dougdep

BRASELTON, Ga., Jan. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patron announced today a ground-breaking, multi-year broadcast and digital agreement with ESPN that ALMS President/CEO Scott Atherton is calling "a game changer." The innovative deal involves televising the world's premier sports car series over several ESPN programming and media platforms, including ABC, ESPN2 and ESPN3.com. Intersport, an award-winning media and marketing agency, represented the Series in the new television and digital agreement with ESPN.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110103/CL23444 )

The core of the ALMS' new innovative broadcast and digital package will deliver television coverage either on ABC or ESPN2. ABC will feature race telecast coverage on March 20 after the 59th running of the prestigious Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida with remaining ABC broadcasts featuring Road America (August), Baltimore (September) and the season-ending Petit Le Mans (October). ESPN2 will feature the American Le Mans Series in two-hour telecasts from Long Beach (April), Lime Rock and Mosport (July), Mid-Ohio (August) and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca (September). All four ABC race telecasts will receive an encore airing on ESPN2 as part of the new agreement.

ABC and the ESPN family of networks will provide a multi-faceted platform to bring the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patron to a significantly larger audience than previous years. ABC has 100 percent coverage in 115.9 million U.S. households, including more than 230 local affiliates, while ESPN2 is available to 99.7 million homes and is one of the most widely distributed cable broadcast outlets in the United States.

In a U.S. motorsports first, all ALMS races will be carried 'live' in their entirety and fully produced on ESPN3.com with ESPN2 and ABC providing televised coverage on a delayed basis. ESPN3.com – ESPN's signature broadband sports network – will deliver nearly 60 hours of live coverage including 60-minute qualifying shows from each event along with pre- and post-race content. The ESPN3.com coverage can also be seen worldwide on several of ESPN's global web-based platforms. The network is currently available domestically in more than 65 million households nationwide at no additional cost to users who receive their Internet connection of cable TV video subscription from an affiliated provider. Customers of an affiliated service provider will also be able to watch the Series 'live' via an ESPN3.com pop-off player on americanlemans.com and Xbox LIVE Gold.

The 2011 ESPN telecast package also includes a two-hour documentary-style broadcast from the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix in September – a race through the city's inner harbor area – to be produced by Intersport's Emmy-award winning production team. ALMS' association with Intersport began in the 2010 season. Intersport produced two docudrama-style race broadcasts which told the story of the Series' events at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and Mid-Ohio, and highlighted its many storylines and colorful personalities.

Veloce Raptor

Nice! But Atherton gets major demerits for use of the stupid over-used trite buzzword bingo phrase "game changer".









Professional Racing and Driving Coach

RDL

Atherton should get demerits for not having this deal completed and announced months ago when the deal could be used by teams to aid in obtaining funding!

mglobe

This is great news.

John H

WERD

Toby Pennycuff

ALMS' parting words to Speed need to be something along the lines of the old Johnny Paycheck song from the early 70's...... "Take your coverage and shove it! We ain't racing here no more......" Now if ABC and ESPN can hire a decent commentary crew that actually knows about racing, racing broadcasts will be so much better. Thank goodness we have some change. I'm getting tired of Pinks and all the other moronic programming on Speed.

SeanR

It's great news, only if ABC doesn't do that damn documentary style show each race.

ajcjr

who is covering sebring and how much of it?

Nizer

Now if we could just get them to pick up F1 I could drop my subscription to NascarTV.

CCA

That and not drop the end of the race because they have to cover bowling or some infomercial. Both of which I've seen the networks do.

paradisenb

The networks suck at race coverage. Announcers are dreadfully uninformed. Coverage style makes a Gremlin look appealing.

This is probably a very bad move for sports car racing fans.
Calvin Fish and what is his name? Dempsey? They know the sport and work well together. They do ALMS, right? Or just Rolex?

Anyway, looking forward to the season but the broadcasts are likely to suck big time. I hope I'm wrong.

924RACR

+1 to that - utter mockery of proper race coverage.

multi21

Does ABC cover NASCAR or just ESPN? This can only be good for the sport and series if they cover it like they do NASCAR. Hopefully that's the blueprint they will use.

Kurt R

I'm not happy.

jsabatini

ESPN3.com

Scroll to the bottom of the linked article. ESPN3.com will provide live coverage flag to flag, hopefully you, and I, can connect to ESPN3.com. So much for watching it on my big screen TV in HD.