Would you agree that only hardcore fans watch a full stage of the tour the France or a formula1 race?
Something has emerged that has made people more interested in F1, and I suspect a similar thing will happen for cycling. I am talking about the drive to survive and the Tour the France unchained series from Netflix.
These documentaries compress very long --and arguably mostly boring-- events into 30 to 50 minutes chunks that are full of drama and powerful visuals. Every minute is entertaining. The creators make a fantastic job creating powerful stories that captivate the attention of the viewers and most importantly trigger interest on the topic. They basically find the best, most dramatic stories in the raw (and very long) material and build this powerful, compact stories. And it seems to be working very well.
Why am I talking about this? I find it important. Not many people followed F1 in the US, now we have three F1 events: Miami, Las Vegas and Austin. It is the country with the most number of races. Good luck trying to get a race in your city these days. They are in high demand and there is no more space available in the calendar to add new ones. The logistical efforts of moving all the resources around the world is massive.
I am wondering if the cycling series will have the same impact... Only time will tell.