Equestrian is the Laughing Stock @ NBC

[gottagrey]

Considering NBC has televised Rolex for the past couple of years, I’m thinking equestrian might be the laughing stock but one would think a big muckety muck at NBC had a little something to do with it -there have been threads over on eventing during Rolex thanking the fellow from NBC for televising Rolex. I am often amazed at how many people poo-poo equestrian sports - if they only knew how many corporate CEO’s, celebrities are involved w/ horses - they might be surprised.

I was watching the showjumping they had on Animal Planet in Aachen - 55,000 were there watching the showjumping ! which is amazing considering that pretty much is a sellout at many pro-football stadiums !

[Larksmom]

Adding my two cents worth

1 Boob Costas doesn’t consider horses atheletes. His coverage of racing is cringeworthy, and at the turn of the century, he had a cow because Secretariat was considered one of the top 50 atheletes of the previous century. Their horse racing coverage is deteriorating event by event.
2. I watched the entire 3-day competition LIVE from Greece on some cable network. It was on at a funky time, but we got it all.
3. Live streaming is always good. Some of us get it, some of us don’t. Unfortunately, I don’t but I do get Oxygen. I just finished editing the eventing part of the Olympics, and it took about 4 hours of tape. I will write a letter, but not to Costas. Breath wasted there.
4. Eventing has had a fairly bad year. Thank God there were no disasters in HK.
5. I am able [not necessarilary willing!] to watch NBC coverage every night. They manage to cut out everything but the US and the winners.
6.I REFUSE TO WATCH VOLLEYBALL!!!

[Eventer55]

Watching Dressage is likened to ballet, you either get or you don’t. We have 2 friends who are HOOKED on Dressage and neither has ever ridden!!! They are quite well educated and have been to the ballet, opera etc. They subscribe to some station that has dressage programming.

I can’t see “Boob Costas” having the where with all to understand Dressage. Personally, I did write NBC and thanked them, but I doubt they will bother with the emails.

[Elghund2]

Its nice to email and send letters but its not goin to change their minds. There’s not enough money in it for them. Think about it. They farmed out the eventing to the Oxygen network. A network that caters to women.

The horse demographic is not big enough for them to worry about.

Even if you put the women in bikinis I wouldn’t watch dressage without falling asleep. Actually the same could be said for stadium.

[gottagrey]

They talked about the 31 y/o old gymast on the German team but Ian Millar and I believe a dressage rider who are in their 60’s doesn’t that deserve some tidbit - of course that would bring up the debate about whether or not equestrian/riding horses is a “sport”.

[Catsdorule-sigh]

I wouldn’t waste time with Bob Costas, he isn’t going to be the final decision maker on coverage.

NBC can analyze the live streaming, but would that be truly representative of many equestrian folks who live outside of cable coverage? Maybe I’m wrong but it seems unless you are a cable subscriber you’re out of luck, you can’t even do streaming. What is really objectionable is that it seems there must be an agreement between NBC and other countries not to allow any live or taped coverage. Maybe that works if you have cable but otherwise, I have been shut out of anything from the CBC, BBC, and Australia. The one German ride made it to YouTube and I hope it’s still available.

If you’re not a ratings household, you can watch all you want and not affect anything. NBC needs to find out how many people really do watch equestrian sports.

Write letters to local station managers, NBC management, and the companies advertising on the Olympics. $$$ create attention and advertisers have a lot of influence. Advertisers will pay attention to a demographic missed.

Facts and demographics. Which age and socio-economic group watch the most horse sports? Are they affluent and attractive to potential advertisers?

Don’t even suggest putting a camera on an anchor person unless that person can ride the horse in that venue. Do find a qualified person who might be willing to ride with a helmet cam or something like that for a bird’s eye view of say, jumping into the water down a big drop in cross country. Put a microphone on the person, too. One of the most entertaining jumps at a cross country I was at years ago was because we could hear the riders talking the horses and themselves over the jump. Some do, some don’t, but it’s the human interest factor.

Maybe the FEI should consider covering the equestrian events themselves and selling the feed back to the networks- with the proviso of guaranteed time slots and length of coverage. Production can be contracted out and getting someone with previous experience would be a good thing.

I remember watching a fair amount of cross country and jumping during the 1984 Olympics- but that was also the ABC network, in their heyday of sports, with Jim McKay. Probably helped that it was in the networks western back yard.

Ultimately, it’s is the sports anchors, many of them former jocks, (not the equestrian kind) who decide coverage. I asked the sports anchor of a station years ago why he didn’t cover any of the local three-day. He said that unless the sport involved chasing a ball, or puck, people didn’t understand it and weren’t interested in it. I disagree with that, but that’s kind of the mentality you’re dealing with.

