Motorsports: Where will you be watching?
The weekend of the 16th/17th May I , like many settled down for the evening armed with a small arsenal of technology and proceeded to watch the - excellent I must say - coverage of the Nurburgring 24hr race, live by way of the Radio Le Mans internet page and YouTube. Now, this is not the first time that I and many other people whom I know via the various social media platforms have viewed an event, in fact this year so far I have watched, The Dubai 24 hour (in my lunch break at work!), The Daytona 24 hour, Bathurst 12 hour, Mugello... and so on, not to mention utilising various on boards from the various squads via, yes, you guessed it, the internet or YouTube. Now, I know these series / races are endurance events and so it would be hard to cover these in this much detail on a standard TV broadcast for events that wouldn't bring in the viewers that maybe the Le Mans 24 hr does, but I'm slightly straying from the point i'm trying to make.
And that point is:
Where will we be watching motor sports in the next 5 years?
My guess is a lot of series will be adapting internet broadcasting either as a main output or, as an extension of what is already available to the public, and with new series popping up all the time, calendars getting fuller and established events generating more popularity there is only going to be so much TV time available. The answer - to me - will be the internet. I think many GT series may be the first to take the plunge completely and offer full races live via streams, teams may well offer their own pictures via onboards or the new Periscope app, and the commentary can be matched to the feed by clicking the appropriate tab pending on where you are in the world, or even which language you speak!
Those series who already boast a strong fan base and TV presence could do worse than to adapt their own coverage to suit, watch the race pictures on the TV but have the in car pictures on your phone via apps or the relevant teams website / YouTube channel. In short it's only going to be a good thing, unlike other mainstream sports such as football or cricket it's highly unlikely that a new championship is going to appear in the short term and, therefore unlikely to require further airtime. Motorsport is ever expanding with Formula E being the highest profile new addition in recent times but everyone from the teams, FIA/series administrators, manufacturers right down to the fans can and will (should?) benefit. Why? Well, If the races are being streamed live via the internet we are creating an almost "on demand" feature for the series, lets be honest, when we look at series such as say, Blancpain or GT Open, those of us who do watch probably don't always see it when first broadcast, and, then it is often a highlights package anyway. while this may satisfy many there will be those who do want to see the full event, an as live video, from an already broadcast stream serves as this for the fan who was maybe trackside at say Imola while the racing was happening at Jerez.
Formula 1 and domestic touring car racing aside TV (in the UK) has never really fully embraced the motor sport fans, ITV4 is doing a stirling job with its BTCC, Isle of Man, Moto GP, Formula E etc but most of this comes after the event. Motors TV also does a great deal with it's WEC, ELMS, ALMS, V8 etc but, as I said earlier there is only so much schedule space available, for example, during the ELMS race from Imola on the 17th of May, Motors TV left the event to focus on the (rather excellent I must say) F3 round from Pau. If I'm correct, soon we will have the choice of which event we watch live in its entirety and which we catch up with afterwards.
Is the future of Motor sport viewing what you are reading this on?
And that point is:
Where will we be watching motor sports in the next 5 years?
My guess is a lot of series will be adapting internet broadcasting either as a main output or, as an extension of what is already available to the public, and with new series popping up all the time, calendars getting fuller and established events generating more popularity there is only going to be so much TV time available. The answer - to me - will be the internet. I think many GT series may be the first to take the plunge completely and offer full races live via streams, teams may well offer their own pictures via onboards or the new Periscope app, and the commentary can be matched to the feed by clicking the appropriate tab pending on where you are in the world, or even which language you speak!
Those series who already boast a strong fan base and TV presence could do worse than to adapt their own coverage to suit, watch the race pictures on the TV but have the in car pictures on your phone via apps or the relevant teams website / YouTube channel. In short it's only going to be a good thing, unlike other mainstream sports such as football or cricket it's highly unlikely that a new championship is going to appear in the short term and, therefore unlikely to require further airtime. Motorsport is ever expanding with Formula E being the highest profile new addition in recent times but everyone from the teams, FIA/series administrators, manufacturers right down to the fans can and will (should?) benefit. Why? Well, If the races are being streamed live via the internet we are creating an almost "on demand" feature for the series, lets be honest, when we look at series such as say, Blancpain or GT Open, those of us who do watch probably don't always see it when first broadcast, and, then it is often a highlights package anyway. while this may satisfy many there will be those who do want to see the full event, an as live video, from an already broadcast stream serves as this for the fan who was maybe trackside at say Imola while the racing was happening at Jerez.
Formula 1 and domestic touring car racing aside TV (in the UK) has never really fully embraced the motor sport fans, ITV4 is doing a stirling job with its BTCC, Isle of Man, Moto GP, Formula E etc but most of this comes after the event. Motors TV also does a great deal with it's WEC, ELMS, ALMS, V8 etc but, as I said earlier there is only so much schedule space available, for example, during the ELMS race from Imola on the 17th of May, Motors TV left the event to focus on the (rather excellent I must say) F3 round from Pau. If I'm correct, soon we will have the choice of which event we watch live in its entirety and which we catch up with afterwards.
Is the future of Motor sport viewing what you are reading this on?
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