Champ Car Increases International TV

[Dov]

From Cart.com: http://www.cart.com/News/Article.asp?ID=7746

INDIANAPOLIS (May 20, 2004) – The Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford is comprised of drivers, team members and officials from around the world, and now many of the home countries of those that make up the series are getting the opportunity to follow their exploits thanks to an increased international television package.

New agreements have been reached to provide many levels of Champ Car coverage ranging from live network broadcasts to inclusion in weekly racing magazine shows. Champ Car racing can be seen live in a number of European nations this season including network coverage in Germany through Rhein-Mainz TV, in nine countries including France, Belgium and Poland on AB Moteurs and on Motors TV in the United Kingdom. Highlights of Champ Car races are broadcast in Finland on YLE.

In addition, European coverage is bolstered by Champ Car presence on the Netherlands-based Race World program. The magazine-style racing show reaches 69 million households throughout Europe, South America, Japan and the USA on FOX Sports World Espanol. Trans World Sport also features Champ Car racing on its worldwide hour-long sports anthology program which reaches 124 countries.

South American Champ Car fans have many opportunities for live racing coverage as well. RedeTV carries Champ Car events live on network in Brazil while the nation of South Korea, which will host its first-ever Champ Car race this October, gets both network and cable coverage of the series through an agreement with MBC.

An agreement with 7TV provides live coverage of Champ Car racing to more than half of the vast nation of Russia while FOX Middle East not only covers all of the Middle East with English-speaking Champ Car coverage, but also to many countries in Africa including Egypt, Morocco and Algeria.

“Increasing our presence around the world is vital to our success and these agreements along with partnerships announced at the beginning of the year in Mexico, Canada and Australia, are very important to us,” said Champ Car President Dick Eidswick. “The ability to show the excitement of Champ Car racing to fans around the world helps us introduce new potential fans to the sport as well as new sponsors, while delivering increased value to all of our current sponsorship partners.”

[Jordi]

Hm. Where's Spain or Catalonia there?

[Amar7605]

Don't you get Champ Car coverage in Spain? I thought that you did.

Its interesting that the series is broadcasted in the Middle East and North Africa. Maybe in the future that area could host a race!

[codename_47]

Since this is about International TV, and not worth starting it's own thread for in it's own right, it's also worth noting that Motors TV has found a clean feed of the Monterry race, and will show the race without any annoying features slap bang in the middle of the race action! (well, I say that...the features weren't that bad, it was just the timing of them that sucked!)

And they've also managed to find Jeremy Shaw to commentate on the entire race, so no more "I love SHIRL" commentators for U.K. CC fans!

Good old Motors TV!

[rustyfan]

Had the mess with Eurosport not happened, Champ Car would have reached a lot more people in Europe than it currently does (now that it seems Eurosport is completely out of the picture).

Something to keep in mind...

[429CJ]

YLE Finland does not show Champ Cars - they had a Salo option. And no Salo, no Champ Cars.

[Hazard]

Excellent news regarding Jeremy Shaw & the direct feed...(Though I may never see Bronte Tagliani again?! - just realised, that's probably a good thing!).

Roll on Monterrey...

[Jordi]

Very true rustyfan. Eurosport I get to see at home, Motors TV is scrambled...

It's strange that with a Catalan driver we don't get coverage. I suppose that everything in Catalonia and Spain is Alonso now...

[Adam43]

Originally posted by Hazard
Excellent news regarding Jeremy Shaw & the direct feed...

It was alright and a definite improvement over the first race. They had some technical problems, at on point you could hear the original commentators in the background, but overall good.

It was odd when they played 'Mexican' music for the replays. Very tacky.

However, did my ears decieve me, but the other commentator sounded a little like Zanardi. I had to go to bed straight after - it'd been a long day (very tired, struggling to stay awake) and I missed the begining because I got back late.