NaroEscape

and there lies the problem... unfortunately sports car racing has to PAY the TV stations to broadcast, unlike NASCAR, NFL, NCAA and other sports that the stations pay the sport for the rights to broadcast. From what I understand from an IMSA official, the manufacturers 'Buy In' money, and maybe some of the marketing money, goes toward paying TV to broadcast the races. WC has no revenue stream to pony up the cash to pay for live TV, so we get what we get...

Cory M

I wish World Challenge didn't stop putting their races on YouTube. Last year you could get all of the races in their entirety on YouTube a week or so after it aired on TV. Now all they upload are stupid 1-2 minute clips and teasers. They carry the races on their website but it doesn't work with my internet streaming so I didn't watch any of the races this season.

ChrisFL

Fans definitely want competitive variety in cars that they actually recognize. Just curious about what rennlisters know about the Blancpain series. I think thats a really nice racing series that has participation from all manufacturers (Merc, BMW, Audi, Ferrari, Bentley, McLaren, Nissan, Aston, Jag, Lambo, Porsche... ). Would really be great to have an American GT3 series like this.

fleadh

And the majority of the PC field would prefer to drive P2 or GTD/GT3 cars too. But the budget to run GTD is a minimum 3x what PC is. Do you want to cover the difference? I'd be happy to field your choice of car.

-mike

cgomez

What a shortsighted view for playing monopoly (IMSA/i.e. GrandAm).
Why don't they just allow the same GT3 specs as the resto of the world does, and not impose the extra cost and burden for a "special" BoP. Is it just to allow the Camaros and Mustangs? I dont get it...
It just opens up the market even more for PWC or eventually Blancpain series to come stateside. It won't take long for the GTD budget capable drivers to figure out they can race a whole season Europe for a lot less. Extra air fare 1st class or private plane hours to go overseas is just rounding error

ProCoach

And the P2 and GTD cars are NOT 3x more fun!

Like that class. Real driver class.

IMSA does not make sense, sometimes...

GTgears

Blancpain is great racing.

I saw the 50kg and restrictor plate announcement yesterday. What a joke to keep them slower than the LM spec cars. And this pay to play thing is messed up. If PWC adds some longer races like is rumored they could steal some good teams and drivers from IMSA, as they should.

Ritter v4.0

I don't know how the money works in Blancpain but IMHO this is the model to follow. Great tracks and marques, sprints AND endurance races, PRO, PRO/AM and AM racers. They have good live streaming and post event TV and YouTube. I went to the race in Moscow this summer and it was first rate all around.

Seems like PWC was leaning in this direction- they should continue to do so.

lordpantsington

FWIW, they are still on youtube, they are just unlisted and then linked to through the WC-tv site. They usually went up at odd times, my working theory was they went up after the broadcasts on CBS. It was really hard to not have the results spoiled last season. :/

Streak

My fear is that this is indicative of a poor financial outlook for the series. Do they need to find a few million dollars because they are going under the way Atherton et al ran ALMS into the ground?

As it stands, the TV broadcasts already play second fiddle to EVERYTHING else on FS1 and FS2. They missed the start of one race because of a college football game. Were there really THAT many people tuned into that game? And another time they went long on a truck race. They just had to interview EVERYONE instead of show the start of the Tudor race. And the longer races jump all over the dial.

So the question the teams need to ask is "what am I getting for my million?" It seems like a million dollars might buy you some air time as long as NOTHING else is going on in the sports world as whatever agreement the team has with IMSA doesn't seem to be honored by Fox.

Weak leadership at the top.

GTgears

PWC just confirmed a 6 hour race at Cota in conjunction with SRO.

Cory M

So can I just search "Pirelli World Challenge" or something to find the unlisted videos? Strange that they wouldn't add them to their YouTube channel now that the season is over.

lordpantsington

The videos are unlisted so will not show up in search results.

I usually start here:
http://www.world-challengetv.com/#/races
Click a race (for instance COTA Live Stream Playback of GT/GTA/GT Cup)
When it brings up the video I can click the bottom right corner (the YouTube logo) and can "Watch on YouTube.com" which will then link to the unlisted video. I've only watched the livestream, but it looks like the CBSSN broadcasts are all archived there via youtube.

Cory M

Great, I'll give it a shot. Thank you.

C.J. Ichiban

major issues and possible solutions:

Ferrari, Porsche, BMW, Audi, Mazda all spend a ton of money and want other brands to pay equal or similar. Mazda, Porsche, BMW are a huge sponsor and get signage etc all over the tracks and web feeds. Porsche has their own feed on IMSA app- have more commercial slots available etc.

solution #1 any manufacturer can sponsor any individual race on the calendar- highest bidder to series. Conti tires races are sponsored by BMW all the time. Charge higher rates to sponsor the races or higher rates for signage on flyers, posters, on track etc. DO NOT CHARGE HIGHER ENTRY FEES. that is shooting the series in the foot. Sportscar racing is about variety!! Allow bigger sponsors the chance to put more advertisements on TV. If Mazda wants to pony up for "series sponsor" levels then they get more commercial airtime.

solution #2 allow single-car and part-time customer teams entry in whatever homologated car they want in GTD level. Series will a larger pool of "race entry fees" instead of "manufacturer fees" buy collecting smaller amounts from more cars. This will bring PWC defectors like Lizard etc back to series. Reality is that the series does not spend more money if 20 teams show for a race or if 14 teams do- but they sure do collect more that way in the long run!

Problem- Full Season is too expensive, and "just running" NAEC is 75% as expensive as running full season. New teams trying to come in from Europe or PWC or up from GS etc can't take that big of a jump. This goes for all LMP-C and GT teams.

solution- in addition to the NAEC championship- allow n00b teams the ability to compete for the North American Sprint Enduro Cup. That way a team like mine (upwardly mobile but not wasting money to waste money) can do some awesome races and dip our toes into the water- COTA, Laguna Seca, Road America etc all great tracks and would be an easy fix to get us into GT or LMP level for FRACTION of the cost with a lot of incentive as we have our own championship points bracket to aim for and sell to our sponsors as a viable option.


Problem- Driver ratings are a mess. Some Gold etc level drivers cannot find rides because they don't run their own teams, or have big sponsors so they are booted from rides and replaced by wealthy guys that crash a lot.

Solution- driver ratings should only matter for LeMans in GTE AM. Every other class should be allowed to run any driver combination- if the team owner wants to hire 4 Gold level drivers to run LMPC then at least that class would not be crashing into everyone else as often.

Problem- racing is not as popular as "back in the day"

solution- allow the drivers to deviate from corporate robot scripts. encourage personalities in the paddock. Instead of fluff pieces- IMSA should produce driver centric profiles of their interesting characters and promote them and give them the tools to promote themselves. Give the real drivers and team owners more say in the direction of the series. Create some reason for fans to follow the race world 12 months around. When the series ends, everyone just goes back to watching football on the weekends and racing doesn't stay relevant until Daytona 24HR. FIX THAT by making all awesome races available online somehow.

problem- viewership is bad/down, the product is an issue/ race weekend is not ideal format- too long, too boring, etc. This goes for all series but especially INDYCAR and IMSA stuff.

solution- bring back the IROC series- get the BEST drivers racing against each other no holds barred in equal cars. I want to see Tony Kanaan or Will Power duking it out with Pat Long, Scott Pruett, Sebastian Bordais, Jordan Taylor, Joey Hand etc etc or whoever you want. And I want them in equal cars- like Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport cars, or GT3 Cups, or Multimatic Mustangs or Lotus 211's but SOMETHING. That would be the absolute *****.

tell atherton to send me a consulting fee.