Ok,
So, this is a tangent thread. But, is the human interest thing dead?
IM and the WTC in general thrives on this. Every single WTC event on TV has some kind of heartstring tugging story. Ok, I am gonna open myself up here. But, these things are dead, cold, and stinking up the place.
NOBODY CARES.
Everyone has a human interest story. Should I be racing for my relative who died of cancer or my best friend who was hit by a car and put in a coma, or MS? All of which by the way are factual.
Why should I feel I need to lay this on everyone. Yeah, it’s there, I deal with it but I don’t race to fly that flag. And frankly any of those people would be pissed if I did. The fact is I race to race. I race because I love it and the challenge there in. Any of those close to me suffering from whatever follow my racing and are passionate about it but have told me to never drag them into it. It isn’t about anyone outside of them, me, and thus, us.
Shouldn’t the racing be about the racing. Other than Lance do we have the crap in the TdF? Do you see it in NASCAR? Yes, I know that those sports touch on stuff here and there but triathlon seems to be only about the human interest stuff and never about the race itself. Even to the point that the race coverage is pathetically poor even by SlowTwitch standards.
So, heartstring stories are lame. We all hate that crap. We all want to see the freakin race. And we all are humans going through life and have similar stories. It isn’t interesting or fair that we have to be spoon fed this junk.
Apparently 99.9% of the county’s population (and the television networks, and the sponsors) disagree.
If you’re looking inside the competetive triathlon world, it isn’t that they don’t care about the human interest stuff, they just don’t want it to totally overshadow the “race”. For these people, there’s IMlive.com. For the rest of the population, there’s NBC. So unless you count “everybody” as only competetive triathletes, you’re 100% wrong.
It is clear that NBC has built the coverage to appeal to the masses and we have beat that to death here on ST. I still think there is a market for them to make a DVD or DVD set that has a cleaned up edited version of the online coverage. I would buy one if it were done well.
According to the feedback back we have gotten over the last 5 days to join Team Blazeman - we have collected 1200 emails in the past 5 days - I think the human interest story is alive and well. Reading some of the stories people have written is just unreal. Blazeman has inspired a lot of people, all in the name to find a cure so this disease doesn’t happen to someone you know. He KNOWS he’s going to die, but he wants to make a difference in the world so others don’t have to go through what he is going through. www.waronals.com - So That Others May Live
I was glad to hear, on the last Ironman broadcast, that Dick and Ricky Hoyt are retiring from Ironman competition. That man has done enough penance already.
“Apparently 99.9% of the county’s population (and the television networks, and the sponsors) disagree.”
Where did you come up with this statistic and could you please provide supporting information? Can it really be said with total certainty that the general public wouldn’t support just race coverage without the sob stories? How is it that some of these people are able to sit through 10 hours of golf over a two day period, or hours of auto racing roundy round, with no sob stories? Seemingly endless hours of college basketball, numerous figure skating shows and competitions, etc. Are there any other world championship sporting events that devote anywhere near the amount of coverage to sob stories over showing the actual event as is done with IM on NBC?
To most people non-drafting triathlon is incredibly boring to watch. Except for the occasional pass on the bike and a few battles on the run there isn’t a whole lot going on. In long course racing, 90% of the time you can’t even see more than one competitor at the same time. So the media has to try and make it interesting.
So if you want free stuff, then yes, you should be racing for a cause not just because. Learn to be a good media whore.
Many people have learned to take advantage of this kind of media interest. I’ve known people to get kayak expeditions, climbing trips and long distance bike trips all partially paid for by doing it “for a cause”.
Learn this phrase: “I (insert sport here) to raise awareness for (insert disease here)”
Based on feedback I’ve gotten from other forums and people in general that are not hard core triathletes, I would tend to disagree with you 100%.
If you want no heart-tugging stories with your IMH coverage, log on race day and watch it with us. If you want to see it on NBC, you know what you’re going to get there…so there’s no sense in trying to lead the horse away from the water. It’s thirsty and certainly not dead…
you know - now i that i see the value of your opinion and your writing ability i would re-consider my earlier suggestions to you about sponsorship! you should start a blog - with opinions like this and the willingness to tackle the controversial issues in our sport - i think you will pick up easily as many sponsors as that guy simplystu.com and maybe even more!!!
