A groundbreaking streaming partnership in asphalt racing that debuted in 2021 will continue for its 3rd season in 2023. Stafford Speedway and FloRacing have once again partnered to live stream the entire season from the Connecticut half-mile on the FloRacing platform.
“Live streaming has been a major component of the growth of Stafford Speedway in the last few seasons,” explained Stafford Speedway COO Paul Arute. “All of us at Stafford are big believers in live streaming. We’ve put a lot of effort into continuously improving our streaming product with the goal to put forth a first-class at home product. The visibility for Stafford and the competitors is invaluable and we are looking forward to another season on FloRacing.”
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Stafford’s weekly live stream broadcast is completely produced by Stafford Speedway and its team members. The broadcast has developed significantly since it first went on air in 2020 and included 6 cameras in 2022. The Stafford Speedway production team is busy preparing for 2023.
“We have an incredible team that produces the broadcast each week,” continued Arute. “We’ve learned a lot since we first went live in 2020 and with the support of FloRacing have been able to further develop the production. We’re excited to continue to showcase the Stafford Speedway brand on FloRacing and do our best to tell each driver’s story every Friday Night.”
FloRacing will continue to support the Stafford Speedway end of season point fund contributing $40,000 to the weekly competitors. Stafford Speedway continues to be a leader in prize money distributing over $1,000,000 to competitors in 2022.
“FloSports is excited to return and be part of the tradition that is Stafford Motor Speedway,” noted FloRacing’s Chris McKee. “We have great momentum from the 2022 season here and will continue to showcase not only the heritage of great racing in New England but also the innovation and storylines that Stafford Motor Speedway and the competitors deliver each week.”
FloRacing not only features all of Stafford Speedway’s live events but also has an archive of all races from 2022 and 2021. Race fans can visit the Stafford Speedway page on FloRacing to rewatch races and catch up on Stafford Speedway content.
The 2023 Stafford Speedway season will kick off April 29th & 30th with the 51st running of the NAPA Auto Parts Spring Sizzler®. Dubbed “The Greatest Race in the History of Spring” the Spring Sizzler® is the biggest asphalt modified race in the country with a $20,000 payday to the winner of the 100-lap feature.
Click here for the entire 2023 Stafford Speedway Schedule
For more information, visit staffordspeedway.com, follow Stafford Speedway on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or contact the track office at 860-684-2783.
Interesting. I work in the sports TV business and have for over 40 years. I wonder if streaming hurts their live gate? I would love to know the money breakout for them.
NASCAR keeps 10% of the Network TV money currently not counting the percentage the tracks get that they own. The race teams should be getting much more than they are I feel.
TV money supports most of the sports. Much more than what people realize I suspect. If you doubt this remember the sports or teams that played with no fans in the stands? The profit often comes from the fans in the stands and money they spend at the stadiums. Sports is big business . . . . . .
Great news. I look forward to renewing my Flo subscription in February. FLO is the best value for money spent you can get for a racing fan. You also get some hockey games to help you get through the long and cold winter.
This fall I watched a couple other races on FLO from other tracks and the only thing I can say is Stafford Motor Speedway is about 10x better in every single way. Announcers, camera operator and skill, number of cameras, the production, graphics (live scoreboard & running order), just every single aspect. Like Olympic coverage vs the local high school.
Keep up the good work.
So Stafford went from a 10,865 weekly viewership average with an average peak of 15,798 in 2021 to a 15,591 weekly average and a 24,265 peak in 2022.
I find it interesting that it’s the same 40k in (public) funding from Flo for the third year in a row.
Wonder if Flo is starting to tighten the belts a little with some of the money they’ve been throwing around. million dollar late model and sprint car races dont pay for themselves.
Where’d the viewership numbers come from? If correct they kind of pale in comparison to the big dogs. Those being number one, the Chile Bowl measured in terms of millions and the Eldora Million in second place. Still pretty good numbers for a back water local asphalt track if they’re accurate and the trend is sure encouraging.
