SLCBrandon wrote:I feel like Velonews and others have made this huge push to give more, if not equal, coverage to women's cycling.
They haven't. Period.
Perhaps the "huge push" you saw was basically going from "none" to "a few". That isn't a huge push.
SLCBrandon wrote:Again, you can't force companies to advertise on programing they don't think they will get value for. If there was a demand for women's cycling it would be on.
Ironic that we're going to use a 'cycle' term to describe what's happening when discussing this, but that's what it is. Pointing out into the anonymous crowd and saying "it's not what they want" is just relying on the old crutch.
So what happened during the 80s and 00's when, all of a sudden, "cycling" was being "pushed down the throats" of the US Audience with those no-names at the time: LeMonde? Armstrong? Hardly household names until of course there was that HUGE media push for attention to them, which caused an initial shitload of backlash among stalwarts of the US media and entertainment cycles. Cycling? Skinny freaks riding bikes? Why would they want to watch that when there's big roided up men wearing helmets on a Sunday and tall men leaping into the air to slam a ball into a basket on a small court? Come on, man, bikes?!
Yet here we are.
What happened was simple: the media saw a small story, but didn't really know much about it. The advertisers were seeing a growing demographic of people interested in riding (again, growing! not the majority at all! that's a target point of increasing advertising opportunities: new markets)... so Budweiser, Motorola, name your company was thinking "yeah, so we've got this growing market of afluent people who want to have personal achievement and not just sit on their couches, how do we appeal to them? Oh! There's this race going on and there happens to be a personality doing well? I tell you what ABC News, ESPN and whoever you are: I'll pay you $$$$ to cover it."
The media initially replied "ugh, really?" and did it anyway, begrudgingly. And the advertisers kept pushing it. And pushing it. And pushing it.
Eventually people paid attention. It wasn't immediate, but they did.... and look where we are now with cycling in the US market.
And lo! Behold! In the year of some-people's lord 2015, guess what one of the largest target demographic is in advertising and marketing initiatives?
Women.
Women's health (all ages).
Young women's development and encouragement.
and yet the UCI refuses to have races of any length to compare to a men's race. They deemed womens races to be "excessive in challenge" despite nearly all of the peloton finishing. They have ridiculous rules in place which seriously restrict women's cycling. Prudhomme refuses to have the Tour de France associate its name with a women's race (making his name a bi-lingual reference to his behaviour, no?). Yeah, it's totally encouraging for young women to want to go out there, train, compete and race when their top target isn't the prestigious "Tour de France" but instead "La Course" or "Tour Cycliste Féminin" ... hardly inspiring.
You can point at one thing and think "yeah well, this isn't there..." be it the media, the fans, the sponsorship, the growth, the rules (UCI)... but it's all finger pointing and once one actually makes a concerted effort (sponsors pushing for races and media coverage will be the most direct), the other parts of the cycle change as well.