Discussion: WOC to be Broadcast in USA

The World Orienteering Championships will be broadcast on US television. Through the work of the IOF the Universal Sports Network (NBC's all sports platform) will air the Sprint, Long, Middle and Relay on a tape delay basis on consecutive nights. The schedule is:

Wednesday, July 10 - Sprint
Thursday, July 11 - Long
Friday, July 12 - Middle
Saturday, July 13 - Relay

All telecasts are scheduled to begin at 6:00pm Eastern time.

Will it be available online?

Yes. Visit www.universalsports.com for more information. Note: if you go there in the next day or so, they will give you incorrect times. The dates and times listed above are correct barring technical difficulties. Universal Sports will be updating their website with the correct information.

Great! Thanks for the information.

I hope I am able to watch this. This is Awesome.

Yeah, this is great to know.

Updated schedule per Universal Sports.com

Online
- Monday - July 8 - 11:00 am ET - Sprint
- Tuesday - July 9 - 5:00 am ET - Long
- Friday - July 12 - 5:00 am ET - Middle
- Saturday - July 13 - 6:50 am ET - Relay

TV
- Wednesday - July 10 - 6:00 pm ET - Sprint
- Thursday - July 11 - 6:00 pm ET - Long
- Friday - July 12 - 6:00 pm ET - Middle
- Saturday - July 13 - 6:00 pm ET - Relay

Scheudles are subject to change so stay close to www.universalsports.com.

According to the FAQ, it appears you have to authenticate as a valid subscriber to one of the USN Cable or Dish networks in order to view the live feed online. Guess I'm outta luck...

When will the networks (looking at you HBO) learn that they should charge for online streaming of individual products? There is no way I would pay for a Dish subscription just to watch this, when I can pay 10 Euros to get an online version from Europe.

(Not suggesting of course that it would be worth their while just for orienteering, but in general this massively frustrates me)

10 Euros for the arena production, which isn't the same as the content going out on the TV networks, which is proper production (or that's how I read it)

Still, this Dish thing is a good thing. Does not seem to affect any other usual ways of viewing online so it is a positive development!

But andrewd, the cheapest Dish package in our area costs over 50 quid a month for basic channels (which is essentially nothing you'd ever watch apart from news), so it's just not an option for us. Bizarrely internet and cable TV is extremely expensive here compared to back in the UK (unless things have changed in the last 3 years).

I would love to see the proper production, but I don't know anyone with the appropriate service.

Swedish national television (SVT) is broadcasting it online viewable worldwide. http://www.svtplay.se/video/1332389/orientering-vm

Also Finnish national television (YLE) is broadcasting all finals (should be worldwide). Sprints:
in Finnish http://areena.yle.fi/tv/1955266/#/play
in Swedish http://arenan.yle.fi/tv/1955266/#/play

SVT seems really good. Just started.

Thanks for the SVt link Hollowell, watching that currently as getting the loading wheel of death from the 10Euro coverage. Anyone have any browser suggestions etc for getting it to load? Or is it just a traffic issue?

10 euro thing is not working for me either.

GPS tracks are good though!!

The SVT link works great in Opera.

And in IE 9.

and on a tablet.

USN is working for us with no cable!

Janet, how did you do that?

http://universalsports.com/olympics/

Click Watch live; it tells you you'll see 1:30 preview but we were able to see about 5 minutes, then it stopped. Maybe the preview ended. We'll wait until Ali's start and see if we can get a "preview" on a different device.

Ah, okay! I recommend SVT till then.

Ali starting next!

SVT is working for me in firefox, and its awesome.

Sarah R was finishing so they missed Ali's start.

Wow, tried to follow Ali on results. They're really bad. Not Ali, the results system/ GPS it is!

Lizzie Ingham looking great!

You can follow video on http://areena.yle.fi/tv/1955266

it is in Finnish though

Ooops, sorry Lizzie. MP?

it'd be nice to have finish times live at least.

Ali? Where art thou?

This is the worst coverage I've seen in a long time. No finish results?!

Did Ali start?

Sure, Ali finished already.

Yes. But her GPS dropped out halfway.

Watching the race on tv in Finland and they didn't show Ali at all :/

Becks, maybe try the Swedish feed. It's really good. Helps that I speak Swedish----but the visual coverage is also quite good imo.

Ali started, she finished one minute back from Tereza according to the GPS, but also started one minute back. When Tereza finished I think she was ~13th. There were a bunch of fast people to still finish though.

They didn't cover her start, but said she followed Annika(?) in the finish chute. They haven't shown what place she's in but it's out of the top 20 I think.

5th Place for Tess Hill, GBR! Whooooo! Still think this is a dreadful production though.

SVT didn't show Ali either. :(
But otherwise excellent video.

25th - 2:06 back

SVT have Ali 25th.

Of 45 in the final

Well, GPS mostly worked, and between that and SVT it is tolerable. If they could just fix live results we'd be fine.

Yup, without live results you're left with trying to tell if tails overlap, which is pretty poor.

I don't have DirecTV, so I was planning on going to a sports bar. Seems like it could make for a fun club get-together, right?

Thanks to Will for the SVT link!! We'd have been sunk otherwise.

Does anyone have the right TV subscription. Would be really interested to know if the coverage was any good!

Lizzie was laughing when she came back through the go control after "fencing" on the arena enclosure :)

10 Euro stream is now working. I find a combination of their sound and STV visuals works pretty well...

If showing some message in Finnish and stopping is working then yeah it's working.

Are you getting the men's race on SVT? I can see it on YLE, but just the women's replay on SVT.

SVT is showing mens race right now

http://www.svtplay.se/video/1332390/orientering-vm

Thanks Bo.

You can stroll down on the women's screen in SVT and there's a link to the Men's there.

Yes thanks! Yle was fine, but the vid quality is a little better from SVT.

Lets go Murray!