[Coreene]

Television 101

It is all about ratings. Ratings help you set your ad price. In the US, equestrian on TV does not get ratings. And 99% of the US thinks dressage is like watching paint dry.

[2_tbs]

Actually, on other events as well as the equestrian events, they have mentioned the age of riders. They also mentioned it in the opening ceremonies.

As far as whether or not equestrian is a sport? Well that’s how things go. Many, myself included, are surprised certain things are sports (ping pong, badminton etc). However, for those involved in the game of course it’s the most important thing. It’s all in perspective.

I’ve been riding for 23 years. I have only recently started hearing (a limited number of…) folks accept riding as exercise. When people don’t know about it they assume it’s not up to the standard of the things they do know. Just life…unfortunately.

[throwurheart]

[QUOTE=Lost In Space;3441697]
It’s great so many of you can get the live feed but for those of us with Mac’s we aren’t able to. Don’t you think someone like NBC could figure out how to make it available for Mac users too. I would love to watch the live feed. I watched the Oxygen channel, I also video taped it, saw only 2 horses go. I might have missed others since I was switching channels. How long was the Equestrian on?[/QUOTE]

I’m on apple and on the live feed just fine…

[Anyplace_Farm]

Funny, 'cause I sent them an email to the “comments on Olympic coverage” link saying thanks for such a great job covering the Equestrian events. Guess I should be thanking someone else!

[Kenike]

I love the idea of the letter writing! Starting with a sincere thank you for showing more than they have since I was a little girl (I, too, remember watching all three disciplines during primetime not so very long ago…I’m 32). I also think it’s been pretty obvious for a while that sports such as ours aren’t exactly favored. Which, frankly, is quite sad.

The best we can do is politely and respectfully keep asking for more consideration. Even if that mean putting a few correspondents in a couple of up/down lessons.

[LexInVA]

Those of you who have Macs and can’t get the feed, are you using an OS X system with a G5 CPU or is it a newer Intel Mac? Microsoft won’t give anything specific as to the hardware requirements but they only list OS X as the requirement for Mac playback of Silverlight feeds.

[Glimmerglass]

[QUOTE=MFP;3441452]
… and I asked him why NBC never covers Equestrian Events.[/QUOTE]

Never? Are you sure about that?

So the Rolex annual coverage is considered something other then ‘equestrian’? How about the fact that NBC has aired for the last 2 years the AQHA Championships? Or the fact that NBC will be airing the World Equestrian Games in 2010? Again … NBC never airs equestrian event?

With all due respect what would NBC also pick up for additional equestian coverage? Dressage never will happen so its pointless - heck not even cable is picking that up.

Showjumping doesn’t have its act together (IMHO) to package the American Grand Prix series (AGA) correctly with advertisers ready to underwrite the required tv ads. It certainly won’t now that Budwesier will most likely not renew their title sponsorship. (As an aside, CBS was burned royally by the pennyless twists behind the Las Vegas World Invitational a few years ago. Giving any major network reason to be suspect.)

Other one-off show jumping events - like a Devon - are just that regional only. A national network isn’t going to waste time with a sports show that is in large part, in that example, for the Philadelphia market.

Thats why Fox Sports west coast did for a time have California showjumping as it made sense for that region only.

Rolex is a national and international showcase. It also has lined up enough sponsors to get it onto TV with guaranteed ad buys from the State of Kentucky and others. That is critical.

I won’t even go into the NBC support for horse racing - Kentucky Derby, Santa Anita Derby, Preakness, and Wood Memorial Stakes. They were outbid for the Breeders’ Cup (which they held from its 1984 inception until 2006) as well as the Belmont Stakes.

[huntrpaint]

[QUOTE=dwblover;3441668]
I agree that we must thank them for the internet coverage. Something is better than nothing. And I also think they do not know just how many fans of dressage and other equestrian sports there are in this country. I think letters would be wonderful, but not angry letters about what they didn’t show. They will get thrown in the trash. But letters thanking them for the coverage they had and asking for more. If we all wrote letters they would get an idea of just how many of us there are.[/QUOTE]

If they know anything about computers they will have kept track of how many people used the life feed. I can tell by the minute who hits my website and how many per day and we’re just a little ol’family practice clinic.

[throwurheart]

[QUOTE=LexInVA;3444093]
Those of you who have Macs and can’t get the feed, are you using an OS X system with a G5 CPU or is it a newer Intel Mac? Microsoft won’t give anything specific as to the hardware requirements but they only list OS X as the requirement for Mac playback of Silverlight feeds.[/QUOTE]

I’m on an Intel MacBook Pro, circa 2007.

