Poor coverage of Olypmic sailing

Anthony

Anthony

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Anyone been trying to watch the Olympic sailing?

They only have TV coverage on two or the courses so only get coverage of whatever races are on those courses that day, and despite the boats all seemingly having on board cameras I don't think I have seen more than about 2 minutes in total of on board video having watched a number of hours of sailing.

I know sailing is traditionally a tough sport to get viewers watching but seems like a missed opportunity that they don't make better use of the on board cameras and you cant follow one type e.g. Nacras or Lasers day after day.
 
Yesterday was awful. They can't do anything about the weather but while they kept delaying the women's lasers they kept talking about the 49ers racing at the time whilst showing us film of the beach & kids running into the water.

and then it got cancelled!!!
 
By its nature, sailing is hard to show. Even with intensive equipment and aerial views, the races I have seen have not been very involving, even to a sailor, like me. Often the scene is confusing to the viewer, with essential information such as wind direction and the buoy being aimed for not being obvious. I'm sure it could be done, as it has for unlikely sports like golf, but sailing is not very televisual. We do deserve a decent level of updates and some scene-setting though.
 
Here in Oz there has been no mention of sailing at olympics until this morning when races end up coming up for medals.
I believe we go a gold (men's laser) and a silver (nacra cat). olewill. (cheering for the other Oz mob not UK)
 
Exactly the same problems were faced by road cycle races in the days before outside-broadcast TV cameras got small enough and mobile enough to be carried on motorbikes and helicopters (or lately, drones) - then all of a sudden, cycling road racing became a superb spectacle, the tactics and teams could be explained by studio commentators and the effort put in by the riders became clear to the viewers, as did the beautiful scenery they were riding through. As a result, things like the Tour de France are now premium TV fixtures.

The Olympic coverage of sailing is abysmal simply a) because the producers are still stuck in the old era and haven't invested in the new-style HD cameras which are small enough to put on participants to get a real feel for the action and b) because almost none of the commentators know anything at all about sailing or the Rules of Racing and the experts they draft in to help them out on the whole are useless at explaining what is going on. The only new thing is the use of the overlays derived from GPS positioning to show the lay-lines and race leader (which is helpful, used properly).

Just look at the coverage of big-wave surfing these days - helmet cameras, board cameras, boat cameras, drones - anything to get you up close to the action. As a result the Surfing World Tour is good and interesting viewing and (at least here downunder) is building a big audience. It is too late for the Olympics, but the Americas Cup TV coverage last time I saw it in the USA was pretty good. Things are improving, but slowly!
 
William_H said:
Here in Oz there has been no mention of sailing at olympics until this morning when races end up coming up for medals.
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I am also in Western Australia, I agree the coverage here has been non exisitant (maybe it was live in the early hours I dont know, but good luck finding it online to watch the next day), but I blame the local TV company for that. My original comment was based on the BBC coverage (having paid 20 years worth of TV License in the UK in the past I dont feel too bad about streaming a few hours of iPlayer coverage now I am here in Australia) who I would have thought would have the best coverage.

The commentry was poor all done from shore ("I cant quite see from our position here" being said on many occasions), the lack of on person mini cams was irrelevent becuase they so rearly even used the on board cameras they did have. The Nacra racing I did see was very good racing, lead changes and battles all the time (unlike F1), but you had to be passionate about it to put up with the poor presentation.

I appreciate it is harder to cover a stretch of water compared to a defined running track or cycle roadway, but the whole setup just seemed like it had not been well thought thru or rehersed.
 
Tam Lin said:
I know it can be hard to follow but have tried the red button a couple of times. Last time it was just a picture of the beach with no commentary so I gave up.
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The Red Button feeds are live feeds from the venue, as are the dedicated BBC Olympics channels on Sky.

You need to wait until the scheduled time for the race. Best way is to record the feed on Sky, then jump to the bit you want to watch.
 
I'm not really interested in dinghy racing and it makes a poor spectacle to watch. Likewise with the Americans cup, it has no relevance to my sort of sailing. Volvo round the world is quite different though.
 
The Liberal Luvvies at the BBC see politics everywhere. Sailing is for posh talking toffs and hence the BBC has developed a cultural aversion to sailing.

Meanwhile the liberal elite has decreed that swimming is a nobel sport of the common man hence the BBC never skips an opportunity to thrust a microphone towards some 17 year old from Coventry who will then struggle to string together a single sentence to explain his/her failure to make it into the finals.

Sailing will never be a good compulsive viewer sport but the technology is available to present a few minutes of enjoyable live action per day on the main TV channels. Can sailing be more difficult to explain than some cycling events, the Omnium for example with its sprint and cruising laps and a points system that requires a PhD in maths to comprehend.
 
I think there's something that's being missed here. The BBC are only airing the feeds they get from the Olympics own camera team. It's patently obvious in most sports that they're not up to the quality we're used to, that's SOME of the reason
 
BBC showing the usual as always, Rowing, Swimming, Velodrome and other cycling events, Gymnastics. Same format for the past few decades.
Try BBC i player, I have been able to watch quite a bit of the sailing races on there.
 
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macd said:
Is that the same BBC that airs showjumping?
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Even Liberal Luvvies make an exception for cute animals and royalty. The Liberal Elite expect to be enobled with dame-hoods and peerages prior to retirement. BBC execs gotta play the establishment game, horses are cool but spinnakers are the unacceptable face of privileged and capitalism.
 
salignac said:
BBC showing the usual as always, Rowing, Swimming, Velodrome and other cycling events, Gymnastics. Same format for the past few decades.
Try BBC i player, I have been able to watch quite a bit of the sailing races on there.
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Iplayer is the place for the sailing races. Coverage is actually quite good I think. Though I do wish they'd replace that commentator though. Watching the Nacra medal race yesterday he seemed staggered that one boat was penalised "because it had the inside line". To anyone who'd ever raced it was a very clear and obvious foul. Ian Walker sounded exasperated constantly correcting him.
 
Sailing probably stemmed from the need to deliver goods, but in both cases things have changed considerably.

The BBC clearly doesn't have an unlimited budget so it's no surprise they don't have chunks of money to pour into coverage of every sport. Sailing is expensive to cover well. It wouldn't cost a lot to put wee cameras on the boats (the boats are fitted with something - not sure if it has cameras in it or whether it's just a super-sized GPS tracker) but to convert all the output into something coherent would be another matter. At least it gets a lot more airtime than it used to. The live feed coverage/commentary they are providing isn't too bad if you can tune in to Ian Walker and tune out the infuriatingly repetitive carp that the other bloke spouts most of the time.
 
ghostlymoron said:
I don't accept the "sailing is elitist" argument at all. What can be more elitist (and boring) than dressage?
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I'm not sure that saying that sailing is less elitist than a sport requiring a dancing horse costing far more than most people's houses is the same as saying it isn't at all elitist.

Have a look around an average yacht club or dinghy sailing club. You won't see an accurate reflection of the makeup of modern British society, you'll see an overwhelmingly white middle class group of people. I think gradually changing that is a laudable aim, but it will be extremely difficult.
 
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