ALMS reaches multi year agreement with ESPN and ABC
03-26-2011, 08:44 PM
#136
The Rebel
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The fact that Sebring was only live on ESPN3 and ABC had about 30 minutes of actual race time...here's my message to Panoz and the rest of the ALMS "brain trust" 
, just as they told us; GO **** YOURSELVES FOR ******* THIS UP!
, just as they told us; GO **** YOURSELVES FOR ******* THIS UP!
03-26-2011, 09:02 PM
#137
Burning Brakes
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I live on the fringe of the city, so I'm trapped with high speed dial up and screwed to any reasonable way to enjoy the races live. Epic fail.
Good luck to the smaller race teams who struggle to get sponsors, be that in parts or cash, when they ask, "so who will see my sticker"?
Answer: "Well.....funny thing, the coverage has changed to Internet so.......about 1/4 of last years viewership, can I pencil you in for some plane tickets for the crew??"
I'm new here, so I ask, if there are any people on this forum who are affiliated with any of the race teams, tell me what your teams say about the ability to get financial support this year?
Good luck to the smaller race teams who struggle to get sponsors, be that in parts or cash, when they ask, "so who will see my sticker"?
Answer: "Well.....funny thing, the coverage has changed to Internet so.......about 1/4 of last years viewership, can I pencil you in for some plane tickets for the crew??"
I'm new here, so I ask, if there are any people on this forum who are affiliated with any of the race teams, tell me what your teams say about the ability to get financial support this year?
03-30-2011, 04:12 PM
#138
Rennlist Member
This article was posted on Risi Competizione's site this morning, but has since been removed. A sobering message to ALMS management from on of the Series' top teams:
The Big Chill: How ALMS Disappeared From Sightby: Don Pierce
28 March 2011
“The medium is the message”.–Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan, the brilliant professor, media sage and pop culture icon, pegged it correctly in the sixties when he pointed out that when content is communicated via media, two messages are actually sent. The first message is the content itself–news, sports, drama, data–and the second message is the medium through which this content is transmitted to the market and/or audience. McLuhan believed that the selection of the medium is actually just as important or more important than the message itself.
All communications is a combination of content and context: in other words, what you say and how you say it. Sometimes, the content is brilliant but the context in which it is presented is not and, of course, frequently the opposite is true–a brilliant context but lacking in content. The best communications has both, i.e. The Taschen book on Muhammed Ali that is bigger than life; the simple but frightfully competent premise of the iPod; the great Kubrick film 2001; Philip Johnson’s austere but complex Glass House; Ryan Shaw’s screaming, sweating, hip-shaking version of “Searching for a Love”. You get the idea: good stuff done right.
Thinking about media and its impact is something of no small importance in professional level sporting activities. Professional level implies a high degree of proficiency–theoretically in all areas of the sport–and excellence is expensive, in any endeavor. Professional sport is a message on multiple levels: there is the competition message; the interpersonal message; the dramatic message; the communications message and, increasingly the commercial message.
So it is with sports car racing, which has a very high commitment and financial burn rate for the participants that should be matched by a similar level of commitment and investment on the part of the promoting and sanctioning bodies. Together, we’ll reach the top, should be the attitude.
This has the appearance of not being the case with the ALMS . And it possibly seemed more apparent with this past weekend’s non-media telecast of the 12 Hours of Sebring.
The major international race of the American Le Mans Series was not telecast live on broadcast television (cable, satellite, over-the-air, major network, minor network, two-guys-and-a-cooler-with-a-handicam network). It was nowhere to be found on your cable box, gone, disappeared, adioski. On Saturday morning, The Racing Bunker phone lines were jammed with fans asking, basically, “Where’s the beef?”, i.e. what channel is the race telecast on?
