How IMSA Can Solve Sportscar Racing’s Television Problem

Sportscar racing fans have grown tired of their current TV options, and are looking for a change. Here’s how IMSA can lead that charge into the future.

If you are a fan of sportscar racing, you know the challenge of finding ways to watch your favorite series. Whether it’s the World Endurance Championship or the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, pre-emptions and channel shifts have made it a chore to watch a full race. But what can be done to solve this dilemma?

Fox Sports is the exclusive home of both championships, but it appears IMSA may be on the path to a solution. Both sat down and made changes to the product on television heading into 2016, and more changes could be on tap in 2017. Of course, there is one thing on the top of everyone’s minds – channel continuity.

Endurance racing produces some of the longest sporting events each year. With racing taking anywhere from three to twelve to even twenty-four hours, it is an uphill battle for any network to program appropriately with that in mind.

Perhaps the only network not to have that problem was Speed, the network now known as FS1. Since those days, the station has picked up a lot of high-profile content, including college football, MLB baseball, and the UFC, all of which are prioritized higher that IMSA racing.

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Fox Sports has also seen some growth in the profile of their motorsports coverage. While Speed covered the NASCAR Sprint All-Star race, it never covered any regular season races. FS1 is now home to nearly half a dozen of those events.

In addition, the NHRA has moved to Fox Sports, to much success for their ratings and viewership. Does this leave room for IMSA racing on the primary network, or is sports car racing to forever be shifted to FS2?

In order to help turn around the struggling ratings and viewership for IMSA, there are two realistic solutions available. Either the series can continue to work with Fox Sports and find ways to build an audience off of NASCAR and NHRA events, or move to another network. Of course, both options have their challenges to them, and there is no true “home run” TV deal for sports cars.

If the series is to stay the course with Fox Sports, taking advantage of the timeslots surrounding NASCAR and NHRA telecasts becomes paramount. Much of the success seen by drag racing this year on FS1 can be tied to live events and strong NASCAR lead-ins.

While those openings in the schedule are few, perhaps a NASCAR-NHRA-IMSA tripleheader can be created in some cases. This may prevent some races from being seen live, but online platforms like IMSA.TV and Fox Sports Go can help fill that hole.

It’s certainly worth noting that Fox Sports is not the only fish in the sea of big sports networks. Following the replacement of Speed, three networks have quickly built up a strong portfolio of motorsports events, including FS1, NBCSN, and CBS Sports Network.

Of these networks, CBS Sports Network could serve as a good fit for the series, as it would complement coverage of the Pirelli World Challenge and other international sports and touring car series. However, the low viewership and distribution problems would still persist.

The best solution may exist in an old sportscar racing partner. ESPN formerly covered the American Le Mans Series before its merger with Grand-Am, and though coverage was chastised at the time for delays and often shifts to being solely online, the TV environment has changed a lot since then.

The worldwide leader no longer has NASCAR or NHRA on its schedule, and only a handful of IndyCar races. Furthermore, between April and August weekends can be fairly quiet on their networks.

Should IMSA move in the direction of the ESPN family of networks, there would certainly still be some challenges, but potentially more benefits. While the early and latter parts of the season would compete for time with college basketball and football, April through August would provide great opportunities for Sunday races on ESPN or ESPN2.

And unlike their previous deal that saw many races shifted to ESPN3, there could be an opening for longer coverage on TV with the use of ESPNEWS.

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It could be a long offseason of waiting to see if and when improvements are made to the television coverage of the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship. There are certainly options out there for success, but as always, money talks.

Where’s Speed TV when you need it?

What do you think about the current state of sportscar racing on television?