Second Largest Exposure to Stage Rally in the US Was...the November Issue of DirtSports and Offroad Magazine?!?!

 

So a little while ago I posted that the RAV4 Virtual Reality display from Toyota featuring Ryan Millen and his stage rally SUV at Supercross events across the US was arguably the biggest exposure to this type of motorsport in the US this year.

On the heels of that comes what I would argue is the second largest exposure of stage rally to those of us in the US this year.  Written and shot by Cole Sprague for DirtSports magazine which is available both digitally and in print (see your local B&N), the article really doesn't cover anything ground breaking and only sounds like Cole attended and shot from the spectator locations (shocker that he didn't get any real proactive support from the series to put him in the thick of the action) but Team O'Neil gets a mention for their support of one of the racers as does the usual Higgins and Pastrana Subaru crew and, again, Millen's RAV4 showing and being mentioned prominently.

It would have been nice of Cole to have dug deeper into Bryan Bouffier's effort given his unique car but at least it gets a photo as does the classic Volvo of Derek Knight.

While print's circulation numbers aren't what they once were and DirtSports is not half the magazine it was a decade ago (its merger with "OffRoad Magazine" has resulted in far too much pandering to the mall crawler, bolt on accessory crowd) but stage rally coverage (three full pages with lots of photos!) in a magazine that has a reader count safely in the tens of thousands is a pretty good thing and positive exposure for the sport.

Sooooo...the two arguably largest exposures to stage rally in the US this year were...Supercross event displays and an article in a largely desert racing/offroading magazine.  Nice work Rally America...nice work...

9/20-9/21 LOORRS and GRC Weekend TV Ratings

Lots of good offroad motorsports events on Network TV this past weekend. NBC had two "live" GRC broadcasts from Los Angles where the results were Scott Speed (VW), Wiman (Ford), Block (Ford) on Day I and Rhys Millen (Hyundai), Block (Ford) and Wiman (Ford) on Day II. CBS meanwhile had a LOORRS broadcast of the Pro 2 and Pro 4 races from the Wild West Motorsports Park in Sparks, NV.

The Saturday broadcasts had an easier time of it only having to compete against a smattering of fairly uninteresting college games while the Sunday GRC show had to face off against the NFL. True to form the Saturday LOORRS and GRC shows pulled significantly higher ratings at a 0.5 for each (578,000 households and about 636,000 people viewing)than the Sunday GRC event that only generated a 0.3 rating (347,000 households and about 381,000 people viewing). Of note is that the weekend's NASCAR event from NH on Sunday saw a 2.2 rating (3.1 million viewers) and the Tudor United Sports Car Championship event at Circuit of the America's drew a 0.9 rating (1.1 million viewers), both running against the NFL.

From a historical perspective the 0.5 ratings for LOORRS and GRC on Saturday represent recent highs for both series and solid improvements from recent shows. The result is not however outside the "norm" for either series and can be considered a good but not spectacular result and at least the Sunday GRC broadcast beat out the European cycling event and canned golf preview show!!

TELECAST DATE NET TIME (ET) RATING
NFL: Broncos-Seahawks (89%) 9/21 CBS 4:25-7:30pm 16.9
"Sunday Night Football": Steelers-Panthers 9/21 NBC 8:30-11:30pm 12.3
NFL: (singleheader) 9/21 Fox 1:00-4:05pm 12.2
NFL: (regional) 9/21 CBS 1:00-4:25pm 11.1
College Football: Florida-Alabama 9/20 CBS 3:30-7:00pm 5.1
College Football: Clemson-Florida State 9/20 ABC 8:00-11:30pm 4.9
"Football Night in America" 9/21 NBC 7:30-8:15pm 3.3
"Fox NFL Sunday" 9/21 Fox 12:00-1:00pm 3.2
"The NFL Today" 9/21 CBS 12:00-1:00pm 2.9
College Football: Oklahoma-West Virginia 9/20 Fox 7:30-11:30pm 1.9
College Football: (regional) 9/20 ABC 3:30-7:00pm 1.7
MLB: (regional) 9/20 Fox 1:00-4:45pm 1.5
"College Football Today" 9/20 CBS 3:00-3:30pm 1.2
Tudor United SportsCar Championship:
Lone Star Le Mans (COTA) 9/21 Fox 5:00-6:00pm 0.9
PBR: Cooper Tires Desert Showdown 9/20 CBS 2:00-3:00pm 0.7
EPL: West Ham-Liverpool 9/20 NBC 12:30-2:30pm 0.7
Boxing: Fight Night 9/20 NBC 3:00-5:00pm 0.6
"World of X Games: Best of Austin" 9/20 ABC 2:00-3:30pm 0.5
Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series 9/20 CBS 1:00-2:00pm 0.5
"Premier League Goal Zone" 9/20 NBC 2:30-3:00pm 0.5
Global Rallycross 9/20 NBC 5:00-6:00pm 0.5
STIHL Timbersports Series 9/21 ABC 5:00-7:00pm 0.5
Diamond League Track & Field 9/21 NBC 2:00-3:00pm 0.4
"World of X Games: Big Wave Hellmen Preview" 9/21 ABC 4:00-5:00pm 0.3
Women's Rugby World Cup 9/21 NBC 3:00-4:00pm 0.3
Global Rallycross 9/21 NBC 5:00-6:00pm 0.3
"Road to the Ryder Cup" 9/21 NBC 1:30-2:00pm 0.2
Cycling: Vuelta a España 9/21 NBC 4:00-5:00pm 0.2
.