I had the distinctly unpleasant duty of informing our fans that, well, gosh, the ALMS, out-in-front-of-racing trends with Green Racing and pitching the idea of a Tech Savy series to sponsors…well, they don’t have a “real” TV deal this year. But you can catch the 12 Hours of Sebring, our crown jewel, on the Internet, at ESPN3.Com. Oh, and one other thing–the highlight reel is on the Alphabet Network (ABC), the same network that brought us the wonderful “Wide World of Sports” series and Roone Arledge and the isolated camera and instant reply, all of which is great and mega and trend-setting, but it’s on Sunday afternoon, after the race is won and done that situation is not great, mega or trend-setting. The Sebring telecast on ABC (and yet another replay on ESPN2) was an hour and a half. The race was 12 hours. Do the math and you understand, yet again, how the medium is the message and the message, this year is that the ALMS is now disappearing from the mainstream sports landscape.
There will be plenty of people who will say the streaming internet coverage of Sebring was just fine and, technically, it was just fine. Just. Fine. And invisible. And small. And diminished in grandeur and scale and importance.
There is nothing wrong with internet television coverage as an element of a cohesive media strategy and it may very well be the way all television is delivered in five or ten years. But there is something very, very wrong with internet being the only form of live coverage for this race and this series. It is a demotion and a very public one.
At this stage in the development of the new world of digital communications, the internet should be the bonus round, additional coverage that augments the main television broadcast. It’s an add-on, but it is not yet a strong enough medium to be the ONLY channel. And, if your ISP doesn’t offer up ESPN3.com, you are out of luck. Last year, I applauded the forward thinking of adding internet coverage to the weekend’s media coverage menu, and particularly liked having qualifying coverage available over the internet, which made it very easy to catch sitting at your office desk. But I viewed those initiatives as an add-on, not main stream because an internet telecast just doesn’t send the right message to enough people to really make an impact.
A look at the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patron Schedule of coverage reveals the 2011 media strategy:
Qualifying is available on ESPN3.com for each ALMS race. That’s good.
Live race coverage is available on ESPN3.com. That’s not so good.
Broadcast race coverage is time delayed for each race, broadcast either via ABC or ESPN2 (both networks are owned by Disney) and while the ALMS may rejoice in the brand names that are covering the series, the key problem is that’s it all after-the-fact coverage. The results will be known, the drama ended. News and sports events are at their most powerful and relevant when broadcast live. Do you want to see the NCAA Final 4 live or via tape delay? The time-delay sports broadcast is an also ran, especially to the enthusiast.
“Sports on television is live television, it is history in the making, it is being “up close and personal” (again, thanks to ABC) as possibly momentous events unfold. To thrill in the victory of a favorite, to join the excitment of the moment in an exhilarating game or to learn more about the teams, players or games on television are among possible satisfactions that are obviously specific to sports on television.”–From an article on Sports and Television, written by Stanley J. Baran, from Museum of Modern Broadcasting web site.
Last year, ALMS had a commendably adventurous broadcast media strategy. They brought the internet into play for qualifying. Good move. They had radio deals with Satellite radio and over the internet with Le Mans radio. Another good move. They had same day coverage of most races with Speed and for those that they didn’t broadcast live, they took a creative chance and brought in a top documentary team (the group that did the great Audi documentary on Le Mans, Truth in 24) and pushed around the edges of the sport a little bit, turning the time-delay coverage into more of a feature and less of a highlight film. That was all good and I enthusiastically endorsed the strategy and the risk-taking behind it. They made the best of a difficult situation.
I don’t see that happening this year, as the number of channels of race coverage have been diminished by precisely 50% and there doesn’t seem to be much enthusiasm for innovation in the way races are covered. Famed broadcaster Eric Severeid once said that “Dealing with television executives is like being nibbled to death by ducks”, so maybe it’s harder to strike a great deal than ever before, but how can that be, with so many channels available and so little original programming to fill them?
Importantly, one of the major non-tv channels cut from this year’s media program was the only truly mobile one: satellite radio. Wi-Fi will certainly one day make it possible for you to take your sports coverage–audio or video– with you but it’s just not there yet. Fans on the road during races loved to listen to live Satellite coverage of the races but that opportunity will not, to my knowledge, be available this year.
