do that?

Step 1) Sat down on the couch.
Step 2) Grabbed the remote.
Step 3) Turned on the TV.
Step 4) Enjoyed the coverage.

The article says NBC has an agreement with WTC through 2018.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

Thunder dummy? Really?

I find it astonishing the number of people that are willing to throw former top IM athletes aside like that. Triathlon is not just about now and tomorrow, but also about the people that spent the time building it up. We should respect the history of the sport as much as the future.

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

he (Thunder bear) could do the same that u mentioning on your post; perhaps he could show a little respect for somebody that hasn't been proved guilty as today (dope), and runs an organization that help people with cancer...

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

I'd be willing to bet that that contract predates Lance, and provided for IMH delayed coverage, etc. This would be an expansion on that contract, and I doubt that ironmanlive would be discarded. I don't know how they would do live broadcasts, but I can't see NBCSports or other NBC channels dedicating 9-10 hours of coverage to it.

Here's what worries me about the whole thing:

Tiger Woods has the same impact on golf. Even if he is way out of contention, you get 70% TW coverage, and 30% other golfers. There was a tournament a couple years ago where TW was not in contention, and his playing partner was smoking it to be one behind the leaders. We got 3 swings from his partner and almost the entire round of TW. If the same pattern follows for Lance, we would get 7.5 hours of Lance live footage, TdF highlight shots, Livestrong appeals, and about .5 hours of "the rest".

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

Not just streamable, but functional as well.

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-- Aaron Davidson

And 18 minutes ago that exact story "word for word" was filed as news on Triathlete. Excellent journalism.