Archery on the TV?

World Cup 2010 action on YouTube

Back in the distant past .. lets say 2010. You could get live archery from every World Cup stage on YouTube. We picked 2010 as our example year because that was the year the World Cup was held in Edinburgh .. and yes, as Max Boyce used to say "GA was there!" Now back then World Archery's coverage was pretty good. You got all the action from the quarter finals onwards, as it happened. Multiple camera views, high resolution, then evolving with play by play and colour commentary .. it was an archery fiesta of fun and frolics. Go look at the finals from Edinburgh .. and while enjoying the shootie, try to spot a notorious GA member.

However in late 2022, World Archery, enticed by the recent spike in streaming audiences, removed the vast majority of live archery content from YouTube and put it behind a paywall. This was the birth of Archery+ tv. Offering live streams of World Archery events, including championships and World Cup stages. The thinking was obviously to market the product on a one stop, specialised platform. This was broadly in line with the thinking in many other sports. It was hoped archers would subscribe en mass to to get their international shootie fix. Obviously this attempt to build the World Archery brand, engage with fans, and increase the sport's popularity was a massive success wasn't it? .. Nope, it wasn't!

WA video of finals 2010 in Edinburgh with a young Brady Ellison .. but who is that top left?

"But its everything we've ever wanted!" was one of the comments lamenting the apparent lack of success. Yes, Archery+ brings mucho stuff to the table and shows off its wares well but is it enough? For the low low annual price of €49.99, all of the content on the platform is unlocked for you. All the live content you could wish for .. be it The World Cup, Youth Championship, Indoor Championships, 3D Championships or Field Championships. There are original WA produced shorts and interviews with internationalists and even historical pieces. All in all there is enough material to keep your average archery nut job happy and not being "inventive" for some time. (yes, we are thinking about someone specific at this point .. more why later)

Unfortunately what the paywall did was put a barrier up between potential archers and the product. Up till 2022, these potential beginners course graduates got to see shootie free on YouTube. They might stumble over Brady or a Korean going ham on the 10 ring and be intrigued. This strategy worked as the WA channel grew to over 600k subscribers. Now, to see archery, they would have to pay a sub on a new platform not associated with YouTube. Lets be honest, they were definitely NOT going to pay for something currently only of vague interest and that paywall killed interest generated from YT video's stone dead. To add insult to injury, World Archery created "watch party" live videos that they put on YouTube instead of the live competitions. Two or three people sit on a couch, watching the action then describe to you what was happening. We can think of little more patronising and boring than this in a sport that is already less than exciting for the casual passerby. That passerby might be intrigued by seeing live archery action but are likely to be repulsed by three rando's sitting on a couch droning on about things the viewer doesn't understand and can in no way visualise. And to seal the failure, experienced archers didn't want to pay for yet another streaming service either.

Now full disclosure here, we don't know how many people are subscribed to Archery+ at present. Those numbers are secret. But we do have some hearsay, gossip and tittle tattle broadly hinting that subs, low to start with, have been sliding downward in a death spiral. Its not helped that Archery+ tv doesn't actually work on smart tv's without extra expense. There have also been, we are told, some technical issues with loss of signal mid-match and broadcasts finishing early .. invariably at the best bits. Our source is solid but we can't verify any of the issues as we don't have access. Lets just say when our source put it to certain high level WA types, there was tacit agreement. Incoming president of World Archery, Greg Easton, has called Archery+ "an interesting experiment" but even he has admitted the loss of viewers and potential archers because of the paywall. In fact, total failure is more in line with current thinking on Archery+. Greg has ideas but is going to have his work cut out creating an effective new WA media strategy. He's already said its important but not the most important thing on his desk in his first month as El Presidente so it may be a while til something happens.

So to return to a certain GA member, why is someone being mentioned in this article about live archery on the internet. Well, with many hours of darkness where he can't shoot and obviously cant fletch/make strings/strip kit all the time .. he's pondering subscribing for a year to Archery+. Partly as a continuation of our investigation but mostly because he'll use this .. a lot*. Whither this generates a future positive article on the subject, a massive rant .. or disturbing the peace reports to the police from his neighbours during tense head to head competition remains to be seen.

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* He has form - during London 2012 he took the week off work and spent the entire archery portion of the Olympics on the couch in front of the TV. His couch still has a butt shaped dent in it!