World Rallycross Championship a.k.a RALLYX

[denkimi]

I know people like to complain and everybody wants everything to be free nowadays but HATS OFF to redbull for literally having semis and finals "live" and "free" on the RedBullTV. You can watch it here:
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/event...pionship-spain

I also love how RedBullTV puts daily highlights for WRC for free and I hope fia erc will get at least the same kind of coverage. It will be great for fans like me that are not from europe (kinda impossible to watch eurosport). I say great job GmbH!

It's not about us wanting something for free. Its about people who sponsor money and want as much people as possible to see their name.

Especially in expensive sports that require much sponsors putting things behind a paywal is just slow suicide.

If people don't watch, sponsors don't sponsor and drivers don't drive, it's as simple as that.

[fiscorpun]

Thats the point, mate. People dont watch racing, so theres no sponsors.
Sponsors want NBA numbers. Soccer in europen and NFL in america draw millions of eyeballs each game.
Racing has what? 30k views on YouTube? I think you said it right without noticing. People dont watch racing... So theres no sponsors... So they gotta go behind paywalls and count on its niche to survive... Or at least until they fool a new promoter into "this is the biggest sport ever. You are going to get a lot of $ with it" haha.
Anyway... Thanks GmbH for the free coverage! Dont listen to IMG, Ford, Audi, VW, Peugeot, Track promoters etc saying they only lost money in RX :P

[MrJan]

That's backwards thinking. People don't watch so we'll make those who do pay? The sport has a great chance to be hugely popular, being behind a paywall ain't it.

Credit to it being on redbull.tv for free, but there's no advertising of that which I've seen. How are they going to get new fans into the sport when they only advertise the paywall stuff? The only people who will pay are those who know what they're getting. And if they don't grow the support base then they don't get people into the tracks, and if they don't get people into the track they don't get the sponsors they have...and they do have sponsors, quite a lot across the different teams. It may not be F1 levels but you think we'd have anyone else other than Rene Munnich on the grid if there were no sponsors?

[Fast Eddie WRC]

It'll be interesting to see what the figures are for people buying RX+.

I'm a big fan but I wont be paying for it on top of all my other sports subscriptions. Plus the driver/car competition level is less this season so the (free) SFs & Final are where the real excitement will be.

[AndyRAC]

redbull.tv has great stuff on it - and free. The recent Red Bull Hardline DH MTB race was fabulous, and was also on the RBTV YouTube channel. Also, the recent Aberstone Hard Enduro; some of that coverage could teach the WRC in how to connect with fans.

They've decided that the live coverage of the WRC, RX and probably the ERC in future is paywall; that is how they run it. I can't recall seeing any promotion for the free coverage of the last RX round. Anybody could have told them coverage behind a paywall is a short sighted decision. The numbers simply aren't big enough. I'm convinced one of the reasons for the small number of WRC manufacturers is the paywall.

Go on any well known motorsport forum, and the rallying/rallycross threads get far less comments than the other circuit based series. There's less interest as it's harder to see.

[Franky]

Go on any well known motorsport forum, and the rallying/rallycross threads get far less comments than the other circuit based series. There's less interest as it's harder to see.

Except on this forum

[fiscorpun]

That's backwards thinking. People don't watch so we'll make those who do pay? The sport has a great chance to be hugely popular, being behind a paywall ain't it.

Credit to it being on redbull.tv for free, but there's no advertising of that which I've seen. How are they going to get new fans into the sport when they only advertise the paywall stuff? The only people who will pay are those who know what they're getting. And if they don't grow the support base then they don't get people into the tracks, and if they don't get people into the track they don't get the sponsors they have...and they do have sponsors, quite a lot across the different teams. It may not be F1 levels but you think we'd have anyone else other than Rene Munnich on the grid if there were no sponsors?

I see this in reverse, mate. Sorry. Racing used to be on free to air TV... even F1, for example. But people simply dont watch it. Racing is expensive, numbers should be huge to compensate the money invested. And it isnt. Maybe thats why we are seeing cheaper "spec" series doing better overall, like these TCR championships, stadium super trucks, tony stewart's new series in america, crosscars.... Maybe theres "too much" top world series for sponsors and audience to handle! Thats an interesting thought to debate too.

[fiscorpun]

True. Promoters have deep access to numbers, for example. They KNOW whats going on. They are in the bussiness so its not like "They dont know how to promote" something. They do!...but they have budget limits. And probably a lot of RoI data. I mean, they will not invest $100mi in rallycross to get 30k views, 5 tracks being able to pay the hosting fee and 2k tickets sold per event. You gotta do the math!
Im just guessing weird numbers ok? But there are reasons why wrc or rx are not Huge like we wanted to.
If you ever talked do road racing fans, they always say that RX is stupid so there you go. Opinions are eyeballs, eyeballs are money. Racing is expensive.

[lmmjvss]

10 cars for Holjes? Is that for real?
While theres 24 cars for euroRX at the same track?
I think WorldRX is done for real for 2022 since everybody is heading NitroRX (doran, larsson, hansens, omse, eks cars for two teams, gronholm. Theres nothing left for WRX, just the european privateers that will not race 10 races/year including 1 or 2 oversea races

[tbtstt]

10 cars for Holjes? Is that for real?
While theres 24 cars for euroRX at the same track?
I think WorldRX is done for real for 2022 since everybody is heading NitroRX (doran, larsson, hansens, omse, eks cars for two teams, gronholm. Theres nothing left for WRX, just the european privateers that will not race 10 races/year including 1 or 2 oversea races

Think the Supercar total for Holjes is actually pretty similar to last year, just that the WRX/ERX entry numbers have been flipped. With the changes coming WRX was always going to struggle this year but factor in the pandemic as well and I think they numbers they have are surprising.

As an aside I hope that NRX is a success, but I am getting bored of reading all the nut-swinging for it: they haven't even run a full season yet and everyone seems to think it is the savior of rallycross. Seem to be a lot of people with very short term memory concerning rallycross series in the US.