I followed the online coverage from Ski-WOC the whole week. Some technical problems early in the week with split times and some shaky pictures. I think most of this may have been caused by a combination of poor mobile network and bad weather. Also there was a lag between the video and "real time" results (10-15 min) - again probably caused by slow buffering.
Following the "big" relay it is obvious how interesting the GPS tracking can be in a close race. That would be an added bonus also for the Sprint Relay - if the athletes can be kept away from the big screen.
 

but this race was in Sweden and what was particularly absent from the coverage at the race site was spectators.
 

Hi! I was one of the athletes skiing the sprint relay and I just want to say that the sprint relay is the most funny of all the distances, also for the athletes! It's a first man to finish race, which means a lot of close man-man fights and there is always happening something. It's also a relay so you're skiing for your nation and another person and you are also allowed to do "3 races" which you're getting the fun 3 times!
I agree that this has a lot of potential and I liked your comparison with a NASCAR race. But I think the last leg should be straight. That will make it even more funny with the man-man race in the end and you'll get the same excitement before the last leg, who is actually leading. And I'm pretty sure the athletes not just would follow each other on the straight leg. Last year we had a unforked last leg at the sprint relays and the athletes still did independent routechoices. Anything can happen in the end of a race, a fall, a missed punch etc. So you will always try to do what you think is the best routechoice and hopefully win the race before the finish.
I think that interviews between the legs only will give the athletes a bigger challenge and that it would be great for the spectators and maybe some TV viewers.
There should also be a spectator control for where it's possible to see the athletes from the arena. The gps tracking should be shown during the entire race, but the changing area should be placed "behind" the big screen. But I also think it is important that the commentators know which forking the different teams are having and also how much time differences it is between the forkings.
At least I think this shows that orienteering sports are having a big potential as an interesting spectator and also TV sport if we only develop it a bit more

/Hans Jørgen Kvåle
 

but this race was in Sweden and what was particularly absent from the coverage at the race site was spectators.

This only shows how small a sport Ski-O really is :(
There are considerably fewer athletes doing this - even in the Nordic countries. I have no numbers but my guess is that ski-O in Sweden may count it´s active athletes in a few hundred (if even that) so the base for spectators is quite small.
In Foot-O at least you will get other active orienteers (there for running the spectator races) as viewers. In Ski-O you´ll only get a few family members, friends, coaches and officials as spectators (and the odd hard-core ski-orienteer).
Online coverage was great this year so there´s definitely potential - both for ski-O and foot-O - but how many viewers outside the hard-core orienteers will we actually get?
 

I was one out of three for the production team responsible persons for this event, and I can promise, this was just the very first small step in the development of ski-O as a TV sport. This time, we used almost only "homebuilt" amateur camera transmitting solutions and editing equipment. Actually, to be honest was all the production during the whole championship week just balancing between a total flop, but thanks to an amazing team of young volounteers, everything worked out fine.

Back to my point then. Ski-O can be just as interesting as Biathlon on for a TV-spectator, and can you mention how many people that is actually practising that sport.... Just give ski-O some more years with focus on development and it will be in the second next olympics, trust me!
 

Per, thanks for the comment. I was impressed by the production. Obviously, there is room for improvement. But, I think that overall it was great. The skier with the headcam was fantastic. That it was all done as "homebuilt" is also impressive.

Michael