Against the shrinking media presence of the American Le Mans Series lies another giant problem: sponsorship visibility. Start, first, with the disappearance of live race day coverage on broadcast TV (defined for the purposes of this article as television via cable, satellite, or over-the-air terrestrial broadcast). The medium is the message and the message to sponsors and advertisers is…..let’s get small. You have a big brand but it’s being showcased not through a broadcast TV pipe but a laptop straw. As a brand manager, you paid big money for exposure; maybe track presence and next-day coverage is going to be OK with you. But perhaps not, and if not, you can expect sponsors and advertisers to vote with their checkbooks. Without that same day live broadcast coverage, things just don’t look pro, do they?
Team owners and managers may also be counted amongst the disgruntled. Sports car racing is brutally expensive and even when you bring your “A” game to the track, race after race, there is no guarantee that someone won’t take you out of the race early on, as happened with the Extreme Sports Ferrari 458 at Sebring. Exposure is one of the key benefits of the sport and there is a message in when and via what medium that exposure is accessed. The race experience, at the track, in the pits, will remain huge and unique and involving, but the reach of live competition is shorter now, the drama evacuated from the race, via time shifting for broadcast TV and video compression down to internet broadcast requirements for online.
The announcers for the internet TV coverage and radio coverage were good, the direction of the show was professional, but the audience was just too small. Fans and manufacturers and sponsors want a bigger, more dynamic stage. There is always the possibility that the current ALMS media program will prove a huge winner, that the demographics will be great, and that the tape-delay broadcasting highlight films will draw an even bigger audience than did last year’s telecasts on Speed, although that possibility took a huge hit when ABC’s next day coverage disappeared from the West Coast TV schedule. The ALMS feels all is well and just released a press notice that said that viewership was three times larger than last year, but the release was without breakouts per channel and no one knows whether it was the same audience watching the same thing three times, or people checking in and out of the online stream, with each checkin counted as a “unique visitor”.
Sports is based on competition and this competition is extant at every level: on the field, between players and coaches and owners and teams and leagues. So how competitive is the ALMS in the modern era? Has the series truly raised its profile vis a vis the competition?
In 2005, NASCAR signed an eight year broadcasting deal with Fox/Speed Channel, ABC/ESPN, and TNT to cover the Sprint Cup, the Nationwide Series and the Camping World Truck Series.
The value of the contract is $4.8 billion. In other words, The Big Time.
IndyCar (now the Izod IndyCar series) has a major deal with Versus, the sports network for Comcast (which now owns NBC). This deal will provide IndyCar with a solid broadcast platform with 10 races broadcast live this year (plus the Indy 500, which currently runs on ABC). After a lot of searching, I was able to put a number to the value of the IndyCar TV deal, which was signed in 2008: $40 million over 10 years. That number will probably rise as media sports values typically go up over time. Versus is owned by Comcast, which owns NBC, so it will only be a matter of time before Versus becomes the NBC Sports Channel or something like it, an ESPN competitor, which will bring increased exposure and big-network prestige. Lurking around the corner for IndyCar are the same issues facing ALMS –ratings or the lack thereof–but at least IndyCar has something to build ratings on (for the TV ratings enthusiasts out there, a rating of 1.0 would be very good for most racing shows and IndyCar has pulled ratings inthe .3 or .4 range. By contrast, NASCAR delivers ratings in the 4.0 range: the most recent Daytona 500 race delivered a 5.3 overnight, up 6% from last year).
In short, the lack of a live telecast partner is not a good sign for the ALMS brand. The series is going backwards in terms of media exposure at precisely the wrong time. Is ALMS management up to the task of making the type of big time business and media deals that can revitalize the public presence and image of the series? They’re going to have be a lot more aggressive and think a lot more creatively to do so … and we support them and do hope so.
The Big Chill: How ALMS Disappeared From Sightby: Don Pierce
28 March 2011
“The medium is the message”.–Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan, the brilliant professor, media sage and pop culture icon, pegged it correctly in the sixties when he pointed out that when content is communicated via media, two messages are actually sent. The first message is the content itself–news, sports, drama, data–and the second message is the medium through which this content is transmitted to the market and/or audience. McLuhan believed that the selection of the medium is actually just as important or more important than the message itself.