It's going to be a long thirty minutes now, that's for sure!

Wahey, results!

http://online.woc2013.fi/tulokset/en/2013_woc_spri...

Marten!

Marten fastest so far at second radio. YLE goes bananas! :)

Marten ... wow.

Marten ran XC/track for Northern Arizona U. in Flagstaff many years ago.
Maybe he's one of the "dinosaurs" that Hirppa was referring to :)

Lumberjacks!

Go Scott ...

.... yeah!

That might be a medal for Scott... wow!

Yep, looks like it.

Ack, SVT?

Scotty!!!!! silver!

WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

"Broadcasting is temporarily unavailable". Urp, first thing in English ...

@eddie:
And that fact would be a VERY good thing for US orienteering if Marten's XC/track at NAU is mentioned on the US broadcast.

That's awesome for Scott. Oooh!! Won silver in the chute no less!

Amazing!!! Go Scott!

Marten will be psyched. He's been trying for a looong time. Here's his blog, with some photos of his time in the US.

I remember the post he made on June 10, 2008 (picture of smashed EMIT card) when he wasn't selected to the Finnish team that year for sprint. This will be payback for him.

What happened to Jerker in the last 200m? Was close to podium, then whoops. (On my phone at airport, so I couldn't watch).

Many thanks to the powers that be at yle, and SVT for making this available to us.

Happy day for Coach Toni!

One of my friends went to NAU, and I just let her know about Marten!

Seems like NAU (and possibly the Big Sky Conference) should know about this, right?

I'm sure they'd love to hear about it, but not sure they will unless one of us tells them. Dunno if athletic departments keep track of their grads this closely.

I sent a note to a random NAU XC contact that I found online. Hopefully they'll pick it up.

Wow, GBR with two on the podim today (Tessa Hill 5th)

The random contact at NAU turned out to be the Director of the Track and Field/XC program, so I gather they are notified.

Good work, Eddie. Once I got off the plane and to my hotel, I was going to dig around for something, but I guess I don't have to now.

I got an email from NAU asking to use one of my pictures in a story, so they are on it:)

So did anyone watch the USN coverage?

Go Emily!

Argh, Emily and Louise's gpses are not helpful.

A blurb about Marten has appeared on the NAU Track and Field website. Unfortunately they never even utter the word "orienteering." It doesn't appear a single time - not even in the name of the event! At least there's a link to Jan's worldofo article. I used the word orienteering 3 times (World Orienteering Championships) in my messages to them and emphasized that it would be great for the sport to get the mention. They latched on to the bit about his running speed and that was that. *sigh*

Looks like they just pulled text out of Jan's photo caption.

"higher running speed on the longer legs" sounds a bit funny out of context.

:) Yeah, tell me about it.

Bizarre, especially for those not in the know to read that he won a world championship sprint by 17 seconds.

Will anyone on AP be able to watch the Dish/USN coverage of the Sprint Final tonight at 6 PM EDT? Its starting tonight and events will run each night at 6PM Wed, Thur, Fri and Sat. It would be great if someone could capture them as-broadcast and post the vid.

In this case, it would also be interesting to see what type of ads and promos are run during these.

or that a "sprint" took him over 14 minutes :)

It would be great if someone could capture them as-broadcast and post the vid.

This would be fantastic! But I won't be able to help.

I know there's going to be a watch party in Seattle at some point this week, but it'll be at a bar, since I don't know anyone with DirecTV. I'm currently in Wichita, but I'm going to try to go to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch.

We're on 5 TVs, including a jumbo at Buffalo Wild Wings in Wichita! No audio, though.

Excellent!

First commercial block: mycleanpc.com, progressive insurance, cashnetusa.com

Also, just showing the final, no qual.

Yeah, that was the plan all along I think. Has it been "massaged" into a show, or is it just a replay of the live video we saw?

I wasn't sure. Showing the start line through control #1 so far. And some GPS dots.

Now showing guys at about 8 min in. I wish I could hear audio.

Are they mixing the men's and women's races or showing them sequentially?

Oh, good question. Just the men so far.

Maybe you can ask for one tv to be turned up?

2nd commercial block: dollarshaveclub.com, beach volleyball promo on USN, sprinting promo on USN

Already asked. None of the sports have audio. Just music

Hmm, I *do* need a shave....how did they know?

I need a shave, too!

Any Koptercam footage?

3rd commercial block: st Jude's hospital, moneymutual.com

No obvious koptercam yet. They did show a nice control site near a beach, though.

I'm really curious to know if they are running any UPN promos for the future orienteering programs, and if so, what are they like. Snazzy? Exciting? Or just some trees with an orange flag in front.

They just showed a huge mistake on the GPS dot, sped up! Haha!

Awesome. Who was it?

I've included all the ads I've seen so far. No audio, obviously, but it *looks* good.

I'm not sure the Koptercam was even flying for the sprint. Ken has photos of it at the Long final, and there was footage from it on the SVT stream. Me like Kopetercam :)

Wefixmoney.com, Bosley hair restoration [insert rogaine joke here], blue wilderness dog food.

Bostrom just started! I think he's gonna win!

No way! Too bad there's no audio. I wonder if they'll plug NAU on this US broadcast.

All of the other single dudes in the bar are watching O, and not baseball interviews!

Not much time left to show the women's race. Have they shown any of it?

There's a crane cam near #21, but no koptercam.

Oh wait, its a 2 hour program I think.

It's 2 hours, with 1 left to go.

Mycleanpc.com, moneymutual.com, beach volleyball on USN, aquatics on USN

Its super important to get air-time of Ali here. Showing the US runner to the US audience is key.

Bostrom killed it. I may have yelped something.

Ok, halfway through, still showing men.

Showing the "live sync" GPS dot thing a lot with the top guys.

