Cheapskate racing fans' watchlist of official channels

[TheHun99]

To start off, I’m a cord cutter – even though I never actually had cable/satellite or even antenna – and thus I purely consume racing content that is available freely over the internet (YouTube in particular). I’m not against the paid services and I'm lucky enough that I could actually afford any of them (as many as I would want) but the Mrs. doesn’t particularly likes when I watch races over the weekend anyway, so there would be no point in paying for them. Most of these series/championships don’t share full races on YouTube, only highlight – I understand the reasoning behind them but some of those are rather atrocious, like 2 minute long videos from a 24h motorcycle race (yes, I'm looking at you, FIM EWC).

Not long ago I thought I review my YouTube subscriptions and make a list of good and lousy channels so that I can complain properly and might as well share it with you. It was interesting to see that we have some really lousy examples like the previously mentioned FIM EWC, Trans Am, WRC or WorldSBK on one side, while despite having TV packages and paid streaming services we have the likes of IMSA, SRO, ACO (WEC, ELMS, AsLMS, LMC) or IndyCar just to mention a few who share full races (and in many cases livestreams) on YouTube in a relatively timely manner. We also have the 2 elephants in the room, F1 and MotoGP: given the amount and depth of highlight content they provide, I put them on the good side. MotoGP is particularly interesting: if I'm not completely mistaken, Dorna is the promoter for both MotoGP and WorldSBK, yet their YouTube presence is wildly different.

One thing I need to mention that my goal with the list was to include only official sources (as far as I could judge it) – I know that there are slightly less official sources but I wanted to have a list that is reliable. I also included a few eSports channels – we all know how important those became and I personally returned to racing after many years spent in the Wargaming bubble (World of Tanks etc.) when someone shared the link to one of the FIAGTC World Tour livestreams sometime last year and was extremely impressed by the quality of racing and production (both in-game – camera angles, graphical fidelity – and actual presentation, commentary etc.)

So, without further ado here is the link to the Google Sheet: . For now it’s display-only and if you have any suggestions, I’m open to them.

 

[twitcher]

One you could add to an official list.

You can watch WRC (World Rally Championship) officially, for free, by downloading the Redbull TV app. Their coverage of a rally event usually consists of 4 videos. An hour long review of Friday, live coverage of one of the Saturday stages, hour long review of Saturday, and live coverage of Sunday’s Power Stage. They also upload lots of on-board videos from various stages. The Saturday stage and Power Stage are streamed live, and all videos remain available for on-Demand viewing. There’s also a decent selection of other motorsports to watch on the app, stuff like Hard Enduro, Straight Rhythm, Redbull Moto Juniors, Rally Raid, and more.

 

[TheHun99]

One you could add to an official list.

You can watch WRC (World Rally Championship) officially, for free, by downloading the Redbull TV app. Their coverage of a rally event usually consists of 4 videos. An hour long review of Friday, live coverage of one of the Saturday stages, hour long review of Saturday, and live coverage of Sunday’s Power Stage. They also upload lots of on-board videos from various stages. The Saturday stage and Power Stage are streamed live, and all videos remain available for on-Demand viewing. There’s also a decent selection of other motorsports to watch on the app, stuff like Hard Enduro, Straight Rhythm, Redbull Moto Juniors, Rally Raid, and more.

Thank you! Now that you mention, I do remember reading here about Red Bull TV and their extended WRC coverage. I saw a lot of other stuff covered there, I add some good stuff from there to the list

 

[CodeRedR51]

Supercars only does highlights and other things on their channel. They only recently started live streaming practice sessions for free. If you want full qualifying sessions and races, you have to pay for their live stream service.

 

[FPV MIC]

Thank you! Now that you mention, I do remember reading here about Red Bull TV and their extended WRC coverage. I saw a lot of other stuff covered there, I add some good stuff from there to the list

Great list so far 👍.

You can also add TCR TV. It has all the TCR racing from all around the world: https://www.tcr-series.tv/

 

[TheHun99]

Great list so far 👍.

You can also add TCR TV. It has all the TCR racing from all around the world: https://www.tcr-series.tv/

The TCR Europe channel I listed is actually TCR TV but I did add the site itself for the wide coverage, thanks for bringing it up!

Supercars only does highlights and other things on their channel. They only recently started live streaming practice sessions for free. If you want full qualifying sessions and races, you have to pay for their live stream service.

I did put "somewhat debatable" for a reason there I didn't know that they just started streaming practice recently - I might move them though to lousy due to the highlight content

 

[TheElbows]

Nice work. I keep hoping that we get a Motorsports version of Netflix. Even if they just showed 1-2 week delayed feeds from series around the world....or prior years races. I can't believe someone like F1 hasn't hooked up with Netflix or a similar streaming service and said "hey, pay us big bucks and we'll give you the full race seasons from the past 20 years", etc.

I would love to pay for all the series I watch, but most have their own $10-20-40 subscriptions, and I'd end up paying more than I would have paid for cable, etc. I love IMSA and love that I can watch the races and support races, even if I have to wait a few days or a week. No commercials, etc. Superb.

In short...someone build a damn racing version of Netflix (could even be a general sports streaming service, that would sell even stronger...I bet you could make a heap doing that).

 

[TheHun99]

Nice work. I keep hoping that we get a Motorsports version of Netflix. Even if they just showed 1-2 week delayed feeds from series around the world....or prior years races. I can't believe someone like F1 hasn't hooked up with Netflix or a similar streaming service and said "hey, pay us big bucks and we'll give you the full race seasons from the past 20 years", etc.

I would love to pay for all the series I watch, but most have their own $10-20-40 subscriptions, and I'd end up paying more than I would have paid for cable, etc. I love IMSA and love that I can watch the races and support races, even if I have to wait a few days or a week. No commercials, etc. Superb.

In short...someone build a damn racing version of Netflix (could even be a general sports streaming service, that would sell even stronger...I bet you could make a heap doing that).

Fully support the idea - I haven't watched F1 for over 13 years now (apart from like the first 10 races of the 2014 season) but from what I've seen in the Netflix show and from the podcasts I heard from this season, I'd watch a few races. Even better, I wanna see the 1998 Hungarian GP in glorious HD (I think many would know what happened there, it's one of the highlight of my racing fan life).
One of my other regrets is to lose some old VHS tapes where I recorded stuff off Eurosport. At that time I didn't speak English, yet I managed to understand "former world champion", "reigning world champion", "tarmac" and "gravel track" (and maybe other words) mainly by watching Wayne Rainey, Mick Doohan, Kevin Schwatz et al duelling on those 500cc 2-stroke beasts - but the one particular broadcast I sorely miss was the 1992 season review of CIVT - Italian Touring Car Championship. Before Larini, Nannini and the Alfa Corse brought those 155 V6 TIs upon the DTM, they swept the floor with the 155 GTAs (2L I4 turbo, 4WD) in glorious Martini livery in Bella Italia. I love the 1993 Alfa 155 DTM versions but the GTAs are my true favorites.

One can dream, right?

 

[TheElbows]

Yep, I mean we have some great footage stored all across the world for various forms of motorsport...it'd be awesome to find a way to get that stuff out there. Add in all the superb racing documentaries, and toss in all of the popular build shows. You really could have a mecca of racing film/material. I think racing series nowdays are stuck in the past, hoping for live TV viewership, when that's simply not what it was 10-20 years ago.