37.2% of Fans Watched 10+ Live Broadcast Races a Season - State of the Sport 2024
Welcome to the 2024 Pinkbike State of the Sport Survey. This anonymous survey is designed to highlight key issues and riders' perspectives on the sport that we, pro riders, and Pinkbike readers all love so much. We surveyed the best riders in the world to hear their thoughts, ideas, concerns, and criticisms on mountain biking in 2024. Now, we're breaking down what we've learned. We're now publishing a series of articles that break down sections of the results, and you'll see the results in full shortly. This year, we introduced the public survey, which will help gauge public views on the sport and should make for some interesting comparisons to what the racers say. Stay tuned for that. To read the introduction to the survey click here, and to see all the other currently published SOTS articles click here.
We had 4055 people answer the first-ever State of the Sport Public Survey. While reading through the data below on viewing habits, it's worth noting that 96.2% of people who responded to the survey identify as male and the public response was mainly from North America, accounting for 62.9% of answers while we received 27.8% from Europe.
A major change ahead of the 2023 season was that Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) took over the reins of organization and coverage of the series from Red Bull. For viewers, this meant additional opportunities to watch live racing as the U23 XC races, Junior DH races and Elite DH semi-finals were now available to watch on YouTube, free of charge. While the additional coverage was well-received, the fact that the Elite finals in XC and Downhill are now only available to view on paid platforms as opposed to being broadcast for free on Red Bull TV, caused outrage.
In the State of the Sport Public Survey, we tried to figure out how this has changed viewing habits and where people are getting their race coverage from. We also asked how many people are watching multiple disciplines and whether they're watching both men's and women's racing.
Survey Respondents Are Dedicated to Watching the Entire Season of Racing
An impressive 91.3% of people who answered the survey follow mountain bike racing. Furthermore, almost 80% of people surveyed said that they follow both women's and men's racing. A whopping 37.2% of you watch over ten live broadcast races a season and 66.9% watch five or more races a season. That means that over a third of people are watching every round in one discipline, and some are even watching more than just one discipline of racing.
69.6% of people surveyed said that following race results was at least a moderate priority, with 28.5% saying that it was a high priority and 6.4% saying it's an essential priority.
DH is the Most Popular Discipline & The Elite Men's DH Broadcast Gets the Most Views
93.4% of people said they're interested in downhill racing, with the bulk of views going to the Elite Men's broadcast. 72.4% of fans said that they watch the Elite Men's broadcast, while 57.8% said they watch the Elite Women's broadcast. 19.7% said that they watch the Junior Men's racing and 13% said that they watch the Junior Women's racing. 26% of people responded to this question saying that they don't watch live race broadcasts.
Despite the addition of semi-finals live coverage for free, only 8.4% of people said that they always watched it in 2023, with 15% saying that they often watched it and 31.4% of people saying that they never watched it.
Half of People Surveyed Would Watch A Live Broadcast of Enduro Racing
It's not all doom and gloom for enduro racing, with 77% of people saying that they are interested in enduro racing. In addition, 49% of people said that they would watch a live broadcast of enduro racing, suggesting that the discipline is still relevant despite cries that it is teetering on the edge of relevancy. A further 31.2% of people replied that they might watch it.
It just seems that following live timing is not the preferred way of following racing, understandably, as 31.9% of people said that they never follow it, with a further third saying that they rarely follow it.
Almost the Same Number of People Watch Elite Women's XC Racing as Elite Men's XC Racing
It's just about an even split for how many people who answered the survey are interested in cross-country racing, with 52.1% saying they aren't interested in cross-country racing.
Of the people who do follow XC racing, XCO is the favourite, with 79.8% saying it's their preferred style of XC racing to watch.
Unlike downhill, there is a much more even split between the men's and women's content, with 58.4% of people saying they usually watch the Elite Men's XCO race and 55.3% saying that they usually watch the Elite Women's XCO race as well. Despite being free, less than 10% of people watched the U23 racing.
61.4% People Paid Less Attention to World Cup Racing This Year Than Last Year
61.4% of people said that they did not pay as much attention to racing this year as they did last year, with many citing the added cost of watching the live broadcast as the main reason behind why they weren't as interested in racing in 2023.
 | Since DH left Red Bull I do not watch. Used to be all live broadcasts but know dip in and out and don't subscribe for the whole season! Used to be live, but now due to a major drop in quality and rise in cost I just watch highlights. Used to be live broadcasts, but now I rely on media site recaps Used to be live, now with WB broadcasting is only highlights Used to watch every single race since Freecaster times. Now I don't watch any racing except the reports on Pinkbike or VitalMTB Used to watch live broadcasts/replays, but highly unlikely this year. 2023 it was relatively affordable, but quality was questionable. Used to watch now I can't so i watch hardline and limited youtube coverage uci dh Used to watch on Red Bull TV but haven't since they lost coverage Used to watch Red Bull channel Warner Brothers has never heard of NZ so footage is no longer available in my country. Don't do anymore because the current broadcaster put it behind a paywall. |
Less than 2% of people were very satisfied with the 2023 race coverage
Here's a sample of the comments from the "What do you think of Warner Bros. Discovery's broadcast coverage?"