All I see is dots. When enough start appearing it’s natural to try to connect them.
Although the FloRacing contribution made public for the drivers point fund is public that does not presume Stafford’s portion has stayed stagnant as well.
The accolades for the Stafford streaming product made above cannot be improved upon. The vast majority of local pavement track offerings are still the one camera affair with track announcers. Riverhead is doing a nice job expanding their production but really no track featuring modifieds can hold a candle to what Stafford is doing. Combined with their aggressive social media presence promoting every aspect of the track including splashy, behind the scenes looks at the drivers it’s pretty clear it ain’t just about being at the track every Friday night. It’s full access literally all the time for anyone that’s interested wherever they are. Including teams that can spend the entire winter analyzing their races if they so chose.
Dot’s I see include the streaming and social media promotion mentioned. Major renovations the last two off seasons. Two SRX races banked and an ESPN offering for 2023 not off the table. A regional leader in loyalty to the weekly divisions that are the backbone of the track with money plowed back that no regional track can come close to with the possible exception of Thunder Road. Weekly car counts the proof in the pudding showing the entire strategy is working. A second bite of the apple with an increased purse for the risky and unique Sizzler format debuted in 2022. The star of the show Hirschman hemming and hawing this time last year the first to sign up for 2023.
Sidebar prediction: SRX at Stafford for 2023 all but a lock. Two years of packed stands, the bleacher reconstruction and ESPN corporate headquarters in Bristol.
Aside from SRX, all those dots may be saying the money going to the teams is the right number at least for 2023. It does not assume FloRacing commitment to Stafford is the same. It takes a lot of money to provide that unicorn streaming production Stafford continues to expand. The benefit to teams aside from money directly back to them in terms of sponsorship exposure can’t be overstated.
Now we know Stafford is locked in. The NWMT all but locked in. What’s less clear is accessibility to other events like the MMTTS. Racing America’s interest in tour modified events faded in 2022 and one might presume it will be spotty at best in 2023. FloRacing filling the void would be ideal but not likely.
Turkey and stuffing’s on the table. Additional side dishes might be a tad more modest in 2023.
Stafford put out the numbers themselves on their competitor’s marketing page on the website. 2023’s is there now, but you can find 2022’s via google.
I don’t think your numbers are correct. Flo had 74 million minutes watched in this past chili bowl. Seems like a lot until you realize there was probably 35 hours of coverage, so say 2100 minutes of event coverage. 74,000,000/2,100 = 35K average.
Obviously, those events would be multiple times higher than that average closer to feature time. And they don’t include the Saturday C,B and A mains that were on MAVTV.
For comparison, let’s say 20 events for Stafford with a 4-hour average. 20*240*15591= ~75 million minutes as well.
And also for comparison, Flo stated their big dirt LM weekend, 2 days for the million and 2 days for the dream, had 40 million minutes of viewing. There was a good bit of rain impact with that one though.
Tour had 16 races at 10k a race, +25k year-end for 185k to the competitors from Flo. Plus anything else to NASCAR and the promoters. For let’s say 20-25 hours of content. Have not seen any viewership numbers, though. Flo threw 30k at Florence last month too as another example.
I’m sure Stafford is getting more than that 40k these days, just interesting that they took their foot off the gas so to speak, sharing it with the competitors in public. There’s some pretty big battles going on in the dirt world for the streaming money right now. even just saying more about it would be good PR for Stafford. If the Flo money paid for the video board, just say it.
That viewership information is really interesting. I would also be interested in seeing how Stafford does against the Nascar Whelen tour and some of the National late model or sprint tours. I have only heard viewership anecdotally while watching broadcasts. the studio would make a comment how many people were watching. I think the quality and quantity of ads seems much better over the 3 years I have been consuming live streamed racing. Flo used to have only one advertiser Rock Auto and it was super annoying as it played all the time. Now there is more of a variety and the production quality of the ads seems better. Hopefully advertisers are seeing some value with streaming partners.
