It is amazing how big the sport seems when involved in some way, but in reality, it is invisible to the world.
Vancouver Sun.
Your sports section is 32 pages???
Crazy.
Seems longer than usual. Lots of coverage of hockey, soccer and football.
Isn’t partially WTC’s job to make sure that news departments have PR information about things…like their world championship. We have a PR department at work that works with news agencies when we want to make sure an event/launch/product release/ etc is covered in the paper.
sports illustrated actually had more than i’d ever expect when i was bumming around online yesterday.
ESPN’s triathlon page doesn’t even mention it. If you search Ironman the page that comes out on top is, http://espn.go.com/espn/topics/_/page/ironman-world-championship
Apparently Craig Alexander and Chrissy Wellington won.
Which is why the pro field is irrelevant.
From what i recall they institute a sort of black out to media for the actual race. They want it to appear to be a live show when they show it this winter. It has always been like this, nothing for race day other than local hawaii papers and now the internet, but then tons of stuff later on when the show goes up on national TV. It is not their intention to get publicity for the race now, so their PR dept is probably doing nothing in that regard on purpose…
I checked red bull and Scott bikes yesterday, no mention of kienle. Found it odd his sponsors didn’t even care.
This is inherently the problem. WTC views it is a product to be promoted as some kind of spectacle rather than a world-class athletic event. It also reflects how they view their champions as not being newsworthy. No print media will write about the event when NBC carries the event…
I checked red bull and Scott bikes yesterday, no mention of kienle. Found it odd his sponsors didn’t even care.
But it did mention he won Frankfurt. Red bull is excited about some BMX jumping contest.
But that doesn’t work in today’s social media society. No one is tuning into IM Hawaii in Dec and assuming/thinking this is some live event.
Of course I don’t think the fat guy on the couch “watching” NBC in Dec., thinks it is live. Viewers aren’t that stupid, they watch it cus NBC perfectly puts it in Dec when there is not really much of anything else on a Saturday afternoon.
So if they are really failing to push for updates from their championship (press releases to thousands of news print agencies) because they want it be viewed entirely in their Dec. telecast, they just are behind the times.
But but but… That’s why I started doing triathlons 32 years ago. It was so, uhm, out there. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would become as popular as it is now, with people dropping $800 on a race fee and $12,000 for a bike. Popularity can be a curse…
I really feel sorry for the pros though. They work their asses off then are rewarded with a sit down with Callum. 
-Robert
But but but… That’s why I started doing triathlons 32 years ago. It was so, uhm, out there. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would become as popular as it is now, with people dropping $800 on a race fee and $12,000 for a bike. Popularity can be a curse…
I really feel sorry for the pros though. They work their asses off then are rewarded with a sit down with Callum.
-Robert
Well they knew what they were getting into when they decided to try and make a living from it. Not saying they don’t deserve more, but if money was the issue…they probably should have chosen a job that paid better.
What I found interesting is that when I was glued to the computer screen, my son came up next to me, watched for 2 minutes and then said “wow, that’s boring”…and that was at one of the most interesting parts of the broadcast. I think that says a lot. Unless you know something about the athletes…it just isn’t very interesting. In my opinion, if they really want to draw public attention they should make more primes and make the amounts larger. Not only would that put excitement within the 9 hour watching period, but it would also make it more unknown who will win. Perhaps someone would target the “first to Hawi” bike prime or the “first person to the energy lab”.
Or, they really only care about the final televised product, which will get a huge number of viewers, many of whom won’t know this year’s respective winners
This is why it doesn’t make sense to go with a black out policy with regards to media and it’s results. The NBC telecast will not be affected because the media reports it’s winners. Hell the guy who reads the sports section in Oct likely wont even put the 2 events together when he watches it in Dec (2 full months after the fact), or won’t care enough to affect the ratings.
I get that the NBC package is a huge marketing moment for WTC. But if they truly are doing a black out with all media outlets besides industry media, that’s stupid in my opinion. Again, that’s if they aren’t pushing for it to be in print media. If they are pushing out press release to a thousand media cohorts and all of them are throwing it in trash, that’s different.
I did the same with Felt this AM. First and second place female podium and their webpage didn’t have anything about it.
Americans need blood, injuries, fighting, refs getting screamed at. Look what Mac did for (to) tennis! Maybe WTC should stage some fights during the bike leg, or have some Ben Hur style bikes. Machine guns at the special needs station. Girls pole dancing? I don’t know but give the problem to some Madison Avenue types and they will radically alter the sport.
I miss the days we just all showed up with some ratty bikes, a speedo and some old running shoes…
-Robert
I wonder what sort of media response there would be if WTC took 20-30 people with interesting stories and ran pieces on each of them in the months preceding Kona (like ESPN 30 for 30), then make the coverage about their story and the pros…or perhaps WTC doesn’t even care about the publicity, they have an active customer base that sells out there events regularly. Why spend the extra advertising $$?
I did the same with Felt this AM. First and second place female podium and their webpage didn’t have anything about it.
Who reads web pages for news??
Check out the twitter and other social media.