Quote Originally Posted by wyler View Post
that's a bit mixed up. some things are true, others are totally unrelated.
true that most of casual fans occur from far away, but they are also fans with little to no interest in how points are collected. they are ok with a classification. regulation is on hard fans, that most likely follow roadside.
for new fans, official footage is getting ok, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxlpMvWndh4. The same goes for how it works, there was some special content on official media, that was ok as an introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XQeec-c9k4 shakedown is free, so non-existent is a bit too harsh. You seem to underestimate the effect of having fans in the tv coverage. The best way to convince a show is good is to see people there. proves that the most engaging content from monte was people and fireworks on the tourniquets, way more than results. as u said correctly, new fans/general fans get in love with the atmosphere, best way to boost the feeling is to have real participation shown on tv. also, i don't have data from rallytv obviously, but thinking that there are similar fans on a loop of stages than on rally tv could be not so ridiculous. generic tv is another thing.
Everyone who starts following rallying and have an interest in the championship will care about the points scored. You don't pass from casually watching a couple of rally videos to travelling to spectate WRC events, there's a huge portion of fans inbetween, the good majority I'd say.
That official footage you linked is raw footage, not highlights. Highlights allow you to follow what's happening during the rally, with times, couple of short interviews, tyre strategies info etc... what we have right now are short day highlights that go "Rovanpera pushed a lot this afternoon" while showing Rovanpera driving for 10 seconds. Plenty of fans, who mostly aren't going abroad to follow WRC live nor are paying to watch All Live, ask for more, but they'll probably get nothing.
It's true that I might underestimating the effect of spectators in the coverage, as I don't care much to see fans or not on stages when I'm following the rally live.