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I'm doing some research for a potential project. I'm interested in minority sports that get little/no TV coverage, but use the web really well - streaming or videos of events, extra content, inside information - that kind of thing.
With more and more content being consumed via PCs, games consoles, tablets and smartphones, TV coverage shouldn't be essential these days to build up an audience for a sport.
Are there any examples that you could point me to?
www.pinkbike.com
Unicycling has a lot of web stuff. The recent world championships in Italy were shown on http://unicycle.tv/. There is also a massive on-line community at unicyclist.com. It's certainly a minority sport as most people still have the clown image for unicyclists but there is some real skill and talent out there.
Adventure racing - we race with gps units that send tracking positions every 10 mins. Overlaid onto Google maps etc has changed the spectating aspect of what is a pretty mental sport ! Have a look at the recent Adidas terrex in Stirling live.adidas-AR.com or something like that. I have done heaps of talks on our races using the tracking data and photos etc to show what it was like at ground level !
Ultimate Frisbee has a pretty good web presence. Checkout blockstack.tv for starters, podcasts and live streaming.
Freecaster did really well with the downhill and the 4x when they had it.
Redbull has some decent stuff on it, love the crazy urban downhill ice skating thing they do.
Downhill MTB
The number of rider/team produced videos pumped out each month is huge. Proper high quality stuff too. On top of that the worldcups are all broadcast live on Red Bull TV with full on demand catch up available as well.
Look at pink bike for a US flavour or Dirt for the british take.
Not sure if you'd define sailing as a minorty sport, perhaps you might.
GPS tracking of races is growing (eg by Yellow Brick for races frmo club level upto international) - have a search or drop me an email (in profile).
The Volvo Ocean Race and America's Cup have budgets in he many millions (even 100's of millions) - they are using on-line streaming content a lot, the Volvo race had a specific media crew member aboard each boat.
Lower down the scale you can search YouTube for AdonnanteTV
Thanks - that's the kind of stuff I'm after. Essentially, a big barrier to sponsorship of minority sports is the amount of coverage and size of audience a sponsor can get. If a sport isn't on television there is likely to be less interest.
However - people are watching more things, and consuming more content through channels other than TV. This means that you could build an audience on the web and therefore be more attractive to sponsors. Some sports might even be better suited to web coverage rather than TV.
Keep the ideas coming, I'll look at the examples posted so far.
Competition climbing, especially bouldering, has seen a big increase in popularity coinciding with broadcasting of IFSC world cups.
Arm Wrestling with Chaz & Dave? Inner-city Sumo? Monkey Tennis?
I was going to say unicycling too (and unicyclist.com in particular). It is shocking how easy it is for even a complete non-organisational idiot like me to run and publicise an event with the help of internet forums, facebook etc.
One thing that is interesting about the internet is how accessible the 'big' names in minority sports are - I can think of several world record holding athletes I've ridden with, along with the owners of several of the companies involved in unicycling, and I am far from the most keen or skilled rider myself.
Underwater hockey's not bad when it comes to worlds & euro champs - live streaming (on 247.tv) of every game, usually with a couple of fixed cameras on the bottom, one or 2 handheld underwater & a surface cam so you can see the refs. High quality replays were available for download too for a couple of quid. Not sure it's really broadened the interest in the sport though.