As the streaming wars for paying customers heat up, Land of Legends Raceway decided to buck the trend. Promoter Paul Cole said they will offer free, live coverage of the events at the Canandaigua, New York, dirt oval in 2021. He believes it will expose the sport to new people, and thereby grow the track’s fan base.
“Look at … BJ’s or Costco,” said Cole. “They take product off the shelf and give it to customers — if they like it, they will buy it. For us, it is important to get new fans in the stands.”
He drew inspiration from a successful promoter from the past.
“DIRTcar’s big growth spurt came when Glenn Donnelly [former owner of the predecessor entity, DIRT] produced ‘This Week on DIRT,’ a free program airing on commercial TV,” Cole said.
Cole advertised his business, SuperGen Products, a Champion Power Equipment dealer, for several years at Land of Legends Raceway. He took over the promotional reins in 2018, when the fair board approached him.
“Racing is a three-legged stool — advertisers, fans, and drivers,” said Cole. “All three have to be successful. If one is missing, the stool will fall down.”
By streaming the races for free, Cole said he’ll offer more exposure for advertisers at the track, as well as for the teams and their sponsors.
“More eyes on advertisers’ products will pay for building the purses, which will bring more drivers,” Cole said.
For the first two years under Cole’s direction, fans paid $19.99 per race to watch racing on DirtTrackDigest.TV. Cole decided to do his own pay-per-view deal in 2020, buying the equipment necessary to stream the races.
“I wanted more control and flexibility, plus the ability to deal with issues,” Cole said. “Ironically, in 2020 there were a large number of races without fans. The show was a hard sell, and those buying it were already customers of the track. I felt we needed a long-term plan for developing a larger fan base.”
Cole feels he can convert those who get hooked on watching the events online to regular paying attendees at the track.
“Watching racing in-person is a better experience than watching it online,” said Cole. “Getting a person in the stands is much better for a speedway than getting a portion of the streaming price. The person pays for admission, buys food, and maybe spends money on other concessions. They bring family and friends with them.”
Others have questioned Cole’s plan of offering free streaming.
“What I am doing will help them, too,” Cole said of other tracks and streaming services worried about his free offering. “We want the new customers who never knew racing existed. Maybe they will see our races for free and then go to their local track somewhere in the world. Or, maybe they will buy a pay-per-view for a major race.”
Land of Legends Raceway will offer the streaming service as an app through many popular devices, including Apple and Android as well as Roku and Amazon Fire TV Stick. Cole said the broadcasts will be “highly produced,” and not merely them just pressing play on a camera. Ultimately, Paul Cole feels he made a sound investment by developing a free streaming service for the track.
“My business model will produce for the future, maybe not today,” Cole said. “It is okay to lose money, if you are losing it smartly by investing in the future.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
