Inside the Gravel Worlds live broadcast
A look at how Gravel Worlds provided a start-to-finish livestream
For years, gravel race organizers have sought out a way to broadcast their events. While races like the Tour de France and mountain bike World Cup have professional TV coverage and the audiences that follow, the growing discipline of gravel faces obstacles to broadcast coverage such as remote locations and high costs.
Last weekend, Gravel Worlds produced what may have been the highest-quality gravel broadcast to date. Tens of thousands of viewers followed along as eventual winners Lauren Stephens and Simen Nordhal Svendsen won the marquee 150-mile distance, and the broadcast cut to the shorter distance races as well. There was also a finish line camera broadcasting live for any participant’s friends or family to watch them cross the line.
As professional gravel racing gains more steam, there is a growing demand for live start-to-finish coverage. Other races have tried this to varying degrees of success, but how did the 15-year-old race in Nebraska pull it off? I spoke with Gravel Worlds promoters Jason Strohbehn and Sofia Gibson to find out.
The race contracted with production company BCC Live who are experienced in broadcasting triathlons and other sports. BCC provided five camera operators and the tech operation, while Gravel Worlds supplied vehicles, drivers, and commentators.
Dede Griesbauer and Matt Lieto were in the commentary studio, with Bill Schieken and Amanda Nauman of the Grodeo Podcast out on course providing field commentary.
There were two cameras focused on the men’s race and two on the women’s race. In addition, two of the five camera operators were also drone pilots. The fifth camera roved around the course catching chase groups and other categories and distances.
“Something that was important was that we weren't just focusing on whoever was leading the race,” Gibson said. “We wanted to really show how dynamic a race can be so that's why we wanted multiple vehicles for both the women's and the men's races, so that they could go back and get coverage of the chasing group, and even further behind that, just kind of see how the race played out, not just the leaders or who would inevitably go on to win.”
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A struggle for other gravel races attempting a broadcast has been cell service. Similar to other sports broadcasts, the cameras catching the action use cell service to transmit the images to a central location, where producers then send it out into the world in real time.
Races like Unbound Gravel have run into this problem, with cell service being spotty in Kansas’ Flint Hills. In 2022, Unbound race organizer Life Time contracted with FloSports to broadcast the entirety of the Life Time Grand Prix, but scrapped the plan mid-season due to problems such as the lack of connectivity in remote locations.
Gravel Worlds didn’t face this problem thanks to geographic and telecommunication luck.
“We're a big gravel town, but we have cell service for the entire course,” Strohbehn said. “So that was the big logistical thing that would be a lot harder for other races to pull off. At least here in the US, a lot of them, once you leave those towns there's just absolutely no service out on the gravel roads, where we have 4g or 5g pretty much the entire course.”
Another challenge for race promoters are budgets. Nothing is ever set in stone in the bike industry, and the post-COVID business environment has led to less sponsorship opportunities for races and athletes alike.
Gravel Worlds’ parent company is the Nebraska-based Goodlife Brands. Gibson said that Goodlife also sponsored the live coverage. Sponsorship dollars also went toward the equal men’s and women’s elite prize purses plus the women’s race prime. This meant that Gravel Worlds did not pull money from registration fees to cover these expenses, keeping the cost of entry at $185 for the 150-mile race, which is in line with the race’s goal of creating a good experience for both amateurs and pros.
“That's our goal,” Strohbehn said. “The pros will be fine, but we want to have a place that everyone feels welcome here. That's where our focus is.”
While Strohbehn did not give an exact dollar amount for the broadcast coverage, he speculates that the cost may not be as much as you would think. It’s certainly cheaper than broadcasting an NFL game, for example, likely putting the cost closer to other endurance sports. Factors like logistics, technology, and the amount of people needed impact the overall cost so it’s challenging to make an apples-to-apples comparison with other sports.
The livestream will be back next year, and Strohbehn wants to put a particular emphasis on the women’s race. The goal is to have 1,000 women cross the line across all categories, he says.
Whatever we do for the pros, we want to do for the 99-percent [of other riders],” Gibson added. “Historically, that has been our race, and we want to make sure that's protected and that history is continued.”