4. What are GoPro's chances of success?
4. What are GoPro's chances of success?
Its easy to dismiss the chances of this working due to the traditional complexities and politics of pro cycling and the unwillingness of the stakeholders involved to work together to find a commercially viable solution.
Yes, like many of the current issues affecting pro cycling, all of these groups need to work together to create meaningful reform and exploit new and exciting commercial opportunities, and this sort of project represents a great chance to move in that direction.
What GoPro have on their side are some very deep pockets and I suspect their motivation here is far more about brand recognition and creating compelling content (in much the same way Red Bull has turned itself into an action sports broadcaster), rather than a simple sponsorship-based commercial return.
With that in mind, a partnership with a select few high profile teams that don’t present sponsor conflicts (how about Omega Pharma-QuickStep, Tinkoff-Saxo and Movistar for starters?) could work very well. The race organisers and broadcasters could be kept happy by GoPro paying a rights fee for using the content, while also sharing it with broadcasters to enhance their TV product.
Assuming the teams are also compensated by GoPro, the issue of bike weight can easily be overlooked, especially on flat stages and sprint finishes which will undoubtably provide the best content. All of which takes the UCI out of the equation, at least in the short term.
The holy grail for this sort of technology is to see it implemented across the whole peloton in real time in the same way that on-car footage works in F1. The only way for that to happen is with the UCI’s direction and a revenue sharing agreement between both teams and race organisers.
Alex Palmer is a sports industry consultant and former head of Canyon UK and marketing director of Slipstream Sports. Follow Alex on Twitter – @ajmpalmer