For fans of snow and ice sports, it’s Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one.
Coming soon to a screen near you: live coverage of the entire World Cup ski season and world championships, both on TV and streamed live on the internet.
We kid you not.
Not only that, but the entire season of bobsled, skeleton and luge, too.
Universal Sports, a new 24-hour television channel, and new website universalsports.com will kick off coverage by showing the men’s downhill and super-G live Saturday and Sunday from Lake Louise, Canada. The women’s races in Aspen – giant slalom and slalom, are also scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Check the website for times.
And it won’t stop there. You’ll be able to see every race, from Lake Louise and Aspen to Bormio and St. Moritz, to Kitzbuhel and Garmisch. NBC Sports and Universal Sports will show the Feb. 2-15 world championship from Val d’Isere. (NBC will also broadcast from Aspen and Beaver Creek this weekend and next.)
The increase in visibility comes at a great time as the 2010 Winter Olympics are just 15 months away, and U.S. skiers posting the best results in a generation.
Broadcasters include Tim Ryan for NBC Sports, along with former Canadian ski star Todd Brooker, and ex-U.S. ski team members Steve Porino and Kristina Kosnick. Phil McNichol, U.S. team former head coach, along with Porino and Steve Schlanger, will do the Universal Sports on-air broadcast.
U.S. skiers like Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn, defending World Cup overall champions, are coming off strong starts to the season, with Miller nabbing a second-place finish and Vonn winning in the first World Cup of the season, both in slalom.
Formerly known as wcsn.com, Universal Sports is now a partnership between NBC Sports and InterMedia Partners that, among other things, broadcasts summer and winter Olympic sports.
Universal Sports is a 24-hour television channel that plans to expand beyond its current audience of 30 million television households in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Washington D.C., San Diego, San Francisco, Hartford, New Haven, Las Vegas, Reno, Omaha and Albany, N.Y.
What that means is more opportunity to see sports you usually have to search for in the paper or on TV.
If you don’t live in a Universal Sports channel city, go to the universalsports.com website for video streaming, often during the event. If you miss it, you can check out the video archives. And there’s no charge to subscribe.
The website also features athlete blogs, schedules, wire reports and other coverage of sports like track and field, figure skating, triathlon, swimming, cycling and more. If you’re a bobsled and skeleton fan, same-day video will be available this weekend from the World Cup opener in Winterberg, Germany. Luge, too, starts this weekend.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your clickers.
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