I wonder if there's any way to know if google is getting more "orienteering" searches in the US during these air times? I presume we could look for a blip in hits to the OUSA website. Anything non-zero would be interesting.

Oh urban GPS, kyburz is running through a building!

Thats ok, no one will know what the grey boxes are anyways :)

Bosley.com, cashnetusa.com

The medal winners are all in, I think. The women must be shortly.

Yeah, so the ads are your typical, low-rent late night ones, targeting balding, middle-aged men. Probably just some standard contract irregardless of the specific content of particular programs. No GPS companies or even sports drinks.

Bostrom's going nuts. They didn't show what happened to Jerker, though.

A Finn, going nuts?!?! You may need to adjust your set.

They showed a dot race of the medal winners. It was pretty awesome. (Despite guys running through buildings and fences)

Very cool.

I need to hit the road so I can be back in 6 hrs to watch the middle qual coverage. Please keep posting about the coverage of the women's race. I may have to find a place to watch the other races the next few nights...

Mycleanpc.com, moneymutual.com, pivotrim (a weed whacker thing). Haha, this is great, the pivotrim is knocking out dark green vegetation!

Whoa, they came back from commercial halfway though the women. Olga from Ukraine just started.

Olga started 16th, so Ali is still to come.

Whew. Ok, Ali starts after Olga, so we're good.

Cashnetusa.com, beach volleyball, aquatics.

Ok, Ali should be next.

Whoops, got my Czechs confused. Ali in a few more.

Uh oh.

They went to commercial right before Ali started.

Getflexseal.com, moneymutual.com

Yup, the commercials skipped Ali. Annika Billsam the first start after break.

The broadcast clips we saw on the website on Monday didn't show Ali's start or finish; the announcers did talk about her potential. Don't know if this broadcast is different.

Just showed Lizzie's mistake at the end on video and GPS dot simulator. Simone just started.

Zero Ali on TV so far. Visual at least.

Mycleanpc.com (yawn), beach volleyball (yay!), sprinting (meh)

Ok, so Billsam just finished, which means that Ali is done. There was ZERO visual of Ali on American TV. Why did I come and watch, then?!?!?!

Just listed the top 20 on screen, but Ali was 25th. Still no screen time.

Simone just finished. Now a dot race for top 4.

Ali's name and country got 10 seconds of screen time when they just showed top 30 at the very very end.

Now we've got a rugby commercial. Day 1 is over. Thanks for listening.

Hey, at least my second favorite sport came on after orienteering!

There might be more of Ali to see tomorrow...see Maryann's write up of the clip she saw of the Sprint.

Ok, so there was nothing new over and above what we saw live on YLE and SVN during the sprint final. It was just a re-edit of that to fit the 2 hr slot. I was hoping they had captured all the cameras and would add a bit more of Ali. I wonder if the organizers are interested in any feedback on the US production?

I, too, watched at a Buffalo Wild Wings. There was no audio (it would have conflicted with the audio to a Philadelphia Phillies baseball broadcast) but there was closed captioning. Just before Ali was to start, the captions described how Ali was the only member of the US Team to qualify for the Sprint Finals. It went on to say how Ali is a well-rounded orienteer with experience in Ski Orienteering as well. Then came the commercials. When the broadcast resumed, there was no mention of Ali until the end. I think that they showed two or three seconds of her run.

Eddie,

Thanks for your post. The production company is VERY INTERESTED in the production quality of the US telecast and have asked me to reach out to the orienteering community for feedback so they can make the rest of the telecasts as strong as possible.

So everybody, please provide feedback. It is appreciated.

Glen

My understanding was that the pictures were coming from the host broadcaster, so the US version wouldn't have any control over what was shown?

Would be interested to get hold of a copy by whatever means - will be useful if we're trying to make a pitch to any Australian broadcasters for 2014 (a Venice sprint ought to be a drawcard).

Hey Glen, this morning I sent a note to BJ at KopterCam and to the WOC info email address trying to reach Mika Ilomaki (head of Finnish federation), whom I think is in charge of the TV production. I didn't know who else to contact. I'll forward what I wrote to you. Maybe you have contacts with them already. I'd like to get through to them ASAP in case there's time to get more coverage of the USA&CAN runners into tomorrow's middle final coverage.

Blair, yeah thats what I assumed as well, but I figured it was in the interests of the WOC-side production team to make it as appealing as possible to the N.A. audience. They must be swamped though...hard to believe they'll be able to accommodate suggestions at this point. Worth a shot at least.

Hang on, I just got a reply back from BJ. Pretty interesting. Apparently he's the expert commentator on the US feed. We (er, Pink_socks) couldn't hear the audio last night in the pub, so had no idea who was talking.

They've got it covered. Everything I had mentioned in my message they are already aware of and doing what they can to make the N.A. production the best possible for our specific audience. It sounds like they are really trying to take advantage of this opportunity, which is awesome.

It would be great if more folks in the US can get to TVs to watch and report back, both with your own impressions of the production and other people's reaction to it (if any :).

All, the video, camera, etc is Finish production. Universal Sports providing two English speaking commentators doing the Audio. Similar to the Tour de France where the video is French production.

Eddie in contact with BJ is good. I'm in contact with Clive (English speaking commentator) as well. In addition, I have recommended that Clive monitor this page. That way he can get direct timely feedback. All feedback welcome. They are trying really hard to make this good tv.

Blair - it is my understanding that the IOF's president Brian Porteous put together the deal with Universal Sport at a recent conference in Russia. Litterally came together within 30 days. Suggest you send him an email after the event with your comments and suggestions moving forward including coverage of future WOCs, Ski WOCs, MTBO WOCs, etc.

eddie: will you email me a phone contact for you. It's about Dartmouth
carlch@aol.com

All, thanks for your comments on air time, pictures, etc. If you have any precise comments about the audio and sound, including commentary, please post here or email me at gjs@orienteeringusa.org. I know that many of us are watching this in bars where we may not have sound on, but anything helps.

