Five Borough Bike Tour Rides Nowhere Online

Posted by Jonathan in INTERNET on 05-04-10    No Comments

It looks like Trey Wingo’s cool ESPN jobs is safe  for now. Socially created sporting events probably wont be posing much of threat.

Last weekend, north of 32,000 bikers rode a bit more than 42 miles through New York’s five boroughs in the Five Borough Bike Tour. This annual rite of spring here in the Big Apple is a cyclist’s dream: The city closes everything from 6th Ave to the BQE to the Verrazono Bridge to car traffic so cyclists can take a leisurely ride through the city. And the event has never been more popular. The Tour sold out within 5 days from its Feb 1 on-sale date for the $50 registration fee. And the aftermarket for credentials was brisk: VIP passes were going for north of $200 online.

You got that right, there were Bike Tour scalpers.

But one area that was not hot for biking in New York was online. Despite having all the trappings of an instant sports network, a la Frisbee golf or Rollberderby, the Bike Tour was a nonevent in new media. Literally, nobody participated in various Bike Tour online events. And I mean NOBODY. The YouTube “Channel”  had no comments, 45 total subscribers, and get this, this year’s video clip was viewed all of 46 times! My niece’s Bat Mitzvah did better than that. Ouch.

The point here is, as any American hockey fans will tell you, a popular sport both in person and in the media is a delicate balance between the sport and the way it is covered. And the magic events that master that balance, like the NFL, are not found on trees.

The fact is, not matter how social, participatory, or popular some sports are, for some reasons they will never find a large audience either in old media or in new. And biking looks to be a perennial media loser.

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