World Rowing navigating choppy waters in bid to diversify revenues
Good article on the factors involved in the decision to include beach sprints in the Olympics:
Some points that stood out for me:
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I didn't realise there was a JV for a franchise beach sprints league between WR and Hydrow in the offing. This gives a chance for WR to generate income organically.
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The IOC's funding of World Rowing is a significant % of their income. WR really need the Olympics or it's goodnight vienna for the sport internationally.
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Universality is not that significant (any more). Makes the argument for lightweights weaker.
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Beach sprints is super cheap to host by comparison with most other sports.
Thoughts?
Posted Nov 13, 2023, 3:34 PM UTC
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The section at the end is also intriguing. Potential cuts to what boats we see at worlds, allowing sanctioned betting, and putting cameras in boats are all on the table.
Indeed. Those are ideas in the forthcoming review so along way from being implemented, but definitely a sign that change should be expected.
Betting is an interesting one. One could argue that the sport evolved much quicker in the 19th century thanks to betting on races, but its influence on sports such as cricket and snooker hasn't always been beneficial with regular stories of doctored results, etc.
There's an interesting comparison with cricket too. Traditionally it was a "long-format" game, with matches going on 4 or 5 days. Since the 1980s, there have been various short-format versions (one of which will be at LA28), which have definitely widened its appeal. They have existed side-by-side happily though and players often swap between them.
Classic 2k racing may end up being the equivalent long ("connoisseurs") format, with sprints or beach sprints as the short "high-octane" version. No reason why both can't exist together.
I’ve personally liked the idea of an F1-style Grand Prix throughout the world that incorporates some of the already internationally-renown regattas (HRR, HOCR, Gold Cup, etc) and then throw together a “Drive to Survive” style documentary on top of that to advertise the personalities in the sport. We all know how much of a dramatic bloodbath selection can be, and there are interesting people in the sport as is; it just needs to be marketed properly.
If you think about it, the live viewing experience (and even the TV viewing experience) of car racing vs rowing racing isn’t too dissimilar (the F1 live telemetry insights are pretty great though, and are something we could co-opt for graphics in the sport), where rowing is lacking right now is that there’s minimal interest in the human element being driven at the national team level.
F1 will always have some “sex appeal” on rowing as far as the daredevil, someone-could-die-driving-that fast element, but if we personify our athletes beyond a simple hovering camera following them along the shore at the Olympics, the sport could take further steps into the 21st century.
If they’re gonna do that, they should take a page from u/emoney94 and put a 360 cam on a stick in each boat. Would be kinda neat being able to watch the race with basically a coxswain’s (elevated) view.