Thanks. Glen

By the way, Ali will not get a lot of coverage in the long. The broadcast team knows this and are working on increased US coverage on the Middle and the Relay.

My local pub has Universal Sports East. Is that what I want?

@glen schorr: "By the way, Ali will not get a lot of coverage in the long"

That's really too bad. By pure chance, I logged onto USN early the day of the long and got my free minute or so just as Ali was starting, and during great close-up footage of her, they talked about her profession, her world-class athlete credentials and her "bubbly" personality. It all gave the impression that she was someone to watch now and in the future. If they just showed that much, and also happened to mention her results, I think it would really create some interest in the American audience.

As for Universal Sports, from what I've seen of it in the past, it's a good place for orienteering to be showcased as I've seen lots of less-than-mainstream sports covered well on there. Unfortunately, the major cable carriers in my area (FIOS and Comcast) don't carry it. For 2 blissful years I had it free on digital over-the-air and I really miss it! It was the one thing that might have pushed me into getting cable....

Maryann - thanks. What you saw was the live feed of the middle qualifications. As I noted above, there are two more finals (Middle and Relay) being broadcast over the air. The USN English Speaking broadcasters are working with the Fins to get as much US coverage as possible, but remember the Fins first priority is showing their countrymen to their nation. USN is working very hard to maximize coverage....remember also what you see streaming on line is being edited down to one two hour show.....two long races...multiple runners...its tough.

The great thing is that we are all talking about the WOC being telecast and shown in the USA. This is huge and hopefully a start of continued WOC coverage internationally. I remember being in Norway in 09 and watching the Women's Sprint on one of the Norwegian sports networks....and hoping we would have the same chance to see it in the US someday. That hope is beginning to become a reality.

MJ Childs...that may be right....I have seen it called various things: Universal Sports, NBC Universal...so I would give it a shot.

Everybody enjoy tonights telecast...however and wherever you can.

Glen, it was the Long Final that I saw on Tuesday morning (5AM or so in Philadelphia). I do realize that it's not an American show though. My experience was that Universal Sports covers each sport pretty well without any noticeable national bias, and I have had opportunities to see both the live coverage and the later edited program for some events so I know they can't fit everyone in. However, just that very, very short segment was very good, so I put in my two cents in case there was room for negotiation. You can't blame a girl for trying! :-)

It is wonderful that this is being shown on TV here - no argument there!

My overall impression was that the visual production was fantastic. (As I mentioned last night, I wasn't able to hear any audio.)

The arena looked professional with sponsorship banners, waving flags, and a lot of fans, the camera work was nice, the crane cam was neat to see, the cinematography was overall pretty good. They spliced in enough "dot races" to show the orienteering aspect, but not so much that it was a geekfest.

Whichever runner was on the screen, they always showed a name, country, elapsed time, and current time ahead/behind. They also had an area with the current overall top times. Very useful info to have.

Above all of this information was a scrolling section that had little white flags with runners' names, moving right to left, spaced proportionally by the time difference between the runners. It was kinda neat so see, but maybe a little superfluous, especially when the time gaps weren't that big and a lot of flags scrolled by on top of each other.

Glen wrote: The USN English Speaking broadcasters are working with the Finns to get as much US coverage as possible, but remember the Finns' first priority is showing their countrymen to their nation. USN is working very hard to maximize coverage....

Maryann wrote: I do realize that it's not an American show though. My experience was that Universal Sports covers each sport pretty well without any noticeable national bias, and I have had opportunities to see both the live coverage and the later edited program for some events so I know they can't fit everyone in.

It is wonderful that this is being shown on TV here - no argument there!

Orienteering is on TV, which is great. My only complaint was that Ali's coverage was below average in the sprint, and I'm not blaming anyone for that. I wasn't expecting overwhelming coverage of Ali, but it was disappointing to get ready for her big start and have the show cut away to commercial. The women before and after the commercial break were shown, so it just seems unlucky for us. I didn't see any of the online coverage (Finnish, Swedish, or USN Online), so I'd like to know: where there commercial breaks in those broadcasts, too? I'm wondering if there was footage and commentary of Ali starting, but there was a mandated commercial cut for 7:35-7:37pm EST, and that Ali was unlucky that her spot was cut out.

A couple of ideas:

1) Pre-recorded "fluff" pieces.. You know how in NBC's primetime Olympic coverage, they have those fluff pieces about the athletes, their struggles, their personalities, and whatever interesting stuff is going on with them? Or similar character introductions for reality TV shows or cooking competitions. Basically, just a few minutes to explain to viewers why they should care about them. I think we should explore doing some of those. If we can't guarantee that Ali will get a lot of coverage, we create our own coverage: hire a producer to come and shoot a brief story about Ali, about Sam & Ross, whoever we want. Then, we talk with USN next year, we can say that we've got X amount of slots with X minutes to fill, and we fill 'em in with whatever fluff pieces work best.

2) QR Codes. When I was sitting at the bar last night, I wanted to know there the crane cam was, and I needed a map. Luckily, I was able to find the maps page that I linked on AP for Eddie a few days ago. Now I had a map up on my smartphone, and I kept it displayed for the rest of the race (when I wasn't play-by-playing on AP). I've heard about the recent trend of "second screens" during television broadcasts. People these days watch stuff on TV and have a second device in their hand so they can tweet or post about it. And some TV shows even have apps specifically for interacting online during the broadcast. Anyway, I thought it might be useful to have the map available as a second screen, and a way to do that would be to put a QR code in the corner of the screen that links to a map of the race that we're currently watching. Those who wouldn't care about maps would ignore it, but those who are interested would have a chance to look at the maps more than the few seconds we're seeing at a time.

