Anyone know how to watch this Saturday's Spa WEC round on TV or the web in the US? Last year I was able to tune into Peugeot's free webcast, but obviously that's history now...
It all looks a little sketchy, but here's the release regarding round one from PlanetLemans; http://www.planetlemans.com/2012/03/12/fia-wec-worldwide-tv-schedule-released/ It *appears* it may be streaming on ESPN3. Alternatively; Which sucks unless you can VPN yourself somewhere else - Strongvpn.com @ $55 per year is my solution. HTH, cheers, Ian
How about Audi's website. Do they usually not stream? EDIT: Seems Audi will be streaming it. http://tv.audi.com/#/01
I could not agree more. I searched SPEED for the race without luck but it was just wishfull thinking on my part. I miss the original ESPN. I checked tvracer.com and it seem's even ESPN3 is not showing the race live. I do not have that channel any more but when I did last year it was not worth the extra cost imho.
Well it looks like Audi.tv will have it, which is great (thanks again, TRD0524). The future might be brighter, as the worldwide TV rights have gone to IMG Media, and there is already some coverage on Eurosport and Motors TV in Europe.
It won't kill it because its lifeblood are factory efforts and wealthy privateers. In that regard TV coverage isn't important. Factories will always race to develop product & the privateers will always race because they want to - no matter who watches. On the other hand, racing would thrive it had the proper exposure. Sadly, because it doesn't, its a tough product to sell to sponsors...in turn, its tough to sell to the networks because of the lack of sponsors. Ask me how I know. Meanwhile SPEED airs monster trucks everyday & eliminated ALMS coverage in favor of snowmobile racing, Name the Time of the dragster & a seemingly endless parade of 68 Camaro's across the auction block.
The full FIA WEC finally went live today. Maybe they'll be streaming the race as well... www.fiawec.com
If it was a truelly international feed North America would be on the list. Does anyone know or have a guess as to why we are not included, is it SPEED not wanting to pay?
It is - The bottom of page 2 has a listing for what I guess is a 52 minute highlight show - Which is actually the same as many other markets. Good to see that the fiawec.com feed appears to be available worldwide now [The previous release said we couldn't get it in the States.] Cheers, Ian
The fiawec.com webcast of Sebring was not available in the US due to ALMS' espn3.com deal. It will be available in the US for the rest of the season -- not sure about Le Mans if Speed still have a stand-alone deal for that.
Thanks Ian and sorry I did not scroll to page two. I have a feeling the 1hr coverage will be delayed a few weeks though. Cable is funny because a station will say it is airing one show and then show something completely different or it will show nothing and then its on.
Usually you can catch a feed on justin.tv , but it only depends on if someone is sharing their feed on the site, and you usually don't know until the race starts. Maybe someone outside of North America can plan on setting up a feed for us?
Sports car racing on television has always been a shell game and likely always will. And, unfortunately, all of the advertising and sponsorship dollars are funnelled into the 900lb gorilla on the block, NASCAR and it's underlings. Since we know SpeedTV is essentially controlled by the 24/7 NASCAR hype machine with healthy doses of Barrett-Jackson and Monster Trucks thrown in for good measure, the sway NASCAR holds over the network locks out what they perceive as a threat, such is the paranoia in the fake wood panelled walls in Daytonner. So, sports car fans are left to jump through hoops in order to see events like the Spa 6-Hours, in the form of extra cable/satellite costs or Internet upgrades only to have to do it all over again the next year when the deal changes once more. We should be happy we get to see Le Mans and F-1 at all considering the networks are likely losing money on the deal. BHW
A clean feed for the race with Hindy on now @ http://live.fiawec.com/ The e-tron's boatraced the field by the time they got through Les Combes on the first lap. Even the R18's are defenseless against the AWD in the damp.