Global RallyCross and Offroad Motorsports Ratings for 8/2/14 & 8/3/14

Though there are some positives to take away from this past weekend's GRC broadcast rating, the bottom line is that it reinforces its status as a marginal TV product for prime sports viewing hours.

Admittedly, this past Sunday's show was not a live race, nor even a tape delayed one.  Instead it was a recap of the first five events of the season packaged into a neat hour and a half, edited down format.
On network TV it was competing directly against golf over on CBS.  Most concerning here is its ratings within the middle of NBC's motorsports/Red Bull oriented shows with a Mecum auto auction related and a Red Bull sponsored multi-sport adventure in Patagonia programs preceding GRC and brief show on Kurt Busch's attempt at the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 double coming after.

The GRC broadcast failed to hold the lead-in 0.4 ratings of a car auction or cross country trek and failed to support the 0.5 rating of the KB program.  Given NBC already had a full hour of the KB special in the tank (they would broadcast it the following day on NBCSN) they probly are kicking themselves for not running a full hour or more of that and cutting back on the GRC broadcast--though this is likely mitigated by the money Red Bull paid NBC for the airtime, perhaps Red Bull paid NBC more for the airtime than NBC could have sold the advertising space for on an extended KB show...perhaps.

On the positive side...the in house produced World of X Games surfing event and MLS soccer game on NBC both also saw 0.3 ratings so Red Bull can at least say--Hey, we'll pay you to put on our broadcast which will likely grab the same ratings as these other programs that YOU have to pay to produce.

So the 8/3 GRC broadcast saw some 347,000 households watching with an estimated 381,500 actual viewers.  Ratings for GRC's broadcasts for the year now are as follows:

5/24--0.4
6/22--0.3
7/20--0.5
7/26--0.3
8/3--0.3

TELECAST	DATE	NET	TIME (ET)	RATING
World of X Games: ASP Surfing	8/2	ABC	3:00-4:00pm	0.3
"ESPN Sports Saturday"	8/2	ABC	4:00-6:00pm	0.5
"PGA Tour 2014: Playing With A Purpose"	8/2	CBS	1:00-2:00pm	0.5
WGC-Bridgestone Invitational: Third Round	8/2	CBS	2:00-6:00pm	1.9
MLS: Galaxy-Timbers	8/2	NBC	3:00-5:00pm	0.3
Breeders' Cup Challenge: Whitney Handicap	8/2	NBC	5:00-6:30pm	0.6
Guinness Int'l Champions Cup: Manchester United-Real Madrid	8/2	Fox	4:00-6:00pm	0.6
"PGA Championship Preview: This Is Major"	8/3	CBS	1:00-2:00pm	0.6
WGC-Bridgestone Invitational: Final Round	8/3	CBS	2:00-6:00pm	3.1
Mecum Dealmakers	8/3	NBC	2:00-3:00pm	0.4
"Red Bull: Project Acheron: Patagonia"	8/3	NBC	3:00-4:00pm	0.4
"Global Rallycross: Season Review"	8/3	NBC	4:00-5:30pm	0.3
"Kurt Busch 36"	8/3	NBC	5:30-6:00pm	0.5
Pro Football HOF Game: Giants-Bills	8/3	NBC	8:15-11:00pm	5.8

Down Weekend for Offroad Motorsports on Network TV...

