Lol see I’m old, I now get this 
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It’s a tragic and irreversible condition.
Surely a club could set up a livestream using 4 or 5 GoPros, cheaply.
To do a Xander probably costs big money but there has to be a quick and dirty way for small orgs.
It strikes me as a kind of thing that just because you can doesn’t mean you should. That’s essentially a glorified CCTV feed from with a bunch of static cameras that are going to be some distance from the track. It’s not going to be very worth watching and you’re still on the hook for the guts of $5K of equipment ($3K at the least) and still need someone to set it up and keep it running.
…All for probably less than 5000views. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze as far as ROI is concerned, even if the equipment was free. The $5K is best spent elsewhere. If you have a volunteer that wants to do it for fun, go for it. But otherwise I can’t make the numbers work for multi cam livestream in a club scenario. You could do a lot of good marketing for $5000 though 
Pay $500 to someone to take video of the try a kart day, capturing the fun and excitement and people reactions. Throw $1000 behind that video on Facebook with a leads form to find more people for the try-a-kart day. Aim to get one driver to convert to a club racer in some form… at each one… I think my assumption for lifetime value to the club for a racer is something like $2600.
If you don’t come out ahead I’ll eat my digital marketing hat.
Xander’s setup is a different level of course… and their operation gets somewhere in the order millions of impressions across their channels… But it’s a team of… 10-20 people on a given weekend. I think the equipment rental bill for the first event was $7000 or something. @XanderClements?
Edit, sorry if I’m sounding negative, really I’m just trying to make the point that clubs would be better off using tools other than multi cam streaming due to its costs when (for all it’s own challenges) a “try a kart day” could bring income.
I think I can summarize your view.
Live Streams = Awesome
Live streams (do not =) new karters
I love my club series’ live streams. So does my mother who can watch her grandkids from the comfort of her couch. However, they are not getting her off that couch and into a kart
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I appreciate that LOL
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I refuse to acknowledge the condition! I resolutely maintain that I’m old enough to know better and too young to resist. Been that way for a loooong time. Ask my wife! 
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I just want to comment that we are all arguing…err….commenting about another social media platform on a social media platform.
@KartingIsLife if the data says something, then it must be true, BUT….
What is the trend? How has that percentage of the youth changed over time? If perception is reality, and the growing / ‘set’ sentiment is that Facebook is for old people, how much longer is it a platform to market on?
I think if you have the budget to take a ‘total war’ approach to marketing, use Facebook, parades, door to door evangelization, try kart days, etc, whatever works.
The other reality is post COVID and in a world the last 10-20 years where a global marketplace means everyone has a volume piece shouting as loud as they can (Facebook to me), it’s hard as hell to stand out.
You have to ‘get creative,’ but that can be in so many ways, and there isn’t a one size fits all solution. I sat in a seminar at the largest trade show for motorsports on the “state of the motorsports industry”, and watched closing questions as the only 19 year old in attendance of that seminar (I was the second youngest person in the room at 30) tried again and again to explain to those in attendance that there are plenty of young people into cars still, but many don’t feel welcome in car enthusiast groups.
I’d urge any of you actually advertising for events to check out the r/karting section on Reddit as an example. The number of super super basic questions and frankly kids (and adults) floundering around not even understanding the basics of karting or how to make a purchasing decision (read as they have ALREADY decided to buy into the sport but don’t even know where to start!) is really concerning.
I guess what I’m trying to say is even if you have content that works with with the ‘back gate’ crowd or those already in the sport, how do you balance that with the intro portion of the advertising sales funnel to grow the sport? How do you as a series or an event place not ‘brand’ yourself for newbies or for ‘pros,’ how do you build a brand and marketing portfolio and approach to attract both with equal fervor?
Phew. I’m lamenting my age because even though that was tap tapping keys on my phone I’m leaning up against a fence post after my little diatribe.
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This is what we entered in the parade. The moms and kids handed out flyers while I drove. Residents of my town had no idea the track was in the community even though it had been there for ~50 years.
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Here’s my 2c
I think this is a bit of analysis paralysis. We can’t predict the future. Watch your data and as long as you’re getting the results you want… that’s all that matters. Hedge your bets with other platforms, you don’t have to negate them.
Karting example, it’s like being concerned on whether one should get on the Yamaha two strokes that are coming. We don’t know where that’s going… Keep an eye on it for sure… meanwhile keep focus on the Rok and KZ. Avoid the shiny objects.
Maybe. Start with the basics and get data, monitor results tweak as as you go. Just like testing at the track. Start with the basics, then get all fancy at a later point. A video that shows fun in gokarts is a good start.
Yes and no. You don’t have to shout loud at all. In a world of shouters, attraction is key. Craft the correct message(s) and put them in front of the appropriate avatars. Start with your best guesses in terms of interests, monitor results and narrow down (or segment) as needed…
Unless I’m misunderstanding…. This is a common thing… Current vs new customers?.
I’ve never really thought of it as a balance. I’m not sure if one is needed other than organic content for your existing “customer” and paid acquisition to attract new ones. The overlap is good because your existing “customers” can evangelize and give social proof by interacting with the new customer intended content.
Also @Deanbert kudos on the float, in a digital world it’s a great way to attract attention and start convos.
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I think you are correct. That’s much more focused.
Moved to a new topic because it’s a pretty worthy discussion.
Yeah Marco put one of his boys on a kart suited up and they paraded him on a float, advertising his upstate track at the local Parade! Seems like a hit.
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Seeing it in person helps make what you see in videos real. The range of reactions runs from “I would never…” to “That is so cool! where do I sign up?”
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For my stuff, it’s approx 10 people a weekend including the announcing crew on a regular basis, a couple less for smaller races, and then events like SuperNats we’ll have 20.
