12 Hours of Sebring: the shotgun marriage of ESPN3.com and the ALMS

Beautiful Peugeot 908. Too bad no one saw it. Photo: ALMS

The ALMS’ foray into internet-only broadcasting began Saturday at the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring.  It would be generous to describe the experiment as “disappointing”.  Utter failure would be a closer description, and we think the series must consider alternatives or risk slipping into irrelevance.

We have already written about Scott Atherton’s tremendous gambit for the ALMS: the series can only be viewed live on ESPN3.com, with highlights the following day on ABC and ESPN.  There are no live ALMS broadcasts on any television network in 2011.  For viewers who cannot receive ESPN3.com (and that is a large number, including many outside the United States), the ALMS promised live streaming on its own site.

The fans were not happy.  On Facebook, the ALMS page was dominated by gripes about the lack of a live TV broadcast.  It should have been all about the racing, not your cable connection.  We hopped on to ESPN3.com using a Toshiba laptop with a 17″ monitor.  We were sorely disappointed in every respect.  The picture quality is below average over a broadband network, and the monitor is smaller than our HD television.  In addition, the laptop features average quality sound.  Part of the enjoyment of racing is to watch at ear splitting volumes.  You lose much of that experience online.  And the promised live streaming from the ALMS’ own website never happened.  Even the Grand-Am series threw in a few digs of its own on Facebook.

We surmise that the series, which is down on big-name manufacturers and crowd-pleasing prototypes, could not afford to continue purchasing network time.  SpeedTV is closely tied to NASCAR and its brother, the ALMS rival Grand-Am Series, and one blogger speculates that this is the reason for an ESPN tie-up (NBC had no idea what to do with the ALMS, other than cash checks).  Although sports like the National Football League have network suitors throwing enormous piles of cash into the ring, the ALMS has no demand.  Since Acura withdrew from prototype racing, and Audi scaled back its program after 2009, the ALMS has struggled to fill grids.  Television money is scarce for sports car racing, especially without big manufacturers.  Peugeot commits only to Sebring and Petit Le Mans, as they do not sell any cars in the United States and thus have no use for the ALMS outside its principal events.

We never pull punches here, and we see this as bad news for the ALMS.  The viewing experience online is not rewarding or engaging, and we doubt we’ll be watching many races on our laptops.  Some good racing is going to be ignored for lack of convenience.  We have been dedicated observers for a decade.  For a series that has always been “for the fans“, the ALMS has just alienated most of its core audience.

Or sent them over the Grand-Am.  Permanently?

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