How to Grow Women's Pro-Cycling

[Flying_Monkey]

I disagree, now don't take this the wrong way and I'm not trying to disrepectful, but like most top sports women, they suffer from bouts of delusion

You're actually verging on outright misogyny now. It's worse than disrespectful.

 

[thom]

Ofcourse some of you make sense (as clearly indicated by quite a few "likes"). However .....
..... Even I sometimes prefer watching men compete! And, yes, they might watch women as well, when they have absolutely nothing better to do or as said before in combined events.

I can't help feel that all sports are a bit like that though. If you build something and market it, people will come and watch it.

It may be the wrong time to look for cycling sponsorship because of it's problems and because of the economy so that purely financial aspect is really hard.

One thing the UCI want to encourage is the complementary men's/women's teams. Perhaps if there was a cross-over of UCI points, so say half the women's team points would contribute to the men's team when teams try to qualify for the various tour categorisations every few years (and vice-versa, men's points go to women's teams), then you see for example you can help secure Tour de France entry based upon having a decent women's team.

 

[Spinney]

I can't help feel that all sports are a bit like that though. If you build something and market it, people will come and watch it..

"If you build it, they will come...."

 

[Marshmallow_Fluff]

I can't help feel that all sports are a bit like that though. If you build something and market it, people will come and watch it. .

Exactly what I'm saying! It's a vicious circle.. They need the reasurance that if they put the money to market it, there will be a -significant- profit and without marketing, there is no popularity that in its turn may secure a certain degree of profit..
The problem is that the ones willing to gumble on women's sports (not necessarily cycling) lost their bets and as you very well said, during "lean years" the preference is swifted towards safer investments..

"If you build it, they will come...."

You are right! (great movie btw) But the question is: who is going to "build it", when they know their money will have greater and faster return if they target the opposite sex?

 

[thom]

the problem I see here, it really will only help the top teams with the healthy budgets, big sponsers etc, who will then buy the top women riders....
I don't see how this would encourage the lesser sponsors to continue sponsoring...

But the big teams don't need to do it - smaller teams like say an AG2R or Euskadi-Euskaltel who are struggling for points could possibly use it as a way in.
You could say that if they had two teams, the points target is lower, or other criteria for entry are relaxed.

 

[thom]

look I'm just throwing out some stupid ideas, I don't really have a solution but this problem is common in most womens sports.

Sure, I don't think anyone has them - it's clearly not an easy problem but unless people come up with ideas of any sort, nothing changes.

Good ideas are hard to find - you need a good few stupid ones first ;-)

 

[Marshmallow_Fluff]

it looks like my post was removed, which is fair enough, I apologise if any offence was caused but I stand by comments aimed at flying monkey and hope he read them before they were removed...

I think also he meant "chauvinism" (prejudice towards a gender, or group) and not "misogyny" (hatred towards female as a whole), as clearly there was no hint of hatred towards women in your post..
Lots of people get confused, but I admit it sounds good!

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I think also he meant "chauvinism" (prejudice towards a gender, or group) and not "misogyny" (hatred towards female as a whole), as clearly there was no hint of hatred towards women in your post...

This is OT, but I meant what I said. Misogyny encompasses far more than that outdated dictionary definition - for example, see this recent story prompted by Julia Gillard's rather epic take-down of her misogynistic opposite number in the Australian parliament.

 

[Marshmallow_Fluff]

This is OT, but I meant what I said. Misogyny encompasses far more than that outdated dictionary definition - for example, see this recent story prompted by Julia Gillard's rather epic take-down of her misogynistic opposite number in the Australian parliament.

Your opinion. Allow me to have one as well. In my opinion IOTCB's post was chauvinistic and not misogynistic. Outdated or not, until someone actually forms it differently -surprisingly enough- I'd rather take the dictionary as reference! No offense..

 

[resal]

Applying sense and market forces is wrong. Rigged markets remain rigged and defeat norms, for centuries if necessary. This is a rigged market - from the governance - women's 500m TT/ men's kilo, through to the male commentator who talks in so derogatory manner of women's races or in Hugh Porter's case often talks over the race about the next men's race. Sky are a massive part of the problem and it sickens me each time I read about their initiatives to grow the sport at the grass roots - only have aspiration if you are male.

There is only one way to break a rigged market and that is with legislation. Anything else and you will be planning going around the same tree, in 75 year's time.

So - I am sorry to say, I have a view - Are the guys at Sky who make the decisions not to do a women's team chauvinists or misogynists ? Are Harmon, Porter and the others chauvinists or misogynists ? Are the rulemakers at the UCI chauvinists or misogynists ? Are the program commissioners at Eurosport chauvinists or misogynists ? Dead easy test. Swap the story.

