Yahoo Autos Beyond convergence: How IMSA is raising sports car racing’s profile
Sitting in the press conference room at Daytona back in January of 2020, when IMSA and the ACO first revealed the global LMDh concept, paving the way for the “convergence” of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship’s top categories, it was hard to imagine how it would play out. It all sounded great, but would it work?
That day, senior representatives from the sport’s governing bodies and manufacturers described the LMDh reveal as a “game changer,” “a sensible approach,” “enormous,” “huge” and “historic.” Yet nobody truly knew where things would lead, or whether manufacturers would come in numbers when when the ruleset debuted globally.
Fast forward four years and we have a growing IMSA GTP field that will feature six factories next year and a WEC Hypercar grid with almost 20 full-season cars from nine manufacturers. It’s taken off and the task at hand is now very different.
Before, the focus of the rule-makers was to build the grids, attract new manufacturers and encourage investment for the future. Now, it’s about sustaining what we have and building an audience for on-track products that have never looked better.
Looking specifically at IMSA, it’s fair to say that within the castle walls the level of growth that the WeatherTech Championship is experiencing is currently exceeding all expectations. IMSA President John Doonan is buoyed by recent progress, yet remains far from complacent.
This astonishing era of convergence in sports car racing is peaking, and fast. Crowds are attending races in record numbers on almost a weekly basis and broadcast viewing figures are on an upward curve globally.
But Doonan knows as well as anyone that it can all change in a heartbeat. This is an area of motorsport which is cyclical by nature, with manufacturers coming and going as rulesets evolve. Right now we are in the midst of an era that will be looked back on fondly for decades to come, yet champagne celebrations are not a weekly feature at head offices. Nobody at IMSA is under the illusion that it will last forever.
As a result, the hard work hasn’t stopped and is ongoing behind the scenes to build the audience for IMSA’s WeatherTech Championship and its support series. The foundations are important — they need to be as strong as possible so any and all future storms can be weathered.
IMSA’s revitalization in the LMDh era has gone hand in hand with a concerted push into digital media. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
A great example of IMSA’s forward thinking came back in March, when it began streaming races for free on YouTube at Sebring for fans outside the U.S. IMSA didn’t promote this addition to its broadcast offering that week; instead, it was a soft launch. The powers that be wanted to see what would happen if broadcasts were placed on its channel — which has a following of more than 350,000 people and potential for growth via “the algorithm” — with no promotion.
It was, quite literally, an overnight success. The live race broadcast for the 12 Hours now sits on the IMSA Channel with 542 thousand views and prompted the decision to add YouTube as a permanent home for race broadcasts alongside its desktop platform and app.
With moves like this, IMSA is seizing the moment. The WeatherTech Championship may be based in the U.S. (with the exception of the annual race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park), but the “I” in IMSA stands for “International” and as time goes on, growing and servicing the championship’s global fan base is becoming more of a priority.
“With convergence, sports car racing is in the spotlight more than at any point we’ve seen in our careers,” Doonan explains to RACER. “When we moved to YouTube at Sebring, for the oldest endurance race in America, we had about 500,000 viewers live at the peak during that broadcast. We had high hopes, but that was beyond what we thought was possible.
“The North American market is incredibly important to our OEMs, our drivers, and our partners. IMSA is the largest ‘international’ racing series in North America. Those two points, coupled with the fact that we have 18 manufacturers choosing to compete with us and dozens of drivers from all around the world on our grid, means that getting our IMSA product and broadcasts in front of a growing international audience is incredibly important.”
Balancing the needs and expectations of fans alongside those of OEM principals like GM’s Todd Christensen (right) is critical to the growth strategy being executed by IMSA President John Doonan. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
Post-Sebring, the data has continued to provide encouraging signs. The audience outside the USA didn’t just tune in for the race with the highest profile and bolt. Instead, Doonan revealed, fans have stayed put, making for a remarkable statistical jump year on year.
“We had 4.3 million hours watched on YouTube in 2023, and through the year to date so far we’ve had 15 million hours watched. It’s a special opportunity for us and we’re really happy,” he says. “It’s making our manufacturers and partners happy too. The North American market has been named by almost every single manufacturer as the most important market for them when it comes to growing a brand.
“But with 18 manufacturers, their global headquarters may not be in the USA — they may be elsewhere. So, giving their executive teams — and people in the boardroom who agree racing is a proper marketing tool and an R&D tool — an easy way to view the races and see their return on investment is critical.
“Alpine (a target for IMSA in GTP going forward) is a tremendous example. They want to come to the U.S. and sell road cars. If you bring the racing program as part of the brand launch, it’s an authentic way to launch a brand. To do that you need lots of elements, retail locations and a distribution network, but you need awareness more than anything else. What better way to get that than via showing the public what you can do on track?”
