jasongay

Jason Gay · @jasongay

8th Apr 2013 from TwitLonger

Fellow bike racing nerds: had an interesting conversation with a rep from the NBC Sports Network about yesterday's Paris-Roubaix coverage. To recap: the NBCSN coverage began with the Forest of Arenberg on tape delay and the event stayed on a delay - about 10 km behind the live feed - throughout the race. If you were following the race on Twitter or a liveblog it was a little nutty since the action you were reading about was happening before you saw it on TV. This is a peril of TV in the 21st century, where social media has become a vital supplement to the viewing experience.

Paris-Roubaix was running fast, ahead of schedule Sunday. The rep said the way the peloton moved through the early parts of the race put the network was in a hard spot - either skip the Forest of Arenberg (a lot of people's favorite part) or jump ahead and potentially miss a race-winning move. It was a tough call and they decided to go with running everything, albeit a little behind the action. Which led to a lot of jokes from me! And a lot of people on Twitter.

Was it a perfect decision? No. Is it important for sports to be live? I think so. I think the days of tape delay are kaput. I think Twitter and social media real-time updates are an invaluable resource for a sport like cycling, in which much of the action (breakaways, splits, riders falling off the bunch) isn't apparent to the single camera on the road.

But this rep - who goes back to the OLN days with cycling - just wanted to reassure a passion for cycling and trying to get it right. Maybe next year Paris-Roubaix coverage will begin at 7:30 to miss any chance of a similar mess.

Anyway, I thought it was stand-up of them to try and explain. We all know that cycling is a tough crowd. We can't agree on the color of our bar tape, much less the coverage of one of cycling's signature races. These are tough times for a beautiful sport. It's good to hear genuine enthusiasm from someone in TV. Because they could show Tim Tebow bouncing up and down on a trampoline and get a higher rating.

Yours in Spartacus,

jason

PS: Bar tape should be white.

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