All communications is a combination of content and context: in other words, what you say and how you say it. Sometimes, the content is brilliant but the context in which it is presented is not and, of course, frequently the opposite is true–a brilliant context but lacking in content. The best communications has both, i.e. The Taschen book on Muhammed Ali that is bigger than life; the simple but frightfully competent premise of the iPod; the great Kubrick film 2001; Philip Johnson’s austere but complex Glass House; Ryan Shaw’s screaming, sweating, hip-shaking version of “Searching for a Love”. You get the idea: good stuff done right.
Thinking about media and its impact is something of no small importance in professional level sporting activities. Professional level implies a high degree of proficiency–theoretically in all areas of the sport–and excellence is expensive, in any endeavor. Professional sport is a message on multiple levels: there is the competition message; the interpersonal message; the dramatic message; the communications message and, increasingly the commercial message.
So it is with sports car racing, which has a very high commitment and financial burn rate for the participants that should be matched by a similar level of commitment and investment on the part of the promoting and sanctioning bodies. Together, we’ll reach the top, should be the attitude.
This has the appearance of not being the case with the ALMS . And it possibly seemed more apparent with this past weekend’s non-media telecast of the 12 Hours of Sebring.
The major international race of the American Le Mans Series was not telecast live on broadcast television (cable, satellite, over-the-air, major network, minor network, two-guys-and-a-cooler-with-a-handicam network). It was nowhere to be found on your cable box, gone, disappeared, adioski. On Saturday morning, The Racing Bunker phone lines were jammed with fans asking, basically, “Where’s the beef?”, i.e. what channel is the race telecast on?
I had the distinctly unpleasant duty of informing our fans that, well, gosh, the ALMS, out-in-front-of-racing trends with Green Racing and pitching the idea of a Tech Savy series to sponsors…well, they don’t have a “real” TV deal this year. But you can catch the 12 Hours of Sebring, our crown jewel, on the Internet, at ESPN3.Com. Oh, and one other thing–the highlight reel is on the Alphabet Network (ABC), the same network that brought us the wonderful “Wide World of Sports” series and Roone Arledge and the isolated camera and instant reply, all of which is great and mega and trend-setting, but it’s on Sunday afternoon, after the race is won and done that situation is not great, mega or trend-setting. The Sebring telecast on ABC (and yet another replay on ESPN2) was an hour and a half. The race was 12 hours. Do the math and you understand, yet again, how the medium is the message and the message, this year is that the ALMS is now disappearing from the mainstream sports landscape.
There will be plenty of people who will say the streaming internet coverage of Sebring was just fine and, technically, it was just fine. Just. Fine. And invisible. And small. And diminished in grandeur and scale and importance.
There is nothing wrong with internet television coverage as an element of a cohesive media strategy and it may very well be the way all television is delivered in five or ten years. But there is something very, very wrong with internet being the only form of live coverage for this race and this series. It is a demotion and a very public one.
At this stage in the development of the new world of digital communications, the internet should be the bonus round, additional coverage that augments the main television broadcast. It’s an add-on, but it is not yet a strong enough medium to be the ONLY channel. And, if your ISP doesn’t offer up ESPN3.com, you are out of luck. Last year, I applauded the forward thinking of adding internet coverage to the weekend’s media coverage menu, and particularly liked having qualifying coverage available over the internet, which made it very easy to catch sitting at your office desk. But I viewed those initiatives as an add-on, not main stream because an internet telecast just doesn’t send the right message to enough people to really make an impact.
A look at the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patron Schedule of coverage reveals the 2011 media strategy:
Qualifying is available on ESPN3.com for each ALMS race. That’s good.
Live race coverage is available on ESPN3.com. That’s not so good.
Broadcast race coverage is time delayed for each race, broadcast either via ABC or ESPN2 (both networks are owned by Disney) and while the ALMS may rejoice in the brand names that are covering the series, the key problem is that’s it all after-the-fact coverage. The results will be known, the drama ended. News and sports events are at their most powerful and relevant when broadcast live. Do you want to see the NCAA Final 4 live or via tape delay? The time-delay sports broadcast is an also ran, especially to the enthusiast.