| Worst year of MTB since I started following it in 2004. Coverage was fine, commentary was rubbish (except Gwin who saved them!) It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, commentary got better towards the end, but we still miss Rob. It's fine. Don’t know. Didn’t pay for it GCN was great, I’m not too happy about MAX this year quite expensive A few issues to sort after the start, but great coverage by the end of the season It was poor. Semi-Finals take away from the sport. Announcers were not as good as in the past. New course markers were a positive. Too expensive. Didn't purchase the whole season. Good cameras, sh*t commentary Poor, but hope it's work in progress. |
| it needs improvement. Feels like they don't really understand what the average MTB fan wants and is trying to make the sport fit their formula rather than adjusting their formula to fit the sport. |
| It improved over the course of the season. The English commentary was terrible, so we switched to German which was OK. When Gwin was in the booth we suffered through the other two guys' irrelevant comments to get some insight into Gwin's expertise and behind the scenes insight. |
| Commentary was lacking. I love Rob, but am not in the Rob or nothing camp. I think prioritizing experience in sport media of racing would be a first step, especially if you can pair that person with a former racer. I also felt the actual video coverage was not improved or delivered in an interesting way. If you are going to ask people to pay for a premium product, deliver a premium product. |
| I see potential - I believe some small tweaks in response to viewer feedback and bringing Rob Warner back in the commentary booth would be a huge improvement. Definitely continue having injured athletes as guest commentators. |
Only 8.4% of people are very likely to pay for access to this year's World Cup race coverage
Only 31.5% of survey respondents said that they paid for access to last year's World Cup coverage and only 8.4% of people said that they are "Very Likely" to pay for World Cup coverage this year and 13.7% said that are "Likely" to. Over 66.3% of people said that they were either "Unlikely" or "Very Unlikely" to pay for coverage.
Fans Like to Get News Directly From Athletes on Social Media
Over 80% of people who answered our survey said that they are following racers on social media. Racers often share story updates immediately following races and it's usually the first place they share breaking news stories. Overwhelmingly, people said that they think sponsors rank a riders social media reach more highly than their traditional media reach.
Interestingly, while people said that sponsors likely rank the importance of social media reach more highly than that of traditional media, there were mixed results in what level of importance it should actually have for riders to maintain their income. 5.6% said that it should be a very important part of the package that they offer sponsors, while 14.1% of people said that it shouldn't be important at all. Most people fell somewhere in the middle, with 30.2% of people saying that it is important, 16.7% of people saying it's fairly important and 33.4% of people saying that it's slightly important.
Luckily for us, 41.4% of people said that they watch the Pinkbike Photo Epics from races and 66.4% of people look at our results articles. Race highlights were the main way that people follow racing, with 70% of people watching them. However, almost the same amount of people, 69.7% of people, say that they watch the whole live broadcast/race replays as well. 35% of people said that they watch rider vlogs to stay in the loop with what is happening in the racing world. The survey allowed people to check multiple boxes when answering this question.
Author Info:
Must Read This Week
I really hope someone at WB/D sees this and understands the impact of what they're doing to the sport. It would also be nice to think someone at the UCI might see this article and actually care about what's happening, although I know that's an unrealistic expectation.
On another note just how long are they going to leave people in Australasia not knowing if they're even going to be able to watch through WB/D's platform? Way to go pushing people towards pirate sites.
-WB/D Execs
We can only hope that Red Bull will be supportive of taking the reigns again in a few years once WB/Disco have decided it's not economically viable to support downhill mountain biking.
Now... I don't watch the finals because they cost, and I don't care "that" much (at least enough to pay for it). I don't usually watch the semi-finals, because it doesn't tell me who won the race.
Which means, I don't watch, my kids don't watch, and I generally care/think about it less.
That seems like the wrong outcome for WB? What do I know though, I'm just a consumer/customer, and a guy who really likes riding bikes (even if I am very mid, at best).
SBS only broadcast the World Champs.
Remember when boxing was really popular and then faded away, pay per view had a lot to do with that.
The tv exec’s can do what ever they want, but they will find out quickly that people can occupy their time any number of ways.
If it’s too much of a hassle, too expensive, or not worth their time, they will end up like NFL teams in L.A. : Wondering where everyone went…
By contrast I am happy to pay to watch road racing as the quality of coverage is far better. There are cameras covering everything (on motos, stationary, helicopter, drone).
This completely misses the mark in regards to the wording of the first question,
"How do you think sponsors rank the importance of social media reach compared to traditional media coverage (e.g video on Pinkbike homepage or Photo Epic appearance)".
Nowhere in that does it ask how anyone thinks sponsors should rank the importance of social media. It's a pointless survey if the questions aren't phrased to give the information you're after.
Two questions, one for the brand marketers, one for the end consumers.
I'd never ride road myself, I'm staying on the MTB, but my viewing habits have changed completely and it's all because of WB/D
For comparison, the amount of football, baseball. basketball, volleyball, soccer, and tennis I watched was also zero.
Car racing? Zero. Boxing? Zero. MMA? Maybe 10 minutes last year. College wrestling, a bit. High school XC, T&F, wrestling, a ton. Middle school XC is coming along slowly as well.
My dad worked his ass of when I was a kid. He told me that he sacrificed the little time he had for being a fan of the pros to being a father and coach to the amateurs he was raising. I guess it stuck. I'd rather do, or watch/help my kids do than watch the strangers.
No judgement! Just different strokes.
I probably would have paid the overblown price for an under-delivered service; after the appropriate period of bitching and moaning. But I guess we'll just have to stick to comments in UCI's socials for now.
A shame that the respondents were > 90% North American and European. Because the numbers outside of those areas are going to tank hard this year, given that lack of viewing options.
Something tells me that majority of people who end up watching (legally), are already Flo bikes subscribers and mainly interested in road racing. Over 66% of respondent above answered unlikely or very unlikely to whether they will pay, and I'm in the same camp.
Why TF should I pay for something of a lower quality than what used to be great and free?
WBD can get bent. $#!++¥.
A single post would do....
99% of survey respondents chose “very unlikely.”