FYI Stafford speedway GA season pass discount expires tomorrow 12.16. If you plan on buying a season pass you can save a few bucks by purchasing today.
Speedway Digest 1/19/2022
“Viewership of the 2022 Chili Bowl broadcast on FloRacing represented the highest unique viewership numbers in its 36-year history.
FloRacing social media platforms delivered an incredible 7.7 million video views for Chili Bowl content representing a 71% increase over 2021 and nearly 2 million engagements for the week representing an 85% increase over 2021.
FloRacing PR”
That paragraph is talking about social media videos, not the livestream views. That’s adding up all the interviews, crash clips, race highlights etc. that they post throughout the week. Chase Elliott’s flip clip has 300K views on Flo’s YouTube right now, and I’m sure it got similar amounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram too.
For another example, Ross Chastain’s wall ride got tens of millions of social media views, but the race only averaged a few million viewers.
While those numbers are meaningful and important themselves. They arent comparing the same thing that those Stafford numbers are.
“Total live minutes consumed on FloRacing skyrocketed an astonishing 96% year over year to 74 million minutes.” from that same article is the part about the actual live viewers. And then you can kinda reverse math it out by adding up the total length of coverage to get an overall average viewership.
You bring up excellent points. There are many folks like me that leave their satellite receivers on all the time. I also do this with the internet. So this generates somewhat false numbers. One big reason for leaving electronic equipment on is failures often occur powering up and down equipment. I have a Bachelor of Science degree and know a lot about electronics.
I do not know much about how the streaming companies get their numbers. Cable and satellite companies can see what receivers are “watching”. I tend to be suspicious about any self reported numbers in general. Especially when they use them to lure or charge advertisers. I DVR almost everything except the one NFL game a week I watch usually. So I watch few commercials period. Once in a while I may watch a promo if it catches my eye in the DVR fast skip mode.
Streaming is interesting. It often appears to be overpriced to me. Millennials share passwords so I wonder how this influences their numbers?
One reason I say overpriced is one camera shooting an event with the audio courtesy of the PA is not worth much in my opinion. I wonder when the announcers are going to demand payment? Racers/teams are also entitled to money. NASCAR shares the TV money with them and the tracks.
It sounds like Stafford has a set up similar to what professional sports stadiums have for their scoreboards. People to operate the equipment can be a big expense and are an ongoing one. Equipment costs are not real high any more. Dirt tracks are a harsh environment for electronic stuff so the costs for dirt track’s equipment should tend to be higher long term. Paved tracks not so harsh like sports stadiums.
I have not watched any streaming events yet. MAVTV and CBS Sports net do a decent job and I am happy with what they offer. With my DVR I can save events and watch them again and again. I like that ability. I also watch them when I want to not when they are live.
Our internet was just down for almost a full day. My Direct TV was fine. Heavy rain or heavy wet snow can take it down. Seldom for a long period of time though. Watching anything on my phone I do not care for. Tiny screens suck I feel. Even my 19″ computer monitor is not great. Fine for one person but not any more. All my Sony TV’s do internet but I’ve yet to stream stuff. My son does occasionally. Maybe I’ll take the plunge for the Chili Bowl but MAVTV did a pretty good job last time. Both CBS Sports Net and MAVTV had the Knoxville Sprint car feature race on them. Both had decent multi camera with replays coverage of the racing. I’m not real interested in features just the racing. Live racing events are tough to do because of the stretched out nature of them. NASCAR is to long. Football and many other sports have to many commercials. As rights fees increase they need more commercials. So it is a tough no win situation. Streaming and pay per view TV provide a possible different scenario than “free” commercial tv. It is interesting to watch unfold as I’m winding down my career in TV Sports work.
First let me say thanks for the direction toward the Stafford views number. I’m climbing all over Stafford site all the time and never thought to click that particular link. Secondly a man’s got to realize his limitations. We’re only a few laps in on the topic and I’m already a lap down and appreciate the corrections.
