IMSA sees big TV, social media gains since 2016

IMSA's annual "State of the Series" address – held on Friday during the Road America WeatherTech SportsCar Championship weekend – tends to produce some interesting insights into what's taking place behind the scenes.

This year's informational gem was delivered with the key metrics found across IMSA's television, digital and social media numbers since the 2016 Road America event.

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Per IMSA, a 37 percent increase in TV viewers, with over seven million unique viewers over the last 12 months, has been tallied. IMSA also noted a peak viewership audience of 1.1 million for the Long Beach race, which aired live on FOX, represented a 41 percent increase over the live FOX audience for the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

The gain in the metrics, according to IMSA president Scott Atherton, can be attributed to a reinvigorated relationship with FOX Sports.

"We were fortunate to hold a meeting with FOX Sports' leadership last year where we asked to explain our series, what make it unique in the marketplace, and we went away from that meeting with a request to have us give them time to reimagine our relationship," Atherton told RACER.

"The most material byproduct of that meeting was the first three hours of the Rolex 24 this year was live on FOX network television, live flag-to-flag coverage of the Bubba Burger Sports Car Grand Prix from Long Beach, and I believe 10 and a half of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring live on Fox Sports 1. Whereas the year before, there was a lot of bouncing back and forth."

Spurred on by the growth found in 2017, Atherton (pictured below) is hoping for another round of uplifting discussions with IMSA's TV partner.

"The other part is that we have the second annual meeting with those [FOX Sports] executive in their offices and I believe the same level of improvement will occur going forward," he said.

"We have been and continue to be of the opinion that traditional television is still the bedrock of many professional sports media plans, but it's only part of a comprehensive and diverse media strategy," he said.

"You look at YouTube views and the live streaming. The video consumption of our product is exploding; we're coming up on a million hours of live streaming content that's been absorbed, year to date. After eight of 12 races, we've matched what we did all season last year."

Atherton also pointed to IMSA's mobile app, which delivers live streaming, timing and scoring and radio to sports car fans as a focal point in two areas.

"You look at our app," he continued. "The social media followers that are now approaching 400,000, all organic, and none of the hocus pocus where you dig into the followers and find they all come from the same [IP] address far, far from here. Not casting aspersions here, but we don't play that game."

Unveiled in 2015, the IMSA app has also been targeted as the biggest area for improvement by the series.

"Our app and all the things accessed through our app is ready for a refresh, and it's because the technology involved with it moves at the speed of light," Atherton said. "If you have an app that's based on technology from three years ago, you've got an old app. We had an OEM council meeting this morning, and it's a high-level meeting with decision makers among the 17 automobile manufacturers in our series, and that was their request. They want to see us take a leadership role and reinvest where needed. That's where we're focused going forward."

Outside of the upcoming revisions to IMSA's app, the series' expanded presence through social media could be the most encouraging news from the State of the Series.

With a 50 percent increase in followers since July 28, 2016, IMSA also reported 79 million social media impressions – a 25 percent increase with a secondary, 13 percent increase in comments/engagements, and 10.7 million combined video views across popular social media platforms – a 23 percent increase.