Instead of male/female [because that is ok the poor weak little girls, well they are no good at sport anyway and they don't really want to do it, well only the weird ones anyway, and nobody is interested in it anyway, well not anybody who counts, like a man, well I suppose they might watch it if all the other channels are broken and the porno channels have not started up yet (Fluff - that is exactly how you come across !)] make it

white/black. We will segregate sport on colour of skin. We will restrict event lengths and Tour lengths. We will rig sports coverage. We will show lots of white people racing but never ever show a complete black race apart from the Olympics or World Championships when we will look and point and beat our chests and say how fair we are, And on those few occasions when we see a black person race, we will have only white people report on black peoples races and they can make outrageous comments about how they are not real racers and decry them at all points. As a consequence, pay for backs would be about 100th that of the equivalent white athlete and then as a defence we could say that they did not ride the same distance so that justifies them earning 100th of the white athletes and we can have a nice warm feeling that we have justified our outrageous and disgusting attitudes. Would that be modest bias or an outrage against humanity ?

Flying Monkey gets my vote.

 

[Marshmallow_Fluff]

Brilliant speech! What do you propose exactly?

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Your opinion. Allow me to have one as well. In my opinion IOTCB's post was chauvinistic and not misogynistic. Outdated or not, until someone actually forms it differently -surprisingly enough- I'd rather take the dictionary as reference! No offense..

This is getting silly. 'The dictionary' (in this case, the OED) has more in it than you claimed and has done for at least a decade. That's not really a matter of opinion. I am not saying that the definition of misogyny you provided is wrong - it is the older definition of misogyny - only that you were incorrect to claim that I was wrong.

And whether our Irish exile in Spain is 'angry' about this or not is something he needs to deal with. I'd rather talk with people like resal who know and love women's cycling.

 

[oldroadman]

Applying sense and market forces is wrong. Rigged markets remain rigged and defeat norms, for centuries if necessary. This is a rigged market - from the governance - women's 500m TT/ men's kilo, through to the male commentator who talks in so derogatory manner of women's races or in Hugh Porter's case often talks over the race about the next men's race. Sky are a massive part of the problem and it sickens me each time I read about their initiatives to grow the sport at the grass roots - only have aspiration if you are male.

There is only one way to break a rigged market and that is with legislation. Anything else and you will be planning going around the same tree, in 75 year's time.

So - I am sorry to say, I have a view - Are the guys at Sky who make the decisions not to do a women's team chauvinists or misogynists ? Are Harmon, Porter and the others chauvinists or misogynists ? Are the rulemakers at the UCI chauvinists or misogynists ? Are the program commissioners at Eurosport chauvinists or misogynists ? Dead easy test. Swap the story.

Instead of male/female [because that is ok the poor weak little girls, well they are no good at sport anyway and they don't really want to do it, well only the weird ones anyway, and nobody is interested in it anyway, well not anybody who counts, like a man, well I suppose they might watch it if all the other channels are broken and the porno channels have not started up yet (Fluff - that is exactly how you come across !)] make it

white/black. We will segregate sport on colour of skin. We will restrict event lengths and Tour lengths. We will rig sports coverage. We will show lots of white people racing but never ever show a complete black race apart from the Olympics or World Championships when we will look and point and beat our chests and say how fair we are, And on those few occasions when we see a black person race, we will have only white people report on black peoples races and they can make outrageous comments about how they are not real racers and decry them at all points. As a consequence, pay for backs would be about 100th that of the equivalent white athlete and then as a defence we could say that they did not ride the same distance so that justifies them earning 100th of the white athletes and we can have a nice warm feeling that we have justified our outrageous and disgusting attitudes. Would that be modest bias or an outrage against humanity ?

Flying Monkey gets my vote.

Crikey, do you feel better for getting that out in the open?

 

[Marshmallow_Fluff]

This is getting silly. 'The dictionary' (in this case, the OED) has more in it than you claimed and has done for at least a decade. That's not really a matter of opinion. I am not saying that the definition of misogyny you provided is wrong - it is the older definition of misogyny - only that you were incorrect to claim that I was wrong.

And whether our Irish exile in Spain is 'angry' about this or not is something he needs to deal with. I'd rather talk with people like resal who know and love women's cycling.

This type of anger and aggressiveness is the very reason many CC members are reluctant to post in this type of threads!
FGS Monkey, I never disagreed with you per se, I just didn't think that IOTCB's post was that offensive and found it too harsh to be called misogynist!! This is my opinion. If you're not interested in hearing different opinions, or if you'd rather talk with like minded people like resal, I'd suggest to invite them over to your place for coffee and chat.. no reason for open forum threads!

 

[Marshmallow_Fluff]

Instead of male/female [because that is ok the poor weak little girls, well they are no good at sport anyway and they don't really want to do it, well only the weird ones anyway, and nobody is interested in it anyway, well not anybody who counts, like a man, well I suppose they might watch it if all the other channels are broken and the porno channels have not started up yet (Fluff - that is exactly how you come across !)] make it.

I've been a woman for the last 43 years and pro athlete for 16, so allow me to know first hand about how people perceive women in sports!
Now if you like to believe that men would prefer to watch women's cycling over men's given the choice (and feel free to swap porno channels with Champions League, Premier League, Rugby Union Heineken Cup, the Ashes or any other goodies for that matter..) be my guest! That's your opinion and we live in a free country!