ESPN Deal
By Rob McCurdy
January 17, 2011Article published Jan 13, 2011
Mid-Ohio race key part of LeMans Series-ESPN deal
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I guess I wasn't the only one who left Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course impressed last August.
The American Le Mans Series, a major headliner for much of the last decade, put on its best show ever at the Lexington road course. It looks like that momentum was noticed by people with a lot more cache and pull than the lowly motor sports writer at the News Journal.
ALMS recently announced it has signed a deal with ESPN, the four most powerful letters in sports programming.
All of its 2011 races will be aired on either ABC or ESPN2. Avid fans can follow the series on ESPN3.com where live qualifying and race coverage will be found every race weekend.
So when ALMS returns to Mid-Ohio Aug. 5 and 6, fans can watch it live on the Internet, then a tape-delayed race package will be aired on ESPN2 from 10 p.m. to midnight on Aug. 7.
The season-opening Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring will be shown in part on ABC as will races at Road America and Baltimore in late summer and the season-ending Petit Le Mans in October. The ABC races will get an encore showing on ESPN2 as well.
ALMS is no stranger to TV. It's had a home on SPEED Channel and it has seen a patchwork of races show up on CBS and NBC over the years. But this deal gives the sports car series a coherent TV presence which will be easier for fans to follow and better for sponsors who want to promote products. Most importantly it moves the series closer to mainstream, as it will be seen by a whole lot more eyeballs than ever before.
ABC can be seen in every U.S. household, while ESPN2 is now a cable fixture found in 99.7 million households. ESPN3.com is a broadband sports network and likely the future of sports programming. ESPN3.com will show up to 60 hours of live coverage. It will show qualifying from every event in real time as well as pre-race and post-race content not found on the telecasts.
With ESPN on board, it's likely ALMS news and highlights could find their way onto they myriad of SportsCenters which the network produces around the clock.
Driving this deal was the coveted 18-to-34 demographic which has doubled over the last two years for ALMS.
Intersport, a TV production company, helped broker the deal and it turns out Mid-Ohio was key in making it happen. The Emmy-award winning company last year produced two docudrama broadcasts -- one from the successful Mid-Ohio weekend -- which highlighted the storylines and the personalities in the sport, and it showed the potential the series brought to TV programmers. Intersport will continue to produce ALMS content for ESPN.
Last season was a turning point for the sports car series. It restructured its classes and saw car counts swell because of it, making for much better action on the track. It also generated buzz by being the first racing series to go green and embrace alternative fuels at a time when gas prices spiked.
While car makers had a hard time justifying racing during a global recession, ALMS gave them a reason to stay on the track so they could hone their new technologies which made cars more efficient. GM, Porsche, BMW and others embraced the new direction.
Out of the 2010 season comes a bigger, better TV and Internet deal which will only help the cause of the car manufacturers and team sponsors looking for more bang for their bucks.
ALMS has shared the spotlight with the Izod IndyCar Series in recent years at Mid-Ohio and will continue to do so. In the past, ALMS was like the little brother in the doubleheader weekend, but that could be changing.
Comparing last year's on-track action was no contest as the ALMS show was much more compelling and entertaining than the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. Now that it's getting a more mainstream TV presence and a cutting-edge deal with ESPN3.com, the series is more than ever becoming an equal partner in the Lexington doubleheader.
It should make for an interesting August at Mid-Ohio.
Rob McCurdy covers motor sports at the News Journal and can be reached at rmccurdy@nncogannett.com
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