I remember reading Ayn Rand’s book, “Atlas Shrugged.” It was about giving out rewards on a needs basis rather than an “earned” basis. Most of us here are so results based that the idea of acquiring something because we are more “needy” then the next person would really make us nuts. Actually, here it might be rather comical as we are all so competitive.
“Learn to be a good media whore.”
…
That guy who raced for Blazeman certainly did.
Didn’t anyone else think it was odd a guy who didn’t have ALS, didn’t know anyone who had ALS, and had never met Blazeman goes on to create this “I’m doing it for Blazeman” persona and NBC is more than happy to give him his 15 minutes of fame? Not that the Blazeman wasn’t a worthy story but covering that one random perfectly healthy 30 year old lottery guy when more time could have been spent on the other stories (i.e. Sister Madonna). I’m still curious as to how Sister Madonna trained. How does a 76 year old nun do it? I can’t get my 56 year old mother to run a 5k.
I’m not so sure that no one cares, I think the sugary sweet sicky manner in which it is presented by the mdia turns a lot of people off. It’s the way the message is presented that loses interest not the message itself.
I hate that book. I quite liked the fountainhead but AS is overblown tripe and the cast of lean, beautiful, bold and white characters is ridiculous verging on morally questionable. It never addresses what a humane society should do with people unable to earn or earn enough (and I consider myself politically fairly right wing!). Sorry but this seemed like a rant thread.
On topic how does your comment relate to the thread? Are you suggesting that some of the human interest stories haven’t earned their airtime by being fast? Sorry if that’s not your point just trying to work it out.
My two cents are that as an athlete and as a member of the public I loved the coverage. I’ve got a good DVD of IMUK which covers the prorace in as much detail as anyone could ever want and it’s 24 minutes long - make me watch more than ten minutes of Stadler peddling a bike and I’d go insane. The human interest stories are inspiring to me and I think you have to be quite narcissistic if you can’t take genuine pleasure in seeing people achieve difficult goals especially when they have additional disadvantages to overcome (and yes IMs are difficult). Finally I’d just say the reason TV golf doesn’t do the same is no-one cares if a 76 year old golfer can get round 18 holes or a guy can push his son all the way to the clubhouse that doesn’t inspire people in the way that IM always has and IMO should continue to do.
Ok,
So we have some feedback. Now, since we are so amazed by statistics (at least 40%of us are). Here is one indesputible fact. We, and the masses (read: those sitting on couches who aren’t “hard core” triathletes) have never, NEVER, been given the option of watching only the race itself. Yes, there are web casts etc. But, there has never been a TV show based exclusively around the race itself. NBC or WTC have never taken the chance to see where peoples interests truely lie. Instead, since we are all “fans”, we sit through crap for 45 minutes to see 15 minutes of race. And that coverage is done poorly. We don’t see quality coverage of how the race is unfolding and what is really happening in the race.
It has even been said here: Watching 10 minutes of Stadler is Boring. Well, where is the footage of Macca drafting, that we all hear soo much about? Where is the ladies battle on the run? Where are the moves? Where are the key points?
With current technology we could have gps tracking of gaps. We could have current wattages or mph. WE could have stats of moving up or falling back. There are hundreads of interesting race stories and angles to be used but the fact is that when producers are putting together thier footage they go for all that standad BS. The yearly shot of the start from the chopper, 30 seconds of swim, commercial, Human interest story, transition, human interest story, 5 minutes of bike in the lava field (have you ever been to Kona? There is a massive percentage of the course in nothing like a lava field I never knew was there untill I did the course), transition again, human interest story, part of a run move (or not), finish, then glowstick stuff, and human interest follow up. Basically you need about 10-20 min of true race coverage and then just fill in the rest. It is like the lazy kid putting together his 8th grade “what I did this summer” essay.
The point is, we have never been given the option to watch a well done, interesting, race show. We are told by the Triathlon TV dictators what we will watch and we WILL like it and our hearts WILL blead.
