2021 brought back a mountain bike World Cup season in the way we love and enjoy it – six World Cup races per discipline, suspense until final races and, last but not least, spectators back on-site. Of course, all who could not make it to the venues all across Europe and the US, were able to watch the full action of every World Cup race live on Red Bull TV. RASOULUTION were tasked with communications and media activation for this livestream and the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in general.
As a long-term partner of the Red Bull Media House, RASOULUTION had been providing PR and media activation for the events and their broadcast for several years now. For the last two years however, the focus of our communication has changed. With the mountain bike community already heavily activated, the spotlight shifted away from special interest media, towards a more general audience.
For this new audience, that might previously of had no connection to mountain biking at all, a new communications strategy had to be developed and employed. With a niche sport like mountain biking – at least compared with more mainstream sports like football, tennis, or formula 1 – that rarely crosses the threshold of general interest media, new perspectives and story angles had to pass the gatekeeper.
To accomplish the new goal, RASOULUTION had to delve deep into details of the World Cup circus to single out personalities of certain athletes that would provide an interesting story within a specific media outlet or research and develop story approaches suitable for the different countries’ audiences.
Next to stories and content it has been a crucial part of our work to identify the key contact persons for each respective story, to find the one journalist from each media office that has an open ear for mountain bike stories.
Despite strong competition for media awareness in 2021 (like the UEFA European Championships, the Olympic Games, etc.), we were able to facilitate 18 print and online publications in seven countries globally, ranging from classical news media like CNN, Le Figaro or F.A.Z. to big sports outlets like AS or national lifestyle magazines like SHAPE. We helped journalists to create explanatory pieces on downhill mountain biking, presented mountain bike racers as role models, organized interviews with World Cup leaders and local heroes and provided race reports at the right time to achieve the biggest impact.
With our work on behalf of the Red Bull Media House we not only push the numbers of live broadcast viewers, but also, and maybe even more important, push mountain biking. Step by step help this fantastic sport to reach the recognition it deserves. The 2022 season is about to start and we cannot wait to keep working in this direction.
All photos by © Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool
