Future Rally Media Coverage

today on eurosport i saw that they are going to cover the event...it was part of their January motorsport coverage schedule. No details though...

You mean MC Rally NOT?

yes MC

I haven’t been so interested how the commercial part works between FIA, the promoter of WRC, sponsors and teams but the recent news about NOS and the coverage of WRC have changed my mind.

In the Tuesday issue of “Helsingin Sanomat” (biggest daily newspaper in Finland) there was in the sports section an article called news analysis. There the writer says that: “the most important source of income for the WRC has been the TV rights”. He also says that: “Antonov’s other business are in bad shape and FIA haven’t seen a cent of the millions promised by CSI”.

Things that are clear is:
- The sponsor of a team pays the team to get media coverage via the promoter.
- The promoter pays FIA to have the TV rights.

What is unclear for me is:
- Sponsors as Abu Dhabi, Nokia etc. pays FIA or the promoter (which one?) to get media coverage.
- FIA gets the money for the TV rights.
- If the TV rights is the most important income for WRC, does the teams benefit anything from this or does it all go to FIA?

In this case, I'm not sure that no news are good news...

Looks like shot in the feet for FIA, they banefited from tv rights killing WRC at the same time (in long run). Just want to share my remarks, Mini has greater pubicity from Rally Dakar than will have from the whole series of WRC this year. Lets make one step back and start from beginig - bring back Eurosport to WRC to get publicity.

WRC's site says that next season Eurosport is going to broadcast highlights. Does anyone knows something more about this?
World Rally Championship - Fanzone - WRC TV Guide

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Originally Posted by wrc1600

Looks like shot in the feet for FIA, they banefited from tv rights killing WRC at the same time (in long run). Just want to share my remarks, Mini has greater pubicity from Rally Dakar than will have from the whole series of WRC this year. Lets make one step back and start from beginig - bring back Eurosport to WRC to get publicity.

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Looking form todays POV yes, but in two; three months time Dakar will be gone and forgotten.

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Originally Posted by wrc_flipper

UK perspective only!......

Lots to do, but It wont happen overnight - lots of people on this formum think that each wrc went they will got corner by corner action 24/7 on the internet and free to view TV. Its simply not going to happen (unless you get the guys who just won £100+million quid on sponsoring it)
Live stages / hellicopters etc all cost big money and with pressuire from the FIA, events and teams to cut costs revenues have been cut. But saying that new sponcers have some into the WRC.

TV
Lets face it - we will never get to see rallying on mainstream primetime tv.
The likes of BBC and ITV like high viewing numbers and rallying wont give them that. Also the 3-4 day format of rallying does not suit mainstream tv, where as f1 in a couple of hours slot does.
What does suit rallying is the old channel4 program of a roundup show, offering the days highlights plus extras.
Those who think the golden days of BBC coverage are coming back are living in a dream world!
The likes of MotorsTV (sorry not seen the coverage so cant comment on the quality) are the way forward offering a roundup show at the end of each day.
The Dave show has improved - noticed the lack of z-list celebs, but I would like to see the following week with extra coverage of lower the field.

Printed Press
With the internet give near-live coverage of WRC and IRC events, to me when Motorsports News drops though the door on Wednesday/Thursday it seems very outdated. Some more in-depth items would not go amiss - especially amount of people they send to each event! Noticed Jerry from MN ranted in one of his items about a proposal to have regular indepth release from wrc during the events - which he snubbed, suppose it would cut his jolly's down each year

Radio
World Rally Radio is a great idea and to me does a good job. More stage coverage is needed, but again back to the mighty £.
5Live / Talksport - do offer some brief update, but the round up program or hourly catchup would be good.
Nice ideal is Totalrally.com - would be good to have this on mainstream radio once a week.

Internet
Well where do you start. Well anything connected to a computer costs money. Developing iphone apps and internet costs time and money. wrc.com is doing more soon so the investment is coming in along with ideas on gps tracking, slpit times, webcams etc etc

Media at WRC events
The top guys offer press releases thought the day, but smaller teams media is not on the top of the list - it would be good if someone could cover these at events and report back on them and not just the big boys.

Well thats my rant over - board at work (not rally related work!)

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Would like to bring back this one, a lot of good points here.

Not much has happened in a year, and no plan to develop either has been presented.
Everyone from the top down i FIA says that Rally is a sport where the Internet should play a vital role, in addition to TV.

There are a lot of smart people on the forum, what could be done to improve the Internet part of the media show?

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Originally Posted by Kielder

WRC's site says that next season Eurosport is going to broadcast highlights. Does anyone knows something more about this?
World Rally Championship - Fanzone - WRC TV Guide

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If this is true that would be great! I hope there will be an announcement regarding this very soon.