Record Viewership for Lucas Oil Pro Motocross
Monday, July 16, 2012 | 1:55 PM
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PrintMX Sports Pro Racing and Alli Sports Continue to Set Record Numbers
with Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - MX Sports Pro Racing and Alli Sports, a division of the NBC Sports Group, announced today record-high viewership at the halfway-point of the 2012 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship, sanctioned by AMA Pro Racing. With a robust multi-platform offering, the series has not only increased viewership over the season, but has also drawn in a loyal fan base that crosses broadcast and digital channels to maximize race-day visibility.
The Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship viewership, after the first six races, has increased 67 percent across all platforms. A top performer on the NBC Sports Network, it has also seen great success on NBC, FUEL TV, and AlliSports.com. Notably this season, the series has already achieved status as the second-most-watched program in the history of FUEL TV, an 80-percent increase in live stream starts with over 400,000 for the year, a 300-percent growth in traffic to the series website on Allisports.com, and a 200-percent increase in video views.
"2012 has been a hugely-successful year for us thus far. We really have the most loyal fans in all of sports," said Davey Coombs, President of MX Sports Pro Racing. "The distribution strategy we created for 2012 is working, providing our audience with the complete sport experience through our multi-platform, multi-channel offering. We have five races to go and are expecting continued success and growth."
"Motocross has seen tremendous growth over the past few years, but this season viewership is at an all-time high; we're really hitting our stride and seeing an extraordinary response from the audience across all platforms," said Wade Martin, President of Alli Sports. "The series has exploded now with a cohesive offering through the NBC Sports Group with programming on NBC and NBC Sports Network, support through NBCSports.com and their streaming technology. We also have seen an increase in promotion across available sports group assets; all together and with FUEL TV, it makes this one of the best offerings to both fans and brands in motorsports and action sports as a whole."
The Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship continues this weekend in Washougal, Wash., for the Peterson CAT Washougal National and wraps up September 8th in Lake Elsinore, Calif. For a full broadcast listing schedule, visit AlliSports.com/motocross.Tickets for the remaining rounds of the 2012 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship can be found at www.allisports.com.
For additional information please visit AlliSports.com/motocross also, "like" the American Motocross Facebook page, "follow" @AmericanMX on Twitter and Instagram for exclusive content and information on the latest Lucas Oil Motocross news and developments.
For media information about the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship, please contact MX Sports Pro Racing via email at [email protected]
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Good news for the sport but this also changes the sport.
Ya, but change is good, right??!!!! The sport has to change in order to grow. The questio is this tho....
Are the right people in charge that will facilitate this change for the better, with both racer and fan as benificiaries, OR, will this be a Louongo World MX type change that is detrimental to the sports lower cased racers who try to come up to the elite class of racers????
I don't know, do you??????
Who thinks Bestwick is good for the broadcast? I do. He adds something, and I like the fact that he's got a mouth on him. Believe it or not there are viewers out there that don't know everything about the sport and JB is a breath of fresh air. I like that he stirs the pot and so what if he makes a mistake here and there. He is amazingly well versed on what's going on in the sport. I hope they keep him and DON'T put a muzzle on him!
Just think the viewership would be 3 fold what it is if it was set up like the old espn 2 Larry Maiers, Art Eckman David Bailey ALAH Fuel style today...........
Hell Ill do it for free just to T off a few of you haters on Racer X....... LOL Of coarse I would have to lose these threads,cigar and the face look from the A-Team but I still have all my hair and teeth and can talk better than I type,,,,,,,Just sayin.....Big Tire guy............Were are you!!!!!!!!!!!!
While on the subject of viewing the races on the tube, How about showing the running order (qualifying position) while you're doing the fluff before the gate drops? Then we could see how everyone qualified before the gate drop. Some have riders they really like and want to pull for that don't qualify top ten, or even top twenty sometimes. It bites to watch the drop check out part of the the lap, rewind, watch it again so you can get qualifying positions for the gate. I'm sitting there as they show rider du jour is putting on his googles and talking about the rider to watch who qualified 28th thinking "Why isn't the running order scrolling now while nothing is happening?" My rant with a simple fix.
SeventiesRacer, I think the right people are in charge to move everything and everyone forward together and not ever forget about those "lower-cased" riders.... But of course I am biased in this case.
On the running order and all that, thanks for the input, we are looking into these suggestions.
DC
MX Sports
Great job MX Sports! I'm a marketer and these are obviously great numbers.
Next year lets get HD for the first moto's as well. Moto looks amazing in HD.
I would rather see it all on one channel (easier to tell newbies how to watch).
Thanks Davey, and please note; nothing wrong with having some fluff or even some interview footage footage of the riders or the guy who qualified 28th. That might be someone I want to see have a breakout ride! Just give us a little strip across the top so we can see everyone's gate pick before the gate drops :-)
Good news. Just please move it all to one HD channel.
I would like to know the stats on total viewership compared to last years speed broadcasts? Yes we are loyal, I switched from dish to direct just to get nbc sports and fuel in HD. Fuel HD seems to be better than NBC HD, for the record.
although it would be somewhat insignificant, try broadcasting in Canada and those numbers would even be better. I'd be interested in knowing what the viewership is for the first race through alisports.