This is wonderful news. One option to satisfy Pink Socks' idea #1 is to contract somebody out (or volunteer) that does the additional American coverage. pre and post race interview and perhaps even the 'fluff' pieces. The key thing with that is that you can perhaps get more $$ our product out of your sponsors if they are going to get x minutes on USN.

From talking with BJ it sounds like he is effectively the guy contracted to do the color for the American broadcast. That is, there are other people doing the same thing for the various other countries that are broadcasting. There's another English speaking commentator too, but I'm not exactly sure how they share those duties - maybe BJ handling more race-specific type analysis. It sounds like they also want to do some additional "color" bits ahead of time to paste in. So essentially all the points you brought up I think they are on to (except the QR codes or some online content pointer, which is a good idea - they'll pick your idea up from this thread). I think its too late for them to get more of Ali into the long, but they are trying to work more into the middle and relay shows.

Regarding the "commercial gap" where Ali's start was in the Sprint, I was watching that stream live on SVN during the actual race and they never showed Ali through that gap (or anywhere else on the course for the whole race). There were other interesting people coming through the TV controls at that point. They had just shown Tereza, and then cut away to the "forest" controls. When they went back to the start Ali was already on course. So even though there was a time gap for the commercial, I don't think they had the footage of Ali there to begin with. Otherwise they would have used it for sure on the American broadcast.

It does sound like they talked up Marten's time at NAU during the broadcast though. It was a talkover kind of interview while showing race footage or something else. Will have to listen for it in the audio when we get a copy or a re-broadcast.

I'm walking down to the local speakeasy now to try to catch tonight's Long Distance broadcast. Starts in 10 mins!

From what I heard in snippets that I caught -- it was two commentators talking to each other throughout the broadcast, one sort of clueless and the other one explaining all the time. Very cool stuff.

Just got back from work. There's a sports bar in the bowling alley behind my hotel, so I'll head down and give that a shot.

They have DirectTV, and I've asked for closed captioning!

Muahahaha! They gave me the remote and I've turned the sound on!

I missed the audio of Ali, but I saw her on screen!

I have a feeling the various establishments Pink_Socks and Eddie are hanging out in will quickly be cutting them off.....

I'm studying the scrolling flags a bit more, and the inclusion of the bib number is confusing. Is it a bib number? Is it a rank? I'd just use name, rank, and country flag and skip the bib number. The bib number is only useful when the runner is actually on screen and we're using it to identify who is who.

I miss Eddie. I feel like I'm talking to myself.

They've shown Ali 4 times now (just finished). Lots of fair coverage for her (and Kempster, too).

Still confused about the scrolling. The last time they used it, just one flag went by, and that was it.

Also, I'm now watching a Lifewatch commercial, which is new.

Well I'm no Eddie but I am following and appreciating the reports. Thanks!

The post-race dot race with the medal winners (+ 4th for this one) is the highlight every time. It's so cool.

Well, I struck out. Went to 6 places. Started on foot. The closet place to my house (250m) was closed for renovations until July 15. So I ran another 500m down that street to Lil Tonys pizza joint. 3 TVs, but only FIOS. "Lil' Tony" suggested I try the new sushi bar. It was 400m back the other direction, so off I went. The owner was the real deal - spoke in broken english. Only FIOS. She suggested the Green Turtle (sports bar, at hunt valley mall). I ran home, jumped in the car sweating like crazy and zipped up to the mall. 6:15 now. The Green Turtle had a gazillion screens, all with different events on (and a live band). They DID have DirecTV, but they didn't have channel 625 (USN). So I tried DIcks Sporting Goods next door which sometimes has things on, but nothing tonight. Finally I stopped at the Silver Spring Mining Co. tavern. They had about 8 screens, a loud local duo playing, and DirecTV! The bartender checked and said that channel was blocked.

Bartender, "It was something like 'Engineering' or something"
Eddie (excited) "Orienteering!"
Bartender, "yeah. But its blocked. Really sorry about that"

I've given up for tonight. :(

Ooh, the follow-me options to introduce the men's course is pretty awesome.

On the plus side, I found out there are 4-5 pretty nice taverns within a few of km of my house, and two of them had live music on a Thurs night.

I can't believe I'm at a sports bar, drinking a beer, and watching all of this awesomeness.

By the way, the USN schedule shows a replay of the evening's O program again at 2 AM. Assuming you're still in the bar at closing time.

Ok, the scrolling numbers are rankings, after all. I still don't understand when/why they are used.

So you're at some random location in Wichita, KS on a business trip and the first two places you walk into (a sports bar and a bowling alley) both have DirectTV with USN and you're sitting there having a beer watching orienteering on TV. And I'm in a suburb of an east coast city of ~2.5 million, go to 6 different places and come up with nothing?

Rock, Chalk, Jaybird.

One nitpick. In America, we don't use commas as decimals.

The scrolling flag is simply a visual guide for the incoming runner's split against the competitors. Much easier to see than trying to track the seconds counting.

Okay, okay. Seriously, it sounds like a pretty good show, no? Improvements over the sprint production? It sounds like the "follow-me" thing was a hit. The rankings are a bit confusing - maybe need some clarification? How is the color. Are there enough interviews? Too many? Anything missing you think would improve the feel? Have there been any Koptercam shots? How is the vuvuzela quotient (VQ)?

Show is fantastic. No interviews, though. No koptercam (I don't think so, at least). I love the dot races and follow me. It seems like they showed more dot races on the long because there were fewer TV controls per distance. Follow-me was a great intro to the course.

Maybe a 3d terrain look overplayed on Google Earth would be better for those who don't understand contours well.

Also, when they do then picture-in-picture with the map and a guy approaching the control (which is awesome), the GPS dot freezes.

Haven't heard much arena noise. But, it is loud in here.

Thanks, pi, for the explanation. I considered that when I saw it last, and it made more sense. It's still not intuitive because they don't show it every time.

