Relative Something

How many of you are watching the Tour de France this month? I’ve heard from several people who aren’t normally inclined to watch sports on television, that they are watching broadcasts of this race. I’ve not seen this much television for a long time. I think I’ve got every commercial memorized already, ad nauseum. Versus Channel does a great job of broadcasting this race to the US audience, inbetween the commercials. In the morning, it is shown live as it happens, and then rerun throughout the day, culminating in a 3-hour prime time feature that is edited to capture the most important highlights of the race with the addition of informative stories and interviews with racers and managers.

I particularly enjoyed the review of the history of the race; how it started as a way to sell more newspapers back in 1903. This version says some of the roads of France got paved as improvements for the race as it became a bigger spectacle. It amazes me how big an event it grows to become, drawing the world’s attention and inspiring the amazing technological advances to equipment and training improvements for athletes. Imagine what it would be like for the 60 racers who competed before anyone had heard of this event, to see what it has become today.

It brings to mind similar thoughts I’ve had about the machine that is the National Football League, NFL, in the US. Of course, it applies to all sports, in the way a simple game that was probably more of a club level of competition catches on as a spectator sport and eventually becomes a corporate juggernaut worth millions of dollars. It begins to take on a life of its own and nothing is out of the question to gain an advantage or sell more interest.

This year, in the Tour de France, they plan to control 2 of the stage races in a throwback to the days before technology took over and disallow use of radios between riders and the managers in the team cars. I like it. I must admit that I am torn between the two worlds. I appreciate the intensity of the present level of competion and am in awe of the amount of information being processed in that car and how it translates to performance of the riders. But I also want to see how it will play out, racing like they used to in the days before the radios.

Whenever I can, I’ll be watching the morning live broadcasts to catch the excitement as it happens. Will you?