Viewing Guide for March 20–22, or, How to Watch the Races Without Paying Outside 90 Bucks

By Gavin Kentch

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Racing in Lake Placid starts tomorrow. Hells yeah. For those of you there on the ground, it should be lit. For the rest of us, let’s see if we can unlock a workable viewing experience of the races without paying NEARLY 100 DOLLARS to a second-rate media platform that was an epic fail two years ago for the Loppet Cup in Minneapolis.

When are the races?

How can you watch the races?

Not on skiandsnowboard.live, unfortunately. I learned this only today, and did not appreciate the revelation. Awesome, USSS, I really appreciate how you sold TV rights to someone else for what is for American fans the biggest race weekend of the year. Good stuff here.

Here is the official take on viewing options from race organizers:

“NBC will air the Sprint Finals live on Saturday, March 21, from 1–2 p.m. ET. CNBC will air coverage of the Men’s and Women’s 10km Interval Starts on Saturday, March 21, from 2–4 p.m. ET. NBC will also air the Women’s 20km Mass Start on Saturday, March 29, from 1–2 p.m. ET on tape delay.” [sic to the final sentence here; “Saturday, March 29,” is not a thing]

Yes, let me just turn on the “television” that I have on hand here that “gets broadcast signals.” Okay, Boomer. Also, sorry Nordic Insights readers, but our coverage of Friday’s races won’t go up till Saturday, I guess, following a tape delay of over 24 hours. And we’ll cover Jessie’s last race sometime around March 29, apparently, a week after the fact. Way to go, guys; this should definitely help grow the sport in this country.

Update: I stand by a lot of the snark below, but you can in fact view the races for free, at least live, via the Outside TV YouTube channel. Go here and find the relevant stream. You will likely have to view this live; not sure how long it will stay up on YouTube once the race ends. The following are some very mean things that I wrote about Outsidetv yesterday. I should probably temper this snark, but not by too much.

Do you think I’m done being snarky? Reader, I am not.

Here is the official way that you are supposed to watch the races this weekend: Go here, create an account, and watch via something called “Outsidetv.”

Here is how much a subscription to something called “Outsidetv” will cost you: $89.99 per year.

Here are your options for short term or trial subscriptions to something called “Outsidetv” that could cost much less than $89.99 when realistically you just need this for three days: fuck you.

Here is what happened the last time that something called “Outsidetv” broadcast an American World Cup stop for cross-country skiing:

So forgive me if I am not thrilled about the prospect of handing over $89.99 to something called “Outsidetv” for a product of dubious quality. At least on the platform slash technological side of things; Ryan Sederquist is on the call, so that part at least should be great.

But, and I say this with huge respect to Sederquist because I love his enthusiasm and work on behalf of the sport, you may wish to not pay $89.99 to something called, &c., for just three days of races. So, here are some other options you may wish to consider instead:

• Pull up FIS live radio (from this page), then like move Lego characters around on your table in the appropriate positions and pretend that you’re there. Open the window to let in some cold air for some true vraisemblance.

• The FIS YouTube page should give you a free livestream in some other countries (but not the U.S.). Use a VPN and try Canada first, then Australia, as my understanding is that neither country has a local broadcast rights holder that would be airing this instead of FIS.

Fun fact, Windscribe will geolocate you to Canada for free. You can get 10GB free a month through them, which would probably be enough for most of the six races but not quite all of them. Sign up for a trial with a second email address to get another 10GB, or just pay $9 for a month of service. This is like paying $90 to something called “Outsidetv,” but not.

• Pay for a VPN that will site you in New Zealand and watch from there.

Who is racing for the Americans?

I wrote this earlier today, because no one else had (and still haven’t; we got this for alpine but nothing for cross-country). It will become progressively older news throughout the weekend as official start lists show up here, but for the time being there is still some value in this:

Okay, I appreciate the all-galaxy snark you have directed at Outsidetv here, but I will be fortunate enough to be at the races in person and I really just want some resources to help me find my way around there and know what else is going on around the races.

Fair. Parking and access map:

Course map for all three races:

Overall schedule of weekend events: here.

Point forecasts for the venue: NWS | yr.no.

Guide from a local on where to ski, where to eat, and other intel:

Is this the final race for anyone famous, particularly among, say, the American women?

Not that I can think of, sorry.

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