Ha! They just showed the koptercam flying! But I still don't think much, if any, footage on TV is from that.

Nice recap of clips of Thierry.

Koptercam shot of a Finn running over a bridge.

Another koptercam of the crowd.

Oh, they finished with koptercam stuff instead of the dot race.

I liked the scrolling flags - watched them on the swedish tv that somebody had linked to the other day.

Interviews might be nice to get some personality to the athletes and to explain some of the "why". But the coverage is still really, really good. This is way beyond my expectations. Thanks for listening again. It may be tricky for me to watch tomorrow, though.

So glad you were able to see it anyway and you did a great job giving us a vicarious viewing experience.

USN is the most likely and probably the best outlet for orienteering coverage, but I don't know why NBC thinks it is in their best interest to restrict it. I don't even know anyone with Dish or Direct, and you can't get it on FIOS or Comcast or apparently buy individual events online. Kind of frustrating....

Here is the koptercam shot

http://yle.fi/urheilu/helikopteri_taltioi_mitalist...

Are there other sports besides orienteering where it's routine for someone to finish a good race by collapsing on the ground just past the finish line?

Mary Jo, Andrew and I just back from watching it at a local pub. I thought it was very good, the commentators knowledgably, and decent coverage of Emily and Ali. I did find the map pretty fuzzy whenever they showed it but that could be because it seemed the TV image was stretched to fit the screen width. We plan to go back tomorrow night.

This evening, I tried a different venue to watch the coverage--Charcoal Pit Sports Bar. It took the manager a while to find a remote control to change the station on one of their flat screen televisions. After all that, they didn't have the Universal Sports Network in their channel lineup (their feed was from Comcast), so I went back to Buffalo Wild Wings. This time, the manager set two televisions to play the broadcast. Closed captioning wasn't setup by default, but the manager quickly rectified that. Even though I had missed most of the Women's race, I was impressed all of tonight's coverage, especially with the camera following the competitors through the woods. Near the end of the broadcast, the commentator contrasted the beautiful weather for this event with the rainy day at the 1993 WOC north of New York City.

What about other people in these bars? Is anyone else watching the coverage? Or just established orienteers?

At Buffalo Wild Wings, the bartenders seemed interested and told other staff about bit. The other staff was asking since 5 of the TVs were on the same circuit, meaning it was on 5 TVs around the bar. People meeting up for drinks couldn't care less, but some of the lonely single guys were watching (trying to figure it out), and not watching the other sports talk shows (not much was live during this block).

At the bowling alley, nobody cared. It was empty when I arrived, and when I left it was full of families with kids because Thursday is BOGO pizza night. One mom was watching because it was the closest TV to her seat, but she have only cared because there was a random single dude watching this bizarre sport so intently.

At the place we were at, each booth has it's own 23"+/- widescreen so we were the only ones watching. But, we also got to hear the all the narrative.

The IOF website has an article about watching parties in the USA.
http://orienteering.org/watching-parties-all-aroun...

"The English language commentators are Clive Allen and David Brickhill-Jones."

Is commentary live on a race day and sync with what is seen on SVT or is it some time lag between SVT and USN? Is any chance to listen audio Live on internet?

Unsure, just checked. Do they commenting live and then the whole show is replayed on USN 12h later or do they comment 12h later when replay (or US production) is shown on USN?

I think they are doing the commentary for the US feed in post-production (during the day after the race) but not live during the first US broadcast itself.

My impression was that the commentary was happening live, that is during the actual race. At least my sense was that the commentators didn't know the outcome of the race though they certainly knew the runners to watch.

Oh, good! Otherwise you'd have to be a very good actor to keep it exciting.

Yes, we're doing the commentary live, direct to the international feed that is then going out on-line live, and as an edited programme (not sure how much editing) at 18.00 each evening.

Our opportunity for interviewing has been a bit limited, but Dave B-J interviewed Boris Granovskiy close to the beginning of the men's Middle final today about orienteering in USA. We'll try to get Ali in tomorrow (relay) but can't promise!

Very good pics from Finnish TV Company YLE and the tracking worked really well today. You'll see some interesting route choices and also mistakes in the Middle!

TW to carry Universal Sports:
http://fasterskier.com/article/time-warner-cable-t...

I was wondering what the potential market was. It says 40 million homes after TW brings it on board, so that would be DirecTV+TW. I really hope we can get some numbers on viewership of the O programs, and numbers on correlated hits to the OUSA site.

I haven't asked, but would it be possible to insert a 10-15 second shot of the OUSA logo with the URL (orienteeringusa.org) somewhere in one of the broadcasts? Maybe superimposed above someone during an interview or at some other flashy location in the broadcast. Flash the IOF flag and URL at the same time? Maybe they're already doing this. It would sure make Pink_Socks happy :)

That's something completely outside our control, at least, and would have to be negotiated in the US.

I guess its considered an embedded advertizement? The logo is on the team jerseys, but the URL isn't.

Are there other sports besides orienteering where it's routine for someone to finish a good race by collapsing on the ground just past the finish line?

You see it a lot in XC skiing, too, at least among the Euros.

And sometimes in pod racing...

In many running races that flop would hurt more.

During WOC 93 two of us were assigned to stand in the finish area and "catch" runners who were collapsing after crossing the finish line. Upon hearing this we looked at each other, each wondering if maybe we'd misheard our instructions and hoping the other would clarify.

After the finish of the 1500m in the Decathlon. Those dudes are usually sprawled on the track.

Re: Embedded advertisement
Just make sure OUSA logo and URL are prominent on future jerseys! .... and AliC's headband.

Are there other sports besides orienteering where it's routine for someone to finish by collapsing on the ground just past the finish line?

High Jumping?

I wonder if there's any way to know if google is getting more "orienteering" searches in the US during these air times? I presume we could look for a blip in hits to the OUSA website. Anything non-zero would be interesting.