“Sports on television is live television, it is history in the making, it is being “up close and personal” (again, thanks to ABC) as possibly momentous events unfold. To thrill in the victory of a favorite, to join the excitment of the moment in an exhilarating game or to learn more about the teams, players or games on television are among possible satisfactions that are obviously specific to sports on television.”–From an article on Sports and Television, written by Stanley J. Baran, from Museum of Modern Broadcasting web site.
Last year, ALMS had a commendably adventurous broadcast media strategy. They brought the internet into play for qualifying. Good move. They had radio deals with Satellite radio and over the internet with Le Mans radio. Another good move. They had same day coverage of most races with Speed and for those that they didn’t broadcast live, they took a creative chance and brought in a top documentary team (the group that did the great Audi documentary on Le Mans, Truth in 24) and pushed around the edges of the sport a little bit, turning the time-delay coverage into more of a feature and less of a highlight film. That was all good and I enthusiastically endorsed the strategy and the risk-taking behind it. They made the best of a difficult situation.
I don’t see that happening this year, as the number of channels of race coverage have been diminished by precisely 50% and there doesn’t seem to be much enthusiasm for innovation in the way races are covered. Famed broadcaster Eric Severeid once said that “Dealing with television executives is like being nibbled to death by ducks”, so maybe it’s harder to strike a great deal than ever before, but how can that be, with so many channels available and so little original programming to fill them?
Importantly, one of the major non-tv channels cut from this year’s media program was the only truly mobile one: satellite radio. Wi-Fi will certainly one day make it possible for you to take your sports coverage–audio or video– with you but it’s just not there yet. Fans on the road during races loved to listen to live Satellite coverage of the races but that opportunity will not, to my knowledge, be available this year.
Against the shrinking media presence of the American Le Mans Series lies another giant problem: sponsorship visibility. Start, first, with the disappearance of live race day coverage on broadcast TV (defined for the purposes of this article as television via cable, satellite, or over-the-air terrestrial broadcast). The medium is the message and the message to sponsors and advertisers is…..let’s get small. You have a big brand but it’s being showcased not through a broadcast TV pipe but a laptop straw. As a brand manager, you paid big money for exposure; maybe track presence and next-day coverage is going to be OK with you. But perhaps not, and if not, you can expect sponsors and advertisers to vote with their checkbooks. Without that same day live broadcast coverage, things just don’t look pro, do they?
Team owners and managers may also be counted amongst the disgruntled. Sports car racing is brutally expensive and even when you bring your “A” game to the track, race after race, there is no guarantee that someone won’t take you out of the race early on, as happened with the Extreme Sports Ferrari 458 at Sebring. Exposure is one of the key benefits of the sport and there is a message in when and via what medium that exposure is accessed. The race experience, at the track, in the pits, will remain huge and unique and involving, but the reach of live competition is shorter now, the drama evacuated from the race, via time shifting for broadcast TV and video compression down to internet broadcast requirements for online.
The announcers for the internet TV coverage and radio coverage were good, the direction of the show was professional, but the audience was just too small. Fans and manufacturers and sponsors want a bigger, more dynamic stage. There is always the possibility that the current ALMS media program will prove a huge winner, that the demographics will be great, and that the tape-delay broadcasting highlight films will draw an even bigger audience than did last year’s telecasts on Speed, although that possibility took a huge hit when ABC’s next day coverage disappeared from the West Coast TV schedule. The ALMS feels all is well and just released a press notice that said that viewership was three times larger than last year, but the release was without breakouts per channel and no one knows whether it was the same audience watching the same thing three times, or people checking in and out of the online stream, with each checkin counted as a “unique visitor”.
Sports is based on competition and this competition is extant at every level: on the field, between players and coaches and owners and teams and leagues. So how competitive is the ALMS in the modern era? Has the series truly raised its profile vis a vis the competition?
