Is Sports Car Racing Popular Now?

Journalists close to the sport of auto racing reiterate the same statement frequently. The sport is hurting. Not just the local short tracks, but the big guns of Formula 1, NASCAR, and IndyCar. Sports Car racing however, has seen subtle growth throughout the last decade.

2014 marks the inaugural season for the Tudor United Sports Car Series. Announced in 2012, the new series is a unification of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series and the American LeMans Series. After close to thirteen years of competition, American sports car racing is now under one roof.

The series is not perfect however. Regulations concerning the class structure have fans and teams in uproar. Many staple teams of the American LeMans Series have left the series for the European tour or closed down entirely. The Daytona Prototypes have been the face of the Rolex Sports Car Series. Sleek European P1 and P2 cars have represented the American LeMans Series. Eliminating P1 cars and pinning P2 cars and DP's has been met with criticism. Attempts to equalize the two classes has proved almost futile, leaving most P2 teams to abandon the series. Despite this controversy, Fox Sports says ratings are up.

Last weekend, Fox Sports 2 aired live flag to flag coverage of the Lone Star LeMans from Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. The very next day Fox aired a time condensed re-air of the race. The broadcast occurred as the lead out program for Fox's NFL single header. By Wednesday, Fox reported the broadcast received a 1.1 Neilson rating. Was this a fluke? Was this merely a result of being the lead out program?

This tape delayed broadcast went up against live NASCAR and afternoon football. Despite that, 1.1 million viewers tuned in to watch this sports car event. Some critics believe fans never changed the channel after football but didn't actually watch the race. That shouldn't be ruled out.

Nonetheless, Fox has this strategy planned for the final race of the season later on next month. If ratings are the same or higher, it might just mean a positive future for sports car racing in the U.S.

Formula E on Fox Sports 1 Report

If there was any doubt Formula E would provide a spectacle for fans and a lead story for television highlights, the doubt was crushed on Saturday.

Fox Sports 1's coverage however, felt lacking. Something that's quite surprising based on Fox's past history of covering motor racing events at a very high level. One cannot be too harsh however. Fox had little to no control over the broadcast. Yet abrupt commercial breaks with no prior warning took the average viewer right out of the action and into a seemingly endless stream of Michelin advertisements for a completely different racing series.

While the on track product proved exciting and showed the high caliber of drivers participating in Formula E, Fox did little to mention the race even happened on their channels. Twitter absolutely exploded with reactions after Nicolas Prost's abrupt move on Nick Heidfeld in the final corner sent Heidfeld soaring into a protective barrier. Fox noticed the reactions and immediately jumped on the opportunity to inform fans that if they missed the event, a re-air would be played on Sunday at 1 PM EST.

The downside however was the information was provided only through Twitter, as well as the occasional mention on Fox Sports 1 & 2's bottom line ticker. Poor promotion through the only medium allowing access to the race has ultimately cost Fox an opportunity to build on the momentum Formula E generated. Scheduling the re-air of the race at the same time as the first race in the NASCAR Chase for the Cup as well as the 1 PM NFL games hurt even more. With only two opportunities to watch the event, both being at times that inconvenience fans, Fox has ultimately dropped the ball on what could have been a ratings juggernaut.

Many fans still feel skeptical about Formula E and if Fox doesn't show enough interest, it's doubtful those fans will feel any differently.

What will drive Formula E?

In the wee hours of the morning on Saturday September 13th, 2014, the world will finally be able to see the brand new racing series that has received more hype globally than the creation of the Indy Racing League way back in 1996. That racing series is the all-electric Formula E. It will debut on a street circuit in Beijing, China. Here in the states, the Beijing ePrix is set to air on the toddler television network, Fox Sports 1.

 Since its launch in August of last year, Fox Sports 1 has already shown that it is ready and willing to show any sport it can find the rights to. Even after the closure of SPEED Channel, Fox has still shown a significant commitment to motorsports programming. In addition to gaining US Formula E rights last year, Fox Sports 1 re-upped their NASCAR package through 2022, taking over the entire first half of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series (soon to be called the NASCAR Xfinity Series). Fox also took a step in the right direction by signing on to be the exclusive television partner of the newly unified Tudor United Sports Car Championship through 2018.

 Fox aired live flag to flag coverage of the 24 Hours of Daytona on Fox, Fox Sports 1, and Fox Sports 2 this January. The coverage was received well and they showed even further that they were not going to leave motorsport fans in the dark. Later that June they aired 23 of the 24 Hours of LeMans live throughout Fox Sports 1 & 2. A year ago, many had serious doubt we would even see 15 of those 24 hours, but Fox has shown they're not going to go the way of ESPN and ignore the motorsports fan base. Fox has made up for their cancellation of SPEED Center and Wind Tunnel last year with equal coverage of motorsports news and highlights on their nightly sports news show, Fox Sports Live, along with coverage of other sports. In addition to the equal treatment of motorsports to ball sports, Fox has heavily promoted its daily NASCAR talk show, RaceHub around their networks. This comes in light of ESPN's cancellation of their own NASCAR talk show, NASCAR Now that had received high ratings since its launch in 2007, only to see a steady decline in ratings throughout the last four years due to constant scheduling shifts.

What does all of this mean however? What does any of this have to do with the success of Formula E?

Currently, there are two planned events here in the United States for Formula E. The season runs throughout the 2014 and 2015 calendar years with planned events in Miami and Long Beach in early 2015. Fox is scheduled to air every race of the season live with a condensed and tape delayed broadcast to run a day or so after the live event. Fox will not be sending any of its own announcers, cameramen, or reporters to cover the series, but instead relying completely on the world coverage feed, anchored by European broadcaster Jack Nicholls and three time Indianapolis 500 champion Dario Franchitti.

This begs the question, was this just a PR move to gain more content for the channel while hushing the critics still bitter over the loss of SPEED Channel or a showing of legitimate interest in open wheeled racing? In a recent tweet (which you can read here) made by longtime Fox motorsport broadcaster Bob Varsha, Varsha claims Fox might be waiting and seeing what Formula E is and if it's worth being covered and shown on their channel.

The main worry that gives any fan with hopes that Formula E will take off is that casual sports or racing fans will not be drawn in by Formula E and with many already calling the series 'gimmicky' and 'doomed to fail', poor television coverage in the United States, the only country to hold two ePrix, could cause not only a failure for the series, but also a significant financial loss for Fox.

As of right now, I have yet to see a single promo, advertisement, or plug of any kind on Fox Sports 1 about the race Saturday morning. The Fox Sports Facebook and Twitter pages are however, doing quite the stellar job of promoting the race.

Only time will tell whether or not Formula E and Fox will have success or failure, but with the next ePrix not being held until late November, whatever momentum carries over could predict the Fox's future commitment to European auto racing.