I’d ask if we can dumb this down for me at all. I’d ponder as to what the industry standard is for circle track streaming race content measurement. I’d hope it would be views however that is defined. Is it a hit from a given device regardless of the amount of time the viewer devotes to the races or how many times they go away or come back to it? Is it the VPN or IP address how exactly would that work?
I’m in and out of Stafford races live on Friday night. See the numerous and better produced commercials multiple times so am I a view or are we counting minutes. Do I count the same as a view vs replays and social media? Live viewers have to count more do the not because they are seeing the commercials vs the replays or Youtube where you can dance around commercials.
The Chile Bowl was the only dirt race content I tuned into in 2022. I was there for enough time I’d guess to view commercials so I’d hope that’s the basic measuring stick. I do get non live clicks on social media are factors as well but live views have to be the bog dog of measurement do they not?
It’s hard to believe it’s only been two and a half years since streaming became a major factor for local racing meaning Stafford and here we are talking about how success is measured in terms of views.
They are somewhat limited in what they can determine. As I stated previously. I leave my direct tv system on all the time. There are two receivers in it and it is a DVR it has the ability to play back one show while recording two shows. Often it is on the channel it last recorded until a new recording needs to be done. So they can claim a lot of hours it is on something (24 times 2) but my TV is off and I am not watching. Some recordings I delete without watching and some I watch more than once. We have two other receivers and they are usually off when not being viewed. They cannot DVR. How the companies report this is a good question as they cannot tell everything just like they do not know how many people are sitting in the room or if you are watching, in the kitchen, bathroom, on the phone, computer, texting, etc. The broadcast TV ratings were reported every 15 minutes in the good old days when it was done by hand with a log book. The log books were mailed in. My parents used to get them. Since I am hearing there are commercials while streaming I am less inclined to try it. Thanks!
Tv might be a little archaic and limited. But streaming should be able to tell just about anything they want to about an event, or you, the viewer.
They should be able to tell minute by minute (if not even finer) who’s watching what. They should be able to tell, at the 100th minute of the stafford broadcast, there are X people watching. Average every minute, and that’s how you get your overall average. So if there is a 240-minute show, and you switch streams for 60 minutes, you count as .75 of a viewer. And they can tell how many people watch at least some of the stream (unique viewers), how you watch (phone, tv sick, web browser), where you are from (ip adress).
They can tell how much an SK race averages vs a street stock race. How many people watched when ads were playing.
They can look at you as a viewer. If you have a family member that races, and you only ever watch stafford, they can see that, and make stafford more “valuable” compared to someone that watches dozens of hours a week, and watches many different tracks/series.
Now, how much Flo, a smaller entity, uses this compared to something like youtube, IDK. Speaking from experience, almost all the data like that from a stream on YouTube is available to the streamer within like a day on a nice and easy to use web interface. I can go to any minute and look how many people were watching. I’m not sure flo has that kind of back end built up to make it that easy to do yet. They may simply say “the entire average was X” and leave it at that. But they probably have the ability to go back and get any info they want manually, if it’s not done automatically like YouTube. And I’m not sure if the advertising is that built up, either.
The sky really is the limit for streaming. Which could be kinda scary depending on how you look at it.
Like I said I am hoping to learn more about streaming on both ends.
What I do know is internet radio as I am a DJ on an internet radio station. I am not the owner but I have known him since 1974 when we were in college together in a bachelor of science broadcast program at UW-Platteville. So we both have 4 year degrees. The station is WLHA. It is like a college radio station in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The music format is mainly 60’s, 70’s & 80’s but the weekends you can hear everything including Comedy, Big Band, Retro, 50’s and 90’s. etc. 14,000 songs in the library so it is very unique and FREE. It has CBS Radio news on the top of the hour. We even play old commercials. There is a WLHA APP for apple and android products. I’m told that many of the other services like Radio 365 have it as a choice. WLHA. I am Peter Jaay mid days 1-3 central Tuesday thru Friday and at other times as well.