In 2005, NASCAR signed an eight year broadcasting deal with Fox/Speed Channel, ABC/ESPN, and TNT to cover the Sprint Cup, the Nationwide Series and the Camping World Truck Series.
The value of the contract is $4.8 billion. In other words, The Big Time.
IndyCar (now the Izod IndyCar series) has a major deal with Versus, the sports network for Comcast (which now owns NBC). This deal will provide IndyCar with a solid broadcast platform with 10 races broadcast live this year (plus the Indy 500, which currently runs on ABC). After a lot of searching, I was able to put a number to the value of the IndyCar TV deal, which was signed in 2008: $40 million over 10 years. That number will probably rise as media sports values typically go up over time. Versus is owned by Comcast, which owns NBC, so it will only be a matter of time before Versus becomes the NBC Sports Channel or something like it, an ESPN competitor, which will bring increased exposure and big-network prestige. Lurking around the corner for IndyCar are the same issues facing ALMS –ratings or the lack thereof–but at least IndyCar has something to build ratings on (for the TV ratings enthusiasts out there, a rating of 1.0 would be very good for most racing shows and IndyCar has pulled ratings inthe .3 or .4 range. By contrast, NASCAR delivers ratings in the 4.0 range: the most recent Daytona 500 race delivered a 5.3 overnight, up 6% from last year).
In short, the lack of a live telecast partner is not a good sign for the ALMS brand. The series is going backwards in terms of media exposure at precisely the wrong time. Is ALMS management up to the task of making the type of big time business and media deals that can revitalize the public presence and image of the series? They’re going to have be a lot more aggressive and think a lot more creatively to do so … and we support them and do hope so.
03-30-2011, 04:55 PM
#139
Former Vendor
It was the most watched event in ALMS history. It was also the most watched event in ESPN3.com history. I am not sure why there is so much complaining going on, the teams shouldn't have ANY problem selling sponsors space!
Again, the avid fan gets to watch it live, while the casual "race" viewer gets to see the highlights. Not everyone wants to watch an endurance race live.
Again, the avid fan gets to watch it live, while the casual "race" viewer gets to see the highlights. Not everyone wants to watch an endurance race live.
03-30-2011, 05:22 PM
#140
Basic Sponsor
Rennlist
Site Sponsor
Rennlist
Site Sponsor
Please explain how you know this. the only stat I saw from ALMS was it was the most WEB traffic that they ever had. No kidding...everyone was trying to figure out where to watch it. And..the internet feed was the ONLY feed, so of course it would be more.
Many avid fans COULD NOT WATCH. True, not everyone wants to watch an endurance race live, but many of those that DO, could not.
Making it MORE DIFFICULT to watch your product is NOT common sense. Most businesses try to make it easier and more convenient for their customers.
Oh, and I have talked to a few big race teams I know. Privately, they are not pleased at all and have said that the sponsors are not happy either with a few considering pulling out.
Unfortunately, I've written off ALMS this year until Petit, where I will be watching live...
Making it MORE DIFFICULT to watch your product is NOT common sense. Most businesses try to make it easier and more convenient for their customers.
Oh, and I have talked to a few big race teams I know. Privately, they are not pleased at all and have said that the sponsors are not happy either with a few considering pulling out.
Unfortunately, I've written off ALMS this year until Petit, where I will be watching live...
__________________
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www.naroescapemotorsports.com
704-395-2975
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03-30-2011, 05:44 PM
#141
Burning Brakes
I can't say I disagree with anything in the article, but I do find it slightly humorous that the team which does not have or seemingly want sponsors, Risi Competizione, is noting the adverse affect on sponsors. It affects all the other teams, but not Risi Competizione.
It is pretty bad though when you hold out the Indycar deal with Versus as a shining example. Indycar did luck out when Versus' owner bought NBC, but for a long time that Versus deal was held up to extreme ridicule.
It is pretty bad though when you hold out the Indycar deal with Versus as a shining example. Indycar did luck out when Versus' owner bought NBC, but for a long time that Versus deal was held up to extreme ridicule.