Well, that's not progress...

Global Rallycross has not generated any appreciable growth over the course of '14 and has actually regressed in terms of ratings over the past two events and LOORRS has continued its regular broadcasts on CBS but its ratings have stayed flat to marginally down over the past two years.

Now I'm not on the inside of the companies paying for these events to be broadcast on Network TV so in truth I really have NO IDEA whether perhaps even at the current ratings levels that their producers are happy.  It is certainly a possibility that NBC and CBS sell their airtime to Lucas and GRC at a low enough level that they can sell their advertising spots at a rate for them to turn a profit...maybe.

What I can tell you is that I've been tracking these ratings on a general basis for a number of years now, dating back to the old CORR days.  While its been great to see offroad motorsports (primarily short course) appear on network TV on a regular basis over the past few years, the ratings generated from it have not moved.  We now regularly see short course, Baja events, rallycross, stage rally, motocross, Best in the Desert and more on Network and near network (see NBCSN, CBS Sports, etc.) sources yet the broadcasts most accessible to the America public (the over the air broadcasts) have stagnated in terms of ratings/viewers.  There is a core audience here and these broadcasts are reaching this audience but they aren't bringing in a growing audience of viewers.  You can debate the reasons but the facts by now are fairly clear.

There is a lot to be said for the inconsistency and "random" nature of these broadcasts.  If you are a NASCAR fan you KNOW that pretty much every weekend there is a race (which is often EVERY weekend) you can sit down around 1PM Eastern and catch the race.  If you are a football fan (college or NFL) you KNOW that every Saturday or Sunday the games will be on during the season.  For offroad motorsports??  Well, there you can look up the schedule on any one of a dozen or more websites for the various series and see if the event is shown on a Saturday or a Sunday, early afternoon, late afternoon or if it will be another month before another broadcast is available (often the case), is it on CBS?  CBS Sports?  MavTV?  Do I get MavTV?.  This is just the nature of the beast with offroad racing at this point.  Its not NASCAR with live events taking place every weekend at the same time on the same channel and thus it has an uphill battle to to fight just in terms of getting casual viewers to watch.

For this past weekend, GRC saw a 0.3 rating on NBC which tied for the weekend's lowest rated sporting event on Network TV with the LOORRS which it faced off directly against in the same time slot over on CBS from 2-3PM Eastern.  Perhaps you could make the argument that either show's ratings would have been higher if they hadn't been facing off against one another and instead were competing for viewers against say...gymnastics or golf or the like.  Certainly I've made a case here before of combining the audiences of offroad motorsports that are shown at the same time, so I'll do so here again for the sake of positivity.  During this time period there was a combined 0.6 rating for offroad motorsports on Network TV equating to some 694,000 households and 763,000 people watching offroad racing of some kind during this period.  Now this doesn't help the advertisers who paid only to be on one broadcast or the other and got their message in front of "only" about 350,000 households and 382,000 people during this time.

The NBC broadcast of the Red Bull Hare Scramble which followed the GRC broadcast beat out both of the "car" oriented race shows with a 0.4 rating grabbing about 460,000 households and 510,000 viewers.  This holds true to another long term trend that I've noticed--whether its motocross, supercross or various Red Bull motorcycle events, they do usually out-rate the offroad "car" racing.  I would have a tendency to attribute that to the larger fan/participation rate of motorcycle racing.  While an extreme minority of people have ever driven in a SCORE, BITD, or Rally event of any kind you can show up in nearly any geographic region in the country on any weekend and find a number of motocross tracks, hare scrambles, trail rides, etc.  The sheer participation rate of offroad motorcycle riders dwarfs that of any combination of desert/shortcourse/rally drivers by what has to be many magnitudes and thus its a lot easier to find an individual who is familiar with jumping their motorcycle through the woods or over a tabletop, flipping through the channels and staying with one of these shows than it is short course, desert or rally.  That said, these motorcycle event ratings are never MASSIVELY better than these other offroad broadcasts...just marginally better...