What I know is they (internet radio station owners) can see the locations where it is being listened to. Some of them from time to time are bots (computers listening) they are pretty sure. They cannot tell if someone is actually listening or how many people there might be listening. I listen a lot. So they know the IP addresses of listeners and not much of anything else. They can print reports, etc. We have listeners all over the world 24/7/365. I suspect that streaming video is similar but I am not sure. I do know that Direct TV can see what channels the receiver is tuned to. They cannot see if people are watching.
I’m gonna rate that an A+ response. Easy to understand even for me.
Forgot all about the in depth analysis YouTube content providers can access.
OK you’ve made the point the sky is the limit as far a data acquisition is concerned for races that are streamed. Nonetheless there still is no way to know the total viewing audience since no one can know how many people are watching a race on a given device with the exception of phones obviously. That’s kind of huge is it not? If that is the case then parsing the minutes during an event in many respects is over analyzing viewership the totality of which no one can know. Could one conclude views are like households in TV ratings. The greatest value being measuring each event and each track relative to each other as opposed to determining the number of heart beats viewing each event streamed moment by moment.
What we don’t know is if there is one data point the industry has gravitated to as a measuring stick to gauge track events relative to each other and their associated value to the FloRacing subscription. I interpret the 15,591 average for weekly viewership at Stafford as live views not diminished fractionally based on minutes in the event they may have tuned out of the stream for whatever reason. Much like a persons ticket price isn’t diminished by the the time patrons spend for restroom breaks. Ok bad example but it’s all I could think of.
Thanks again!
This is an interesting thread. What really matters is how many people are paying the streaming company for an event or subscription. Also how much if anything is the streaming service paying the sanctioning group, track and/or race teams. If the streaming company is able to charge to advertisers for actual viewership also. With network TV they sometimes have promised certain ratings numbers. If they are less make goods for commercials are often given instead of money back. It truly is big business. The streaming company has costs. Single camera coverage is of course the least expensive.
Some great responses here. If you enjoy the Mavtv coverage you will enjoy the Flo coverage. It is the same broadcast, only more commercials on the cable side. You will notice during the online FLO broadcast, they will actually reset when the Cable broadcast starts. Nothing changes from before the broadcast started.
I would think viewer measurement would be fairly consistent for online sports as it would be to streaming giants like Netflix. thanks to Netflix being a publicly traded company there is some guidance available. Netflix used to count a view as anytime one of its members watched 2 minutes of one of its shows or movies. By this standard I personally would count for 3 or 4 views of different shows within a half hour period while I am trying to find something to watch. It is fairly flawed in my opinion. With their recent move to an ad supported tier they went to a model that calculates the total hours a program is watched which puts it more in line with cable/broadcast TV Nielsen rating services. I think this is a much more accurate rating method. There have been reports that Netflix put in some viewership guarantees to advertisers in which if metrics arent hit they can claw back some of their advertising dollars spent with the streaming service. There was a rumor a few weeks ago that Netflix was falling short on their viewership numbers and the stock took a hit. I am pretty sure the IP address is how the streaming services determine people are sharing passwords. You have one account logged into simultaneously on two different IP addresses. I may or may not confirm that I once got a warning on a shared netflix account about too many concurrent users were on at the same time.
Flo is privately held and isnt publicly traded so we really dont have any reported audited numbers. All we have is some press releases and some anecdotal comments from the broadcast. I would say with the money they are throwing around they are doing very well. They just announced another million dollar to win show in conjunction with Eldora speedway. This time the winged 410 sprint cars get a shot at the big prize. I believe, Flo is the best value you can get for any race fan. There is so much racing content available for viewing.
Great comments. and I just came on to see how I was doing with my football picks which I still dont know. Really doesnt matter, cant change the picks now anyway. Happy holidays.