The webmasters of the OUSA website would know a lot if they use an analytics tool. I've used Google Analytics, which is free.

As for Google searches, here's what you can see for searches from the last 30 days from the US market. There's not enough search volume to look at the last 7 days, apparently. Also, at the time of this posting, it only goes through Wednesday, so clicking that link will be more informative in a few days from now.

(If you want to see something depressing, here's the trend for "orienteering" in the US Market from 2004 through the present. My hypothesis is that most of the searches have nothing to do with our sport, but with the backcountry skill that hunters, hikers, and Boy Scouts need. The increased ubiquity of handheld GPS units with maps has probably lessened the amount of skill searching on the internet.)

I guess its considered an embedded advertizement? The logo is on the team jerseys, but the URL isn't.

Yeah, I would think that anything on the screen is part of the broadcast and covered in that part of the contract. There are numerous other ways to get your info on TV. Ads on the outfield walls in baseball, temporary tattoos on boxers, Gatorade cups at press conferences, etc. If this isn't negotiated ahead of time for next year, it would be perfectly legal (and easy) to get any US athlete into an O-USA t-shirt.

Are there other sports besides orienteering where it's routine for someone to finish a good race by collapsing on the ground just past the finish line?

Not a finish line per se, but it seems like this happens a lot at the end of big tennis matches.

Hi PinkSocks,

biggins generates a monthly Google Analytics report for the web team to review.

Time to incorporate ".org" on the Stacked Logo?
(examples here: http://www.cafepress.com/orienteeringusa/8423069)

Or ousa.org maybe?

Just called a BWW in Baltimore and they do indeed have USN! I'm on my way.

Server just put it on a couple screens for me at Brighton, MI's BW3s. Woot! Big tip earned.

At Chubby Balboas. Technical problems right now (:

Luckily I decamped to BWW where I saw what I surreptitiously saw this AM.

Just back from watching the middle finals on USN. Quite good. The womens race started with Ali at the starting line and they showed her at some of the TV controls and finishing too. Louise Oram showed up very briefly near the beginning. I was personally disappointed that they didn't have any footage of Emily Kemp but that's just me and overall, I thought they did a very good job with the coverage.

Oh, forgot to mention but one of the other waiters asked what we were watching. "orienteering World Championships" Well, he thought that's what it was and had done it once in high school as part of Phys Ed.

@Carlch, I can't imagine it's just you that's disappointed that there was no footage of Emily.

Emily and her perpetual smile while in the woods is perhaps the most endearing orienteer on the world stage right now. Who doesn't want to see that kind of enjoyment of our sport?

Short of having the American runners heavily highlighted on the US broadcast Emily is probably the most important athlete to show - the only North American orienteer with a JWOC or WOC medal, a young extremely talented, humble, smiling role model for young athletes. And are people going to be more inclined to orienteer after seeing Emily smile at the start middle and finish clearly enjoying the whole thing or after watching the medal winner show grit in slogging through physical woods (to pick a random opposite example)?

+1 like !!! Holy macaroni!

Unfortunately I don't think they had much footage of Emily to work with in the for-TV production today. Except for the start I think I only glimpsed her for a couple of seconds at one of the TV controls. Its possible I just missed it though. There was more footage of Louise that could have gone in.

In any case, I agree that coverage of the Canucks is just as valuable in the NA TV broadcast as the American faces. I would have liked to see Louise's start on TV before Ali's, especially since they went through the first TV control sequentially in the same segment a while later.

But I've been sitting here putting some thoughts together on what I took away from the TV broadcast tonight. I wasn't able to hear the audio, which is what I most wanted to hear. I had to read the captions, which just didn't work for getting the whole impression.

By the way BWW did indeed have the channel, but when I arrived the guys up front were clueless. They had a piece of paper with "all the sports events" listed on it, which was baseball/basketball/football/nascar and other (rugby and hockey). It wasn't on the paper so they didn't have it, they said. But eventually I was directed to a very helpful manager who opened up the A/V control box and we scrolled through the channels until we hit 625 - sure enough "World Orienteering Championships." Good to go. He set it up on 4 screens for me.

He said his brother had a degree in cartography, but was now selling tropical fish in California. I had one inquiry from a couple sitting behind me asking what we were watching. I had printed copies of the maps and they noticed they were the same as the ones on the TV. It was nice having the hardcopies with me for reference.

The main suggestion I have tonight (echoing Jeff and Carl) that could be implemented in the relay production would be to include the Canucks as well - especially the gals this year. In productions of Alpine ski racing on TV here, the americans and canadians usually get about equal coverage. I'm not sure how to describe it exactly other than its kindof the "we are all north americans competing in a European-dominated sport" thing. Not in a negative way, just in that we compete together alot in North American and tend to celebrate our collective progress at the elite level and in races with people we rarely get to race against. I haven't explained that well, but the gist is I think showing the CAN runners is good copy in the american TV broadcast. There's also a friendly "intra-continental" (regional in the IOF parlance) rivalry between the two, which will add to the excitement for both the US and CAN audiences - both the general public audiences and the orienteers.

I thought the production looked quite polished and professional. Comparing the TV broadcast with the whole program that I watched this morning was useful. The editing to boil-down the event into two hours had to be done. It felt like the GPS tracking segments shown were much shorter than when they aired in the main program. As an orienteer I may be biased in wanting to see more of the routes, but the main point is that even I was having trouble taking in the relevance of what was happening in the short segments. It would be nearly impossible for the general viewers to get it - even with the good commentary over the top. I know BJs tools were very limited here, and this is where some pre and post production could add value.

About the shots in the forest. This morning's live camerawork was really excellent. In the edited TV version there were several segments where it was just a shot of empty forest with the commentary (on the CC I was watching) was "where is he?" "where is she?" A little of that is ok to build suspense, but it felt slow. Instead, maybe just leave that airspace quiet and start talking as soon as you get a glimpse of the runner. Then it might be easier to edit after the production. Or just cut it out when editing.