TELECAST	DATE	NET	TIME (ET)	RATING
"World of X Games: Women of Action"	7/26	ABC	3:00-4:00pm	0.3
"ESPN Sports Saturday"	7/26	ABC	4:00-6:00pm	0.5
Lucas Oil Off Road Racing	7/26	CBS	2:00-3:00pm	0.3
PGA Tour: RBC Canadian Open: Third Round	7/26	CBS	3:00-6:00pm	0.4
Guinness Int'l Champions Cup: Manchester United-AS Roma	7/26	Fox	4:00-6:00pm	0.5
"UFC on Fox 12": Prelims	7/26	Fox	6:00-8:00pm	0.8
"UFC on Fox 12": Robbie Lawler-Matt Brown	7/26	Fox	8:00-10:00pm	1.6
Global Rallycross	7/26	NBC	2:00-3:00pm	0.3
Red Bull Hare Scramble	7/26	NBC	3:00-4:30pm	0.4
Asics World Series Of Beach Volleyball	7/26	NBC	4:30-6:00pm	0.5
"Road to the PGA Championship"	7/27	CBS	2:00-3:00pm	0.5
PGA Tour: RBC Canadian Open: Final Round	7/27	CBS	3:00-6:00pm	1.8
Tour de France review show	7/27	NBC	2:00-3:30pm	0.4
Asics World Series Of Beach Volleyball	7/27	NBC	3:30-5:00pm	0.6
Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Haskell Invitational	7/27	NBC	5:00-6:00pm	0.8

Stadium Super Trucks Initial 4/14 Ratings

Given the new TV relationship with NBC and being its initial broadcast, its very interesting to take a look at Robby Gordon's ratings for the Stadium Super Trucks race two weekends ago.  These are the FINAL ratings for these broadcasts and not the "overnight" ratings which are a bit less precise.  I believe these ratings would also include those individuals who may have DVR'd the broadcast and watched it within a day or two of the original broadcast.  I also don't have to use my usual estimate of # of viewers as it is provided for us--though I don't know how it is calculated...

Stadium Super Trucks garnered a 0.4 rating which is right in line with what we have seen over the past few years for LOORRS or TORC broadcasts on CBS and other major networks.  Also in line with the recent TORC/LOORRS broadcasts is the number of viewers which stood at 596,000 for this first Stadium Super Trucks show.  Of note is that this figure is more than DOUBLE what F1 races are seeing for viewership on the NBC Sports network on a COMBINED basis (both live early in the morning and on its rebroadcast later in the day).  So if I was Robby's marketing team, THAT is an item I would be heavily focusing on.  Full ratings from the weekend are below.



TELECAST DATE NET TIME (ET) RAT. VIEWERS (000)

The Masters: Final Round 4/14 CBS 2:00-7:00pm 9.4 14,700
The Masters: Third Round 4/13 CBS 3:00-7:00pm 5.8 8,500
NRA 500 (Texas) 4/13 Fox 7:49-11:20pm 3.8 6,269
NBA: Bulls-Heat 4/14 ABC 1:00-3:45pm 2.1 3,009
MLB: (regional) 4/13 Fox 4:00-7:00pm 1.8 2,500
"Masters Playoffs" 4/13 CBS 2:00-3:00pm 1.1 n/a
"Jim Nantz Remembers Augusta" 4/14 CBS 1:00-2:00pm 1.0 n/a
"NBA Countdown" 4/14 ABC 12:30-1:00pm 0.9 1,243
Liga MX: Leon-Club America 4/13 Telem. 9:00-11:04pm 0.5 975
Horse Racing: Blue Grass Stakes 4/13 NBC 4:30-6:00pm 0.7 935
NHL: Blackhawks-Blues 4/14 NBC 12:30-3:00pm 0.7 933
AMA Supercross 4/14 CBS 12:00-1:00pm 0.7 n/a
Skating & Gymnastics Spectacular 4/14 NBC 4:00-6:00pm 0.6 914
Liga MX: CD Guadalajara-Atlante 4/14 Telem. 5:55-8:00pm 0.4 726
"ESPN Sports Saturday" 4/13 ABC 4:00-6:00pm 0.5 611
Speed Golf World Championships 4/13 CBS 1:00-2:00pm 0.5 n/a
Stadium Super Trucks 4/14 NBC 3:00-4:00pm 0.4 596
Heads-Up Poker Championship 4/13 NBC 2:30-4:30pm 0.5 571