SpeedVideo is Moving to a Subscription Model in 2020 in Partnership with All of Our Event Promoters. Here is Why.
A joint letter written to the drag racing community from SpeedVideo and 14 leading drag racing promoters.
For many years, drag racing has been live streamed on the internet free of charge. The advances of technology and reasonably priced video equipment made this possible. Promoters often paid for the cost of the production, or shared the cost with the live streaming broadcaster. It was a reasonably workable system except for three major flaws:
- Live broadcasts were completely reliant on advertisers or the promoter paying for production costs. This limited both the quality of the production as well as how many events could be broadcast. Many broadcasts had huge audiences, but lost money.
- Promoters lost potential ticket sales from their events, which often costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce. For every person watching at home, a potential ticket sale was lost.
- Most new, smaller, or specialty events aren’t broadcast because there was no way to pay for them.
Watching drag racing for free seems like a win-win, but the free model isn’t that good for drag racing. After a great deal of evaluation of how to grow and improve live drag racing broadcasting, the best path forward was to create a subscription model. Event promoters and SpeedVideo who produce the broadcasts will be free to work together to create amazing broadcasts with higher-quality productions, and to expand and cover more events, with a model where each viewer pays a small amount, rather than trying to rely only on the backs of advertisers only.
The world’s biggest and best drag races will continue to be streamed on SpeedVideo – including Lights Out, No Mercy, Sweet 16, World Cup Finals, Outlaw Armageddon, TX2K, NMRA, NMCA, PDRA, Outlaw Street Car Reunion, UCC, Bounty Hunters, WoooStock, F2LK, Snowbirds, US Street Nationals, select Drag Illustrated events, and more to come. SpeedVideo subscriptions will be available for $24.95 per month, or $199 for the entire year ($149 introductory rate), which will get you access to around 40 of the premier live streamed drag racing events. The contribution each viewer makes will help grow drag racing, increase the quality of the broadcasts, and attract new promoters, events, and racers.
Moving SpeedVideo to subscription will benefit:
- Promotors – a revenue share will allow them to grow their events, pay purses, and cover expenses.
- Racers – more healthy events and racing series.
- Viewers – higher-quality broadcasts and a wider variety of events.
We have all come together in agreement – this is the best path forward for the future of drag racing. This will enable each drag racing fan to get a great, high-quality broadcast but also keep the sport viable. We are hopeful that each drag racing fan will look at this like a step forward for drag racing and how this will contribute to the future growth of the sport. We all love drag racing and many of us do this not just for a living, but as a way of life. We appreciate all of your support.
Respectfully, signed by:
Donald Long, DuckX Productions
Jason Miller, Miller Brothers Productions, World Cup Finals
Wes Buck, Drag Illustrated, Drag Illustrated Events
Tyler Crossnoe, Outlaw Street Car Reunion, Shakedown & PDRA
Tommy Franklin, PDRA
Nick Duty, Outlaw Armageddon
Steve Wolcott & Rollie Miller – NMRA/NMCA
Victor Alvarez, Bradenton Motorsports Park
Peter Blach, TX2K
Matt Plotkin, Bounty Hunters
Keith Berry & Lance Stanford, WoooStock
Chris Searle, Ultimate Callout Challenge
James Lawrence, CEO SpeedVideo
Tom Bobolts, GM SpeedVideo