Motocross is one of the very few sports that is growing during these hard times. I think that it is a shame that these guys don't have a big purse that gives them more incentive to race hard each and every lap. The amount of hard work that these riders have to put in just to get to that level is unmatched by any other sports. If these riders had a points fund that paid them well I think you wouldn't see so many top guys quiting as soon as they no longer can win the title. When you see golf,tennis,Nascar and many more that have 10 million dollar purses it makes you wonder if Field, MX sports and the promoters are not being fair to the racers. When you think about what it takes to prepare a rider to race at that level its unbelievable, They start racing at 3-5 years old and the whole family lives eats and breathes the amatuer circut for the next 10 to 15 yrs. Most of these families are in debt that they never recover from when their child makes it or not. For every kid that makes it there is thousands that don't. I think these racers are getting cheated by not having a purse for each race and a points fund!! A win in Nascar can be over a million dollars at some races and they pay everyone that starts the race. Its no wonder we have guys out there riding around and getting in the way while getting lapped.
TWK1, I agree completely. How can we expect this sport to grow when we still treat these elite athletes like amateurs. Why do they need to pay a fee to race? The time and effort of practicing, nagging injuries, travelling all over the country, etc. is a mental and financial drain. They make very little comparable to most sports; barely breaking even in most cases. To think how many Ricky Carmichael's, James Stewart's etc. dropped out because they could not afford to continue.
What do we need to make this sport grow....start paying a decent living for the riders who but their life on the line week in and week out.
Amazing that with this terrible TV package and we are still seeing growth. Imagine what it would be if it were all on one channel that everybody actually has ie. Speed or ESPN.
Amen on the HD. Non HD is just awful. I'm spoiled. Seriously it's REALLY bad, can't see numbers on bikes, slow mo sucks, etc. Can't believe Fuel doesn't have an HD channel, or does it? I'm on COX cable and I don't have it.
Fuel does a good job, but stay away from the CBS, NBC channels. They are horrible!
Go back to SPEED in HD.
"The series has exploded now with a cohesive offering through the NBC Sports Group with programming on NBC and NBC Sports Network, support through NBCSports.com and their streaming technology. We also have seen an increase in promotion across available sports group assets; all together and with FUEL TV, it makes this one of the best offerings to both fans and brands in motorsports and action sports as a whole."
--This is the biggest load of shit I have ever read on this site.
Wow, i actually agree with pizzacorner. Something is rotten in Denmark.
What does Bestwick bring to the table? Seriously, what? How many times did he have to tell us the track at Red Bud was "gnarly"? And that's really all he could offer as far as input. He's a BMX guy; he's never raced at this level (or maybe never raced MX at all?), so how does he improve the broadcast? Weigandt is the everyman's voice who never raced pro MX; Emig is the retired pro who can analyze and break it down. Bestwick is...is...he can...um...repeat the obvious multiple times? Oh yeah, he did mention that Baggett was an "animal" almost as many times as the track was gnarly. Super informative!
I'm not a Bestwick hater, but what possibly could have been the reasoning to add him? Did the suits think that Weigandt/Emig were somehow lacking something, and Bestwick would be able to cover for their shortcomings? It all smacks of some think-tank lets-try-this-and-see-what-happens approach, without regard to analyzing what's working and what isn't...what needs fixed, and what is fine.
I think, personally, that there are still suits that don't respect the sport enough to take it seriously yet, so they're going to throw any broadcast talent they have towards it to see what sticks, irrespective of how badly that talent grates on the MX faithful.
Honestly, moto faithful; did you not roll your eyes in embarrassment at least once while Bestwick was speaking during the Red Bud broadcast? Yes, yes you did.
@rdub394. Yes "amazing" is the word considering all of Canada has been shut out and most of my family and friends in the US don't have access to these channels either. I bet numbers are being fudged big time to pretend that viewership is up. Worst coverage in the history of our sport by a long shot.
Imagine if JS7 raced every race! I give the credit to the 250 guys, during the 450 motos i take a power nap.
ungarata...I'll agree. Bestwick seemed to have been interjected simply to add someone with an accent to the mix. Did they think it would make the broadcast seem more "international"? Since he wasn't on the broiadcast for Millville I'm hoping that they have seen the rror of their ways and sacked him. By contrast, the young lady doing interviews in MX is SO MUCH BETTER than the bad interviews, poor timing, and lack of professionalism shown by the female interviewer in SX. Let's hope that they keep her.
As far as spreading the motos all over the place, first moto live on Allisports, second moto on the channel of the day. That really doesn't work for all the fans out there, I have cable TV, but I don't have access to all the other channels, Fuel and NBC Sports Network. I do have internet, and I faithfully watch the first motos on that format, except for this last weekend when I was out of town. I will be headed to alli to see if they have posted the archives yet as soon as I am done typing this. The quality of the internet feed seems to change from event to event. If I could get a high quality feed at a reasonable rate I would pay for some sort of internet package to be able to watch both motos, I also like the fact that the motos are archived in case I am busy that Saturday.
Keep moving us forward from the days when Cycle News had all the results posted much much later in the week.
Mr. Coombs, I believe we continue to go in the right direction. Yes, we have hiccups but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
The 4 hour live format at Millville was the best! Having it on two different channels was not - but it is geting better. Continue to work towards that 4 hour format. Then I can go out and ride without having to come back in between to see the next set of motos or spend time trying to find them on the TV. The 4 hour format makes it great for gathering of friends and family to see the complete race.
Add some point incentives for the series. Give a point or two for fastest qualifier. Give a point of two for the most number of laps led. How about a point for the hole shot? These would not affect the overall event points but add a little to the series points.
Keep looking forward and change what doesn't work.
fuel is in HD with direct tv, dish has it in SD, and dish may not have nbc sports network? with direct tv the fuel broadcast is sharper than NBC sports
I find it sad to read an article about record viewership of the nats, when this is the first time ever that I have not seen ONE race on TV because of my cable company. Put it back on SPEED where it belongs!