03-30-2011, 06:03 PM
#142
Former Vendor
Taken from AmericanLeMans.com
The number of households and viewers watching America’s oldest sports car race on ABC, ESPN2 and ESPN3.com was more than three times the next-highest total which occurred during the 2009 season.
03-30-2011, 06:14 PM
#144
Former Vendor
Another quote from AmericanLeMans.com
The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring was not only a record-breaker for just the ALMS, however. The live full-length race telecast on ESPN3.com was the most watched auto racing event ever on the outlet, 147 percent over the previous high. The average time spent viewing per unique viewer was 161 minutes - 87 percent higher than the average time spent for all events on ESPN3.com.
03-30-2011, 06:50 PM
#145
Rennlist Member
I guess less is more.
I see ESPN2 being mentioned- when and what did they carry of Sebring?
The Deuce is not ESPN3. I think many get the Deuce.
The answer is live tv coverage of most if not all of the race on some generally available channel like ESPN2. If they also want a delayed highlight reel for the masses on ABC that's fine.
Streaming live broadcast of qualifying and race from the ALMS site would be a bonus.
Think of it as no race fan left behind.
I see ESPN2 being mentioned- when and what did they carry of Sebring?
The Deuce is not ESPN3. I think many get the Deuce.
The answer is live tv coverage of most if not all of the race on some generally available channel like ESPN2. If they also want a delayed highlight reel for the masses on ABC that's fine.
Streaming live broadcast of qualifying and race from the ALMS site would be a bonus.
Think of it as no race fan left behind.
03-30-2011, 06:56 PM
#146
Rennlist Member
Pfffttt. They should just stream it on the Ocho. 
03-30-2011, 09:26 PM
#148
Perfect Angel
Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
Taken from AmericanLeMans.com
The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring was not only a record-breaker for just the ALMS, however. The live full-length race telecast on ESPN3.com was the most watched auto racing event ever on the outlet, 147 percent over the previous high. The average time spent viewing per unique viewer was 161 minutes - 87 percent higher than the average time spent for all events on ESPN3.com.
The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring was not only a record-breaker for just the ALMS, however. The live full-length race telecast on ESPN3.com was the most watched auto racing event ever on the outlet, 147 percent over the previous high. The average time spent viewing per unique viewer was 161 minutes - 87 percent higher than the average time spent for all events on ESPN3.com.
147% increase could be a few thousand people or it could be a few hundred. If the super deal was supposed to cover 65 million households I would expect the internet viewership would jump by 1000% but it would seem that many either did not or could not make the switch to the web.
I could not and never will be able to so I have a very difficult time thinking that this is a good move.
If they broke all these records just imagine how the viewer count would have gone up if everyone could just turn on their TV to watch.
They have no choice but to keep selling this so I doubt the stats quite frankly.
They should have done a better selling job in the pre-season so we could watch on TV.
03-30-2011, 10:19 PM
#149
Addict
Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
I feel like ALMS finally got the classing right, but then, when I would think more folks would be interested, lost the TV exposure. I can't believe Speed is not all over ALMS. Lemans, F1 and ALMS would be like running the table.
03-30-2011, 10:32 PM
#150
Burning Brakes
"The live full-length race telecast on ESPN3.com was the most watched auto racing event ever on the outlet, 147 percent over the previous high."
That begs the question, - what other racing events were shown on ESPN3?
I for one, was NOT able to view the race because it was not on TV. Same goes for a buddy of mine. He typically works weekends, but took them off to watch Sebring, LeMans and the Petit. Like me he's pretty pissed about not being able watch the races. He hates Grand-Am because of the ugly prototypes, but says he'll just have to switch to it.
That begs the question, - what other racing events were shown on ESPN3?
I for one, was NOT able to view the race because it was not on TV. Same goes for a buddy of mine. He typically works weekends, but took them off to watch Sebring, LeMans and the Petit. Like me he's pretty pissed about not being able watch the races. He hates Grand-Am because of the ugly prototypes, but says he'll just have to switch to it.