There was one specific incident that was covered very well in the morning, but was "empty forest" footage in the TV broadcast. It was Minna's error at control #6. She was left. There was a camera on her, and she slowed down and stopped, looked at the map, looked around, finally saw the control and bolted for it. The camera caught it all. In the TV production the commentary mentioned "she doesn't see it" or something, but the camera shot was the one aimed at the control with nothing happening until she ran into frame. The other camera angle was much more interesting. It felt like you guys were watching a camera the audience wasn't privy to and it was confusing.

I *really* like the koptercam footage :) Please include more! And not just at the beginning and end of the show. That overhead shot you got of the start of Jukola was epic. If there's any way you could get some overheads of the runners either coming across the fields where the TV controls were or following them down the chute would be awesome. Anything that makes the flat running stretches more interesting would be good. The run-ins from the last control to the arena entry got repetitive (the chute runs themselves were ok with the flags waving and all). Overheads of the relay starts would be JUST_friggin'_AWESOME! :)

And one last specific that could be added easily in post-production: Use the GPS tool to replay the whole interval started race at 120 speed with full tails, while showing the entire map. Do this at the end of each race, men's and women's. This gives the viewers the "big picture" of how the race transpired and only takes a min or so of airtime. We may be so used to seeing these now that it feels routine, but I remember how cool it was when I first saw this done. I think it would add a big wow-factor for even general public viewers. Put it in right after the talk through of the results panels.

All of that is meant simply as feedback for you guys in case you want to try some other things, *not* as criticism. As I said, I think the production looked pretty slick! It was good just the way it was. Like Pink said, sitting in a bar drinking a beer and watching WOC on TV was pretty cool. As an orienteer, it was a top notch way to spend a couple of hours.

Everything else I could think of are ideas about the production itself to add interest. Most of them involve pre or post-production work. So these would be long-term things if we were to (by some miracle) get this opportunity again. Things like the short face-to-face interviews after finishes which you've already mentioned, etc. I'll write them down later.

I was personally disappointed that they didn't have any footage of Emily Kemp

I missed the USN broadcast of the Middle, but I did watch (and listen) to the Long, and there was a lot of Emily, almost as much as there was of Ali. I remember watching Emily start, through at least two of the TV controls, and into the finish. But during, the Long, there wasn't any Louise.

We want more of everything. More GPS, more koptercam, more Ali, more Emily, and it's a tough balance, because what do you take away? What's the purpose of the broadcast? If it's to promote American orienteering, you show more of Ali and the Americans. If it's to promote orienteering in North America, then you show more of Ali and the Kempster. If it's to showcase the sport of orienteering in general, you show more of the cool stuff (dot races, people getting lost, koptercam footage).

Use the GPS tool to replay the whole interval started race at 120 speed with full tails, while showing the entire map. Do this at the end of each race, men's and women's.

Did they do any post-race dot-races in the Middle coverage? After the women's Long, they did a dot race with the top four, with synced starts, and it was fantastic. They even rotated the map around so the leg was up. The didn't do anything for the men, sadly. I'd rather have a synced dot race of the winners than a staggered dot race of everyone. That said, a "big picture" dot race would be useful, so maybe one of each; synced after the women's race to show some of the juicier route-choice and nav error stuff with the leaders, and a "big picture" staggered dot race after the men to show people how these races play out over the course of several hours. Or vice versa.

We've said over and over and over how awesome all of this is, and I think we're enjoying it so much that we all want more of it. More Ali, more koptercam, more maps, more Emily, more interviews, more more more! Ok, maybe less of people collapsing into heaps at the finish line ;-)

From my memory of the pictures we were commentating on, there was quite a bit of Emily at the Middle start and at places on the course, but not at the finish.Maybe some was edited out? It's useful for us to get all these comments and suggestions, and I hope there can be some kind of full evaluation afterwards so that it can be even better if we get another chance next year.

Relay today. It's Julian Dent instead of BJ sharing commentary today - BJ has to fly his copters. I hope we can get in an interview with Ali, but it can be difficult because so much can be happening in the relay and we have no extra time before or after. We'll see what we can do.

Yeah, the relay edit is going to be a job. :) Thanks for all the hard work though!

We did do interviews with both Emily and Ali today, I do hope they include them. There were some good shots of CAN & USA team members at various stages, especially on the first leg when Ali was second out into the forest.

Especially good tracking stuff today, coupled with excellent pics and tight production. I think the best they've done all week. Enjoy!

Eddie, my Kansas magic ran out!

I went out with my parents to their favorite sports bar in Kansas City, and they had DirecTV, but no subscription to USN. I used the Sports Bar Finder app (published by DirecTV) that said that this place had DirecTV. The app allows you to filter by sport if you wish, but unsurprisingly, orienteering isn't one of those sports.

But, my wife was able to go to a watch party in Seattle, so that was good!

We watched at Buffalo Wild Wings in Lawrence.

I should add that there was a camera failure at control 3 after the first leg of the men's, that's why there were only split times being shown at that location thereafter.

A few of us watched at BWW in San Jose on Saturday. Since the rebroadcasts were at 3PM here on the left coast, I don't think many people saw the weekday ones. I called a bunch of places and most that had Direct TV didn't know if they had USN or not. The manager at BWW was nice enough to check and find out.
We only saw Eric and Ali at the starts of the relay. Might have seen Emily, but I'm not sure.

Since BWW is a national chain and known for crazy good sports viewing, my guess is that every location has the deal with DirecTV to have everything.

In this thread, the BWW in Wichita, Lawrence, Brighton, Baltimore, San Jose, and wherever j-man watched all had USN. And everywhere else was hit and miss.

Next year, USN may have more carriers, but I guess we learned that, when on doubt, go to a BWW.