Privateers around the world are noticing this upward trend too. IMSA’s paddock is becoming more populated with teams, drivers and partners from outside North America. LMP2 is a prime example. It’s a category that now features some of the best teams Europe has to offer in United Autosports, Inter Europol and Algarve Pro Racing.
By actively pushing for growth internationally, it’s opening doors and breaking down barriers. Previously, a common complaint for teams in Europe was that IMSA was too inward-focused. For a long time, teams wanted to take the leap and race in IMSA but were unsure how viable it would be commercially for backers and customers who don’t do business in the States. This is not the case anymore and business is booming as a result.
“We’re going to need 20 more pit boxes at Daytona in 2025, based on demand, to fit the interest we’re seeing,” Doonan points out.
LMP2 fields testify to IMSA’s ability to attract both privateers and international entrants. Richard Dole/Motorsport Images
The demographic that IMSA’s race broadcasts are reaching is also worth noting. YouTube is as accessible as it gets, with apps on phones, tablets and TVs, making it simple for younger race fans to find and consume content, and this shows in the figures.
More than 70 percent of IMSA’s YouTube audience is aged under 44 and they come from every corner of the globe. The top 10 countries for the race streams by audience size include the UK, Germany, Canada, Italy, Australia, France, Indonesia, Brazil, the Netherlands and Japan.
For fans in the USA, these numbers all sound great, but they don’t apply as YouTube isn’t currently an option to watch races live. But that doesn’t mean that Doonan and the team around him have lost sight of their core domestic fan base and the potential to attract new supporters locally.
The current deal with NBC is at the heart of its strategy. This deal has proved to be an enormous success. IMSA viewership on NBC Sports has grown by 37 percent in the past five years and year-on-year, the coverage IMSA gets on its Peacock streaming platform has seen a 60 percent increase in total minutes streamed.
“If you can drive people to your product, you’ve got it,” Doonan says when asked about the recent multi-year extension to NBC’s TV deal. “The NBC renewal is really important and we are building it.
“Not only do we have more network coverage in general, and more racing on the network, but we have a preseason show on NBC before the Rolex 24 too. We’ll also have a pre-championship weekend show prior to Petit Le Mans.”
Beyond the race broadcasts, IMSA has taken strides through other types of content on its YouTube channel, which are available to fans everywhere. Doonan feels these accompany IMSA’s traditional race coverage nicely.
The fly-on-the-wall behind-the-scenes series “Win The Weekend,” in particular, stands out. It’s there to showcase the human side of the championship and has helped build up the profile of its teams and drivers immeasurably.
IMSA has used this opportunity to elevate the visibility of its free content on YouTube, rather than sign a deal to air it behind a paywall on a streaming service, like other championships have done in recent years with documentary series.
Explanatory and behind-the-scenes content is aimed at enabling fans to better understand IMSA’s tech without distracting from the sporting element of the races. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
“What ‘Win The Weekend’ has done is send a whole new audience to the IMSA brand and show. It’s targeted motorsport fans who haven’t ever really focused on sports car racing,” Doonan explains. “Go back two years, our channel had 10 million views in 2022 and thanks to Win The Weekend, 80 percent of the audience who watch had never been to the IMSA channel before.
“Then you look at the views in 2024 vs last year, in this calendar year, we already have 25 million views on IMSA YouTube. Last year, for the year, we were at 17 million. And with our network coverage with NBC, we use our nationwide shows to remind them that our documentary series ‘Win The Weekend’ exists, giving people additional options to follow our championship.
“I think the social features, digital pieces and ‘Win The Weekend’ feed the monster and help get people to watch the actual race broadcasts, no matter which venue we are visiting.”
Other initiatives that are growing fast include the shorter-form supplementary features hosted by Marshall Pruett on YouTube and social media. His tech tours, paddock walks and explainers have achieved their target of retaining the new audience and giving them reasons to come back regularly during and after key race weekends.
“They all add to the bigger picture,” Doonan says. “This sport isn’t the easiest for new fans to grasp, so if you have all these extra pieces like Win The Weekend, short videos explaining how things like hybrid systems on GTP cars work, then it makes it so much easier for people to understand what they’re watching and appreciate it.
“We just want to keep adding value for fans. We want to educate the fans. You want to make sure the broadcast comes across in a quality manner and thanks to our NASCAR Productions and broadcast team, it is, but it has to be the highest quality going forward too. That’s number one.
“Number two is you want to make sure that you have a critical mass of people that are tuning in regularly. That allows you to dictate those features and make sure that the quality of the production and technology comes through quickly to get across the racing and tell stories.
“But, we have to be careful,” he concedes. “This is not all just a money grab. These initiatives are more about getting people invested. Fans around the world are now tuning in at a consistently growing rate and we will continue to do our best to deliver exciting racing to them through the rest of the season and into 2025.
“Once someone watches IMSA for the first time, I want them to be so captivated that they come back again.”
