'Why should we expect them to watch for seven hours?' - Hushovd on cycling's entertainment problem

Speaking on the Domestique Hotseat podcast, Hushovd was asked what cycling might look back on in ten years and wonder why it had not changed sooner.

His answer was not about equipment, aerodynamics or nutrition.

"I think we should consider how life is for a fifteen year old kid today, who doesn't even have time to watch a thirty second social media video," Hushovd said.

"And why should we expect that these people should sit and watch a bike race over four, five, six, seven hours, racing from A to B, and half of the time the peloton sits and talks or there's one guy up the road?"

Hushovd believes cycling has to treat entertainment as a central part of how the sport develops.

"All sports, and cycling too, are entertainment. So we have to think about how we entertain the public today, live or the TV audience," he said.

Asked whether the UCI should consider a criterium world championship, Hushovd said the format was worth exploring.

"There's no doubt that a race set up like this is more entertainment than a five hour road race from A to B. So I think this is something we should look into."

Hushovd is not the only senior figure in the sport to question whether racing from A to B should remain the default.

Visma | Lease a Bike CEO Richard Plugge recently suggested shorter circuits could offer an answer to some of cycling's safety problems following the death of Fin Tarling.

"If racing from A to B over 200 kilometres on public roads no longer works, then we have to ride circuits of 15, 20 or 25 kilometres, provided those roads can be made 100 percent safe," Plugge told WielerFlits.

Plugge also questioned how sustainable long point to point races will be as securing public roads becomes more difficult.

"What does our sport look like in five years? Can we still race 200 kilometres from A to B? Probably not, because then you need a thousand traffic marshals," he said.

Hushovd also addressed the practical limits of keeping long road races safe during the interview.

"In a road race, it's impossible because you have 200 kilometres and there's two sides of the road, so that's 400 kilometres. It's almost impossible," he said.

While he believes organisers and the UCI have to do more, Hushovd said there are limits to what can realistically be protected.

"You cannot cover every tree because it costs too much money. So then we will lose these organisers," he said.

Where Plugge raised circuit racing primarily in relation to safety, Hushovd's argument for shorter formats starts with entertainment.

He pointed to cross country skiing in Norway as an example of a traditional endurance sport that has introduced shorter formats.

"When I grew up there was only 10k, 15k, 30 and 50. But today there's a sprint and qualification. And they are maybe the most popular today," he said.

"So maybe we also have to, I'm not saying wake up, but be open minded and change something. To start with a world championship in criterium, maybe, maybe not. But to do something, why not?"

Hushovd also sees a commercial argument for races that repeatedly pass through the same location.

"We have to look into other income for teams and for the sport," he said.

"If you pass through a town, it's hard to build up a full hospitality structure. But if you pass this town five times, you can actually sell a package. And there you have another external income."

For Hushovd, that gives circuit racing another potential advantage. A race that returns to the same location several times creates more opportunities for hospitality than a traditional route that passes through a town once.

He stopped short, however, of presenting circuit racing as a finished solution.

"How it will be and how we should be structured, I have no idea," Hushovd said. "But at least we have to start to think about something in that direction."