This weekend, May 16th and 17th, the 2009 Canadian Bouldering Championships will be taking place in Montreal, Quebec Canada. This comp, which serves as the finale of Canada’s Tour de Bloc bouldering series, is set to be broacast live on the internet at Dr. Topo’s website. Dr. Topo did a similar broadcast for last year’s Youth Continental Championships that were also held in Montreal.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsRcvKBMO_8]
Four cameras will cover the action at Saturday’s CBC qualifiers, and four additional cameras will be added for Sunday’s finals. This is particularly impressive when significant comps in the U.S., such as this year’s ABS Nationals, recieved no live coverage. To the best of my knowledge, no comps in the States have ever received live coverage.
The live feed of the CBC begs the question: where is the live coverage of climbing competitions in the U.S.? . On the eve of the Mammut Bouldering Championships, which begins at the end of May with the Gravity Brawl in New Jersey, and the World Cup, which will be held in Vail, CO this June at the Teva Mountain Games, it certainly seems that live streaming could greatly increase exposure for climbers and sponsors alike.
Obviously there are reasons for the lack of live coverage in the States; likely cost, sponsorship, and manpower are significant limiting factors.
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From the viewer’s standpoint, however, many of the negatives of comp spectating could be avoided with live streaming. Gone would be the days of costly travel and overcrowded gyms.
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Though viewers would likely have to exhibit some patience waiting to see their favorite climber, at least it could be done from their own homes.
So, I ask you, do you have any interest in viewing climbing competitons broadcast on the internet? Register your thoughts in the poll and/or the comments area of this post.
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RSS subscribers will need to click through to the post to vote
It’s definitely time the organizers of these events realize there’s a growing fan base out here on the Internet. If they can’t live stream, they at the least need to get results and summaries posted fast, such as on the same day of the event. There’s no excuse to have a two- or three-day event, post the qualifier round results on the first day, then wait until into the following week to post the final results. On the international front, the world cup competitions could also do much more to generate interest by streaming live (some of which has been done, like that bouldering challenge Sharma and three others were in last year, in Spain I think), releasing daily summaries, results, videos, etc. The IFSC is working toward getting our sport into the Olympics — they need to get with the program on media coverage during the various world cup events. And definitely the same with our major North American events. More coverage will generate more interest. Organizers need to step it up. Finally, just as that recent regional Canadian comp did (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1403573), even if it’s streamed live, the broadcast needs to be available for archived streaming.
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Excellent points. An archived stream would be great for those that can’t be at their computers during the actual event.
The overall level of media coverage of big events is pretty lacking and outdated. In this era of instant information waiting days to see even the results posted is far too long in my opinion.
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I’ve emailed ABS several times, offering to shoot/stream events at cost … never gotten a response back.
Lame.
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At ABS Nationals they had the footage streaming live onto two big projection screens that were facing the crowds. I can’t imagine it would be too much more work to turn that into a live feed.
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That was my thought at Nationals this year as well. Although the quality of the video projected in the gym wasn’t all that good…but then again my eyesight sucks.
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Sorry, but I find watching climbing to be the most boring thing I can possibly think of. Especially, indoor climbing. It CAN be entertaining if it’s something I’ve been on and I know the moves or if the clip is well produced cut of some R/X trad, that’s exciting.
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Apology accepted. As much as I can’t overstate how I’d rather be climbing, its interesting to see how climbers so much better than myself attack different problems.
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What would make it watchable would be various camera angles, cutting from the wide shot to provide the scale of things and then go to a close up on the heinous crimp that the competitor is reaching for. It would take a hell of a camera crew plus live producer. But, its been done before in other sports.
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I guess the question of whether or not to watch, for me, has been solved. There is a maximum number of people that can watch the channel.
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