This. Our growth to new karters isn’t necessarily because we’ve been live streaming. It’s because we’ve been clipping the live streams and making additional content to drive them to the live streams.
If I were trying to market a club and had a limited budget, I’d take my phone and do interviews over and over and post each individually on Facebook and Instagram. Alongside hiring a photographer to come to the races and provide pictures, allowing them to sell to the drivers.
Then I’d request for onboard footage from drivers’ GoPros to make additional content in between race weekends.
Short form videos go viral, and there’s no perfect formula to what sticks. So best to get quantity over quality and just start shooting.
If you set up cameras to live stream or do replays, 20% of that budget should go towards repurposing the content. That’s approximately the ratio of our spend, maybe more, of what we do that’s led to our growth.
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This seems to be the thing. Short content is promoted. Long content isn’t. Not sure how this goes with streams tho.
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This is interesting to me. We’ve wrestled with this for about a decade now and for about the same number of years we’ve had live coverage from EKN with announcing and one camera at start/finish. Honestly when I’ve watched live karting I’ve usually found it boring. If you aren’t at the race you’re not even sure where/when you’re watching. It’s potentially even worse at a street race where the issue of where and how to position cameras, wire around buildings etc complicates things even more. With thousands of spectators and the entire downtown wired for sound, we’ve focused on making sure we have an awesome announcing team.
Xander’s latest effort at SuperNats is another good example . I haven’t seen the track so not real sure what I’m looking at, and can’t really tell who most of the drivers are or who is leading, BUT the announcing, color, discussion, definitely kept me watching.
That said, the idea of using pieces of live streaming to reach out and promote in other ways — along with stills and other short videos we have shot — is interesting, perhaps even a better use, and something I don’t think we’ve ever thought of. Same with tons of YouTube videos from our event that have collected over the years . It just sounds like a lot of searching and editing at who knows what cost, but worth a discussion.
The way I look at it, you pay for the editing / clipping of races either doing them with a live, in-person production team that switches the angles in real-time, or you pay someone individually to go back and sync things up.
Earlier this year we did the production work for FOX NASCAR’s ‘Better Half Dash’ at Trackhouse. We saved money and time by just recording to SD cards and syncing after, but it took me a good 4 hours of editing labor, maybe 6, to put together and clip a 25 minute session with 5 camera angles.
To be fair, a good two hours of the six was incorporating GoPro footage.
I came to this conclusion when I was researching sports marketing and trying to understand why no previous karting streamers were ever able to last. In the 2008-2010 era, there was Speedcast TV, then in the mid 2010s FWT and Rotax Nationals did a stream with a group that I can’t remember.
Neither one stuck and the streams never got big views.
We started out as a social media company / content production company and then morphed into adding streaming. Streaming is the brunt revenue leader now and the social stuff is at best a break even, but it without a doubt drives the streaming audience growth and brand growth. (We were up about 30% on equivalent race weekends from 2022 to 2023).
Karting races can usually be pretty exciting because they are close, but if you don’t care about rooting for or against a driver in the slightest, it’s easy to be bored.
I like to use college football as an analogy. Most people would tell you it’s more exciting and unpredictable than the NFL. But if it’s two random colleges playing each other, whether it’s a close game or a blowout, you’re probably tuning out after 5 minutes.
So with our approach of going heavy on interviews to personalize the drivers, making sure the announcers are informed and add to the excitement of each move, and then using social media to re-clip big moments and fan the flames, it seems to have driven more people to consistently want to tune in.
In an old WWE Documentary, Triple H said WWE isn’t about wrestling. It’s about building up superheroes and supervillains, and then making them clash.
To me, that’s the epitome of modern day sports and entertainment. Racing is no different.
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Now, in the case of club level posting, there’s a much different incentive to go heavy on viewership than national racing, in my opinion.
If I post an interview of Danny Formal or Marijn Kremers, it’s because they have the potential for fans to root for or against them.
If I interview Joe Shmoe that races at his club track monthly, or a kid kart / micro driver, I’m doing it more so for the sake of them feeling famous, and their immediate friends and family liking and sharing.
And so at club races, you don’t have a fanbase or much of a potential as a national series will, so your goals for engagement or getting your algorithm / follower count up is to lean on friends and family liking posts because you made their kid look like a star. And everyone – or mostly everyone – wants to look like a star.
I used to subscribe to this (still do to an extent)… BUT long form content that keeps attention is even more valuable… But much harder to execute. I’d hazard a guess that many of us stop at least a couple of times per day on long form content that grabs our attention.
In terms of pure eyeballs of course , short form is about the best way to go. Combo with retargteting is ideal… Show the long form content to the most engaged users with the short for.
To add to this I’ve found GOOD onboards from drivers POV crush the other forms of content. only caveat, needs to have some actual action. Lap from someone out on their own is boring… but opening laps or anything with a train of karts dicing will grab people attention for sure. I like combos, so you can open with a 25second action packed onboard (be ruthless about cutting the fluff) followed by a trackside camera for the latter 25. Again, ruthlessly cutting boring content.
Racing is boring in general to people. But I think some some extent it allows for a unique proposition for karting. “Get out of the stands”
Point to point wifi would work just fine. Some systems will go multiple miles and there are dedicated video wireless systems too.
The only way I’d personally invest in that now is if drivers want to fund it.
Start with the RIGP’s posted videos on facebook and see how they did.
For youtube, start here you can sort by views, or reactions:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rock+island+grand+prix+&sp=CAM%253D
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=RIGP&sp=CAM%253D
(Looks like the term Rock Island Grand Prix is the king here, if you’ll excuse the pun)