The FIA World Rallycross Championship saw a massive increase in its Audience figures across different media outlets for its first ever season as an FIA sanctioned World Championship.
In a report carried out by Repucom in conjunction with IMG, which runs and promotes WorldRX, shows that there was an increase of more than 550% in dedicated coverage. This was confirmed as being live, as-live or highlights compared to the 2013 FIA European Rallycross Championship which saw the series relaunched. The amount of actual broadcast hours reveal a 444% increase with TV stations around the world broadcasting 3,982 hours of World RX coverage throughout the 2014 season.
There were several broadcasters in different countries that took the decision to show WorldRX for the first time in 2014. Among these were FOX Sports in South America, BeIN Sport across the Middle East and America, helping to open up the sport to a host of new territories. As a result of this the number of broadcasters covering World RX rose to 58 and this doubles the amount of broadcasters compared in 2013.
The most popular event of the 2014 season turned to be the WorldRX Of Sweden, which saw a total global viewing audience of 3.3 million people tuning in to see Mattias Ekstrom’s first ever WorldRX victory. The second biggest viewership of a WorldRX event was 2.5 million people who watched Andreas Bakkerud take his hard fought second victory of the season in Turkey. The continent that held the biggest viewing figures was Europe with 11.4 million people tuning in to watch coverage through different broadcasters.
The series prescence on Social Media also saw a positive growth in numbers last year. The official Facebook account saw a rise in activity of 384% over the last 12 months, whilst the official Twitter account for the championship witnessed an increase of 202% in followers. The series Instagram account also saw an increase in activity and followers by 900%.
The official figure for drivers who entered in the Supercar catergory in all 12 WorldRX events in the Supercar catergory in 2014, with record attendence figures for the fans trackside also being witnessed. There was an increase of over 130% in trackside attendence compared to 2013.
World RX Managing Director for IMG, Martin Anayi, commented on the positive increase for the championship after these figures were produced.
“The latest World RX figures demonstrate rapid growth across the board and some of the percentage statistics, especially our digital platforms, are remarkable. We have seen a sharp increase in broadcast figures in only 12 months too but increased coverage on more widely available TV channels is going to be our main target for 2015.
“We’ve had to think outside the box over the past 24 months and mix coverage on our traditional broadcast partners as well as use other platforms such as Livestream, Facebook and YouTube to reach our fans in territories which don’t have dedicated World RX TV coverage. These latest TV figures are a great start but we’ll continue to work on developing the Championship’s profile even further.”
The 2015 WorldRX season kicks of in Portugal at the Montalegre circuit on 24th-26th of April.
