Cycling and Fencing

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No, not the posthole digging kind of fencing :P

I'm having a lively discussion on a fencing board I frequent about reasons why fencing seems so repellent to sports TV coverage.

We're trying to figure out why even Timber Sports get far more coverage than Fencing :)

I used the example of road cycling as a possible explanation... That far from the sport, its the sport personalities that drive the popularity and coverage... Cycling has Lance Armstrong, wether or not you love him or hate him... and because of him, cycling has gotten and continues to get a huge boost in interest... and Fencing has basically, no one, as far as a personality that Amercians can latch their interest too...

Just kind of curious how many cyclists here also Fence foil...

Have a good one!

Feanor

Another fencer!!! cool

yeah i fence as well although its been a while!!

so where is this fencing board?

Hi duck! :)

Apologies, I should have placed the link in case people wanted to look in... Here it is:

http://www.fencing101.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=7565

Yikes! That's a cryptic link... Hope it doesn;t truncate in the URL line :)

I think the funniest message in the thread is the one where the person quotes an ESPN spokesman about how Fencing is considered "Nerdy" and yet ESPN prempted regular sports programming to televise the National Spelling Bee! *laughing*

Have a good one!

Feanor

As for the sports coverage

1. Fencing is hard to watch unless you know whats going on, i took some guys to see the fencing at the last olympics and they couldn't follow the action till it was replayed in slow motion

2. everyone is all covered up, its hard to identify with people who all look the same

3. people think its a snooty upper class sport

4. outside of europe most people never get a chance to try it and therefore don't understand it