Gotta say, this Olympics ROCKS!! This live feed is amazing. I have watched literally zero minutes of any other sport, because I don’t have time – calendar full with work, riding, and watching Olympic Equestrian!!!

(Sorry, I’m a little excited.)

[Ajierene]

For those that are complaining and stating ‘so many people are equestrians, so why not’, according to statistics, less than 4% of the US population owns horses. Add people that have been exposed to horses and you might get 6%.

Not really a big percentage of the population.
http://www.avma.org/reference/marketstats/ownership.asp
http://www.appma.org/newsletter/july2005/survey_says.html

Not really a large part of the population.

TV shows go by ratings and what will sell advertising space. If they cannot sell advertising space, they don’t make any money.

I have discussed this with my friend’s dad. My friend is working his way into Spec Miata Racing. He started small, just like me, but he has been able to get sponsorship. The difference? He races cars - everyone owns a car. People can understand car racing. People will watch car racing. Even if the company is not a car related company, they can be convinced that people will watch it. My friend has a very good record also, which helps of course.

The problem with horse sports is if you go to the CEO of a companyand ask for sponsorship for your Three Day Eventing goals, he is likely going to look at you like you have two heads. Mention car racing and even if he does not know what Spec Miata is, he will know what car racing is.

It is the same thing with coverage of Equestrian Sports - if the advertisers do not think people will tune in, they will not spend their money on ads for that program. So the best thing to do is write nice letters and have people tune in.

As for watching ratings - yes, if you are not a ratings household what you watch won’t matter. Why do you think nbc olympics asks for your zip code and cable provider? Maybe because they are going to gather information on who watches what where? Say they get huge numbers in Virginia. Virginia will likely see a surge in what is shown when in the future. Really low numbers in Montana - they aren’t going to waste their time and the advertisers are not going to pay.

How does my friend get sponsors? Letters from other sponsors stating how sales have increased and his record of being in the winners circle (really, unless it is NASCAR, people don’t know what stickers are on what car unless you are at least the top three). How do TV stations get advertisers? Proof that if they put a show on people will watch and thus watch the commercials - this can be done with studying the statistics on the live feeds and other news pieces and such that are on the website.

So gripe all you want and complain about volleyball - but understand that this is a business and not subject to the fancies of 5% of the population.

[luckles]

I agree with everyone that I would love to see more equestrian tv coverage. When writing your letters, remind them of the equestrian demographics…this is the buzz word for tv people as they depend on advertising revenue. Equestrian has the highest income demographic of most sports. It is driven by women (key demographic) with substantial disposable income. These are the things they need to realize along with getting many, many letters requesting more coverage. Remember…they are driven by the almighty dollar!

[grayarabs]

I remember the '92 games - where we could rent a box - and there were the red, white and blue channels. I paid for the package - whatever - it seems like everything was shown - entire tests - all riders/horses? 3Day and SJ. It was just great. Seems like we could choose what we wanted to watch - in other sports as well - not like now - where if you flip channels you have a choice between beach volleyball, boxing and other sports I am at least not remotely interested in.
Hours of beach volleyball? Come on!!!
I guess there are just so many hours a day they can televise - but it would be nice if with present system they could poll folks ahead of time - and air accordingly.
Now we get what they decide we get. Hours of volleyball - I have yet to see a horse.
Have watched swimming and gymnastics - but yes - the latter running too late at night.
In regards to letters etc - I don’t think a million form letters is the right thing.
I think that perhaps each city should combine their forces - and at shows/events have a petition of sorts - asking for more coverage - where folks could sign their names and add comments/whatever. For example - Houston: dressage shows, H/J shows, eventing, etc - at the shows have folks sign the same page/pages - on the society letterhead - thereby each city mailing to someone? NBC? perhaps 20 pages of signatures - instead of 20000 individual pieces of paper - per city or whatever.

[grayarabs]

Other thoughts: next O’s in London, right? A more horsey country - perhaps that will help - who knows.
Regarding watching NBC - I don’t have a great understanding of this - but I tune in evenings when the coverage starts. Last night started with beach volleyball - I did not watch - but left the TV on that channel - and went to do something else - coming back to see if anything interesting on. Do the networks consider that I am watching beach volleyball - for ratings - I mean how do they know? Stupid question I am sure - but by dint of my TV on that station am I supporting coverage of beach volleyball? If yes - would it not be better to change channels during things like BV - so ratings would not be so high?
I mean - I just moaned when I continued to see BV - muted the sound - finally did a crossword puzzle on the couch - looking up to see when swimming or gymnastics was going to start.

[MissIndependence]

How much beach volleyball can one person watch??? MOTHER OF GOD. If I see Kerry Walsh’s butt in the sand one more time…

Sorry - maybe it’s just me - but they ain’t that hot…male OR female.