Global viewership of dirt track racing continues to climb as 550 World Racing Group productions are streamed across all major OTT platforms in one season
Dejero connectivity solutions have been instrumental to the continued success of sports entertainment group and North America’s premier sanctioning body for dirt track racing, World Racing Group (WRG), and the rapid growth of WRG’s DIRTVison brand.
Over the last year alone, WRG live streamed 550 races from 120 track venues across the USA and Canada on its DIRTVision streaming channel, thanks to the resilient connectivity provided by Dejero’s EnGo video mobile transmitters, CellSat blended cellular, and Ku-band IP satellite solution and CuePoint return video solution.
“Dejero provides us with reliable connectivity, and consistency from venue to venue, which has been crucial to our production of high quality race coverage, ” explains Brian Dunlap, director of broadcast services at World Racing Group. “Using this remote production workflow, we were effectively the first in the entire world of motorsports, to take a premier series and live stream every event.”
When WRG began using the network blending capabilities of Dejero CellSat, not only could it live stream 99.9% of its premier racing schedule year-round from more venues than ever before, it could also push raw feeds back to the WRG studios in Concorde, North Carolina, with a predictable latency.
“Traditionally, races were streamed from tracks using encoders on site, but we were limited by available internet connection,” continues Dunlap. “By using Dejero connectivity, no matter where the venue, we can produce live shows, add graphics and final-mix the audio, transmit to our studio and then distribute a high quality, fully packaged product to OTT platforms for viewers to watch around the world,” added Dunlap.
Over a five year period, WRG has expanded its fleet of mobile production units by adding two vans with 16-foot trailers and a flight kit to its existing 26-foot truck. The organisation is also in the process of building another 26-foot truck. Each mobile unit is equipped with a Dejero CellSat blended cellular and Ku-band IP satellite solution, Dejero EnGo video mobile transmitters, plus switchers, audio equipment and cameras.
WRG has also deployed Dejero EnGo transmitters at ten race track venues across North America where they have created production facilities in order to broadcast weekly shows from each track. The EnGos encode high-quality video, transmitting WRG mixed clean switcher feeds, primarily over fiber and using cellular networks as backup, to reliably deliver exceptional picture quality with extremely low latency.
“Since we’ve enhanced connectivity and our production capabilities through Dejero solutions, more dirt track race rights holders have approached us to put their events on DIRTVision – and in turn the DIRTVision brand and the appetite for dirt track racing around the world has significantly increased,” says Dunlap.
“At one point DIRTVision was strictly web-based and now we have apps on every major platform from iOS to Android, to Samsung to ROKU and more. As a result, our audience are exposed to races year round; it keeps them engaged and now our average subscriber is now buying more tickets to see an event live compared to this time 5 years ago.”
For approximately 200 larger events in its annual race calendar, i.e. World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink sprint cars and World of Outlaws CASE construction Late Model series’ events., when a live network approach is taken, WRG also uses a Dejeo CuePoint return video server. On these occasions, the CuePoint sends low-latency, live program video feeds to the director onsite for confidence monitoring and to ensure the synchronisation of graphic and commercial placements over existing shots.
Two Dejero WayPoint receivers are located at WRG’s studio in North Carolina where final production including graphics and commentary take place. The WayPoint devices reconstruct and decode the video feeds which are entered into a matrix to be shared with the switcher and replay systems. The packaged video is then distributed to DIRTVision’s OTT platforms.
“Dejero really takes the worry out of transmission and signal delivery in the live environment which is critical to our success,” concludes Dunlap.
World Racing Group, Inc., a sports entertainment company, is a world leader in the sanctioning and promotion of dirt track auto racing. WRG, based in Concord, NC, owns and operates the three highest-profile touring series for dirt track racing in the United States:
The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series
The World of Outlaws Late Model Series
The Super DIRTcar Series
World Racing Group sanctions more than 5,000 local and regional dirt track racing events in the United States and Canada at 120 tracks each year under the DIRTcar Racing brand. In addition, World Racing Group owns and/or operates premier dirt track speedways. WRG races can be seen online at DIRTVision.com.
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