The opening round of the WSB World championship was held this weekend at Phillip Island, Australia. Aprilia came away the big winner, taking 5 of 6 podium spots and both race victories.
Race 1 saw an Aprilia sweep with Sylvain Guintoli taking the win ahead of Eugene Laverty in second and Michael Fabrizio in third. In Race 2, Laverty took the win ahead of Guintoli with BMW’s Marco Melandri finishing third. Laverty and Guintoli are tied on points after Round 1.
For additional details, results and points, visit the official WSB site.
This is going to be a sad year for watching motorcycle racing…I took the DVR back to Comcast. We kept the high speed cable internet and run Apple TV with Netflix and Hulu+. Thinking about adding a Roku but no solution for mc racing…. Money saved will pay for track days though!
Enjoyed the races, watched them though a European channel.
Almost worth the aggravation not to have to listen to Jonathan Green, dumb as a post and willing to proving pretty much constantly while he is speaking.
I’m SO glad racing is back.
Goose
I like J. Green talking.
I knew somebody did I just never heard anyone say the liked the moron. Everyone I know (OK, not exactly a scientific sample) considers him the worst thing about WSB.
It just gets hard to listen to him when he says something so dumb even his partner is embarrassed.
Goose
Watched the coverage on BEIN Sport network, Dish channel 392. It was broadcasted live and there were NO commercials. It was fantastic!!!! The only drawback was when there was no racing it was all about soccer. Soccer is the main emphasis of this channel, but it has other programing as well. They did a super job on SKB! Speed is going downhill fast with their stupid “reality programing”.
I agree. No ads but 20 min. break of soccer highlights between the races.
Well, BEIN broadcasts to countries outside the US as well, right? Like Latin or South America, for instance. Football/soccer is big over there, and the rest of the world, for that matter.
Besides, many premier motorsport series haven’t even started yet. You might get motorsport related highlights in future.
Sounds like a good year for SBK, probably the last one once Dorna gets through. SPEED would rather broadcast a Bubba Redneck show than show any motorcycle racing. Hell, I’d have even gotten up in the middle of the night to watch bike racing but it’s to no avail. Another prime example of the “Dumbing down of America”, so it seems I’ve no other option than to cancel my cable channel connection to SPEED. To this, I salute SPEED on my way out the door——– ..I..
re: “SPEED would rather broadcast a Bubba Redneck show than show any motorcycle racing.”
actually this is not about bubba redneck or any other color neck. what speed would rather broadcast are shows that simply get supported by viewers and generate revenue. thus, there’s really no way of getting around an observation here…
it isn’t so much that bubba shows like this are some huge “ratings bonanza”…? the reality we have to face is, in our failure to support, we’ve effectively cut off our noses to spite our faces. sure, on the net we pay “lip service” to these ideas when someone like me calls another on the carpet, but the data doesn’t lie.
speed doesn’t have to be embarrassed about their choice in programming, it’s actually US (you/me/we) that should be embarassed. yup, embarrassed that we let our numbers drop so low that we’re now so much “cannon fodder” for this kind of programming. i’ve only warned NUMEROUS times about our devaluing mentalities have i not…?
http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2013/Feb/130221teevee.htm
It’s not us. I watched superbike and I loved watching speedway – that was a gas. I am not hooked up to Neilson ratings. Speed looks at the market as a whole and can see that other channels get good ratings on this reality crap and hop on the bandwagon to try to get better ratings rather than try to promote motorcycle racing. When you watch SBK on speed you will see commercials for nascar and their dumb ass reality shows, but when you watch nascar they never promote SBK. It’s even worse on ESPN. Watch a NHRA show and you will know when every basketball game in the world will be on. I can’t force myself to watch a basketball game but i doubt they will let you know about an upcoming NHRA race.
re: “It’s not us.”
denial.
re:”When you watch SBK on speed you will see commercials for nascar and their dumb ass reality shows, but when you watch nascar they never promote SBK.”
This is because advertising during SBK races costs next to nothing for NASCAR, SBK doesn’t advertise during NASCAR races because that advertising time is far to valuable/expensive for them. Ditto NBA vs. NHRA.
Reality tv sucks but these channels have to do what pays the bills.
I’m curious, though. Lets take Redneck Roundup out of the equation. How does SBK racing compare to other motorsport in the US, TV viewership wise?
I’m asking because, from what I recall, Superbike racing always had much lower numbers compared to Supercross, Motocross and even Speedway the last time I check, which was quite a few years ago when the numbers/ratings were healthier (can’t remember the year, but back then your local series was still called AMA SBK and Michael Jordan had just put his team in). Heck, even some truck racing series had higher numbers according to a mag I read at the time.
It wouldn’t hurt to have an American in the series. I wathced every race when Spies was in it. But that’s not Speeds job to do I guess.
re: “But that’s not Speeds job to do I guess.”
correct, once again that’d be OUR job.