MOTORSPORT: Foxtel sets V8 Supercars pricing

Pay-TV service's chief admits it's a stretch for fans
Foxtel will charge $50 a month for V8 Supercars fans wanting to watch all of next year's championship live, plus an extra $10 a month to see the telecasts in high-definition.

The $50-a-month fee is a one-third reduction on what Fox subscribers now pay for a basic package that includes sports.

Fox will be the primary broadcaster of V8 Supercars under the $241 million multi-year deal starting next season, with the Ten Network to simulcast six rounds of the championship and screen packaged replays of other rounds.

The races also will be available live and on demand through the internet-based Foxtel Play and Foxtel Go.

Foxtel has revealed its new pricing structure in the same week it announced the demise of its Speed channel, instead adding two more Fox Sports channels to the existing three and will show its extensive motorsport coverage there.

Fox in the US already had scrapped its Speed channel a year ago.

The cheaper pricing will go some way to retaining more of the V8 Supercars audience after fears a lot of it would be lost without all races being live on free-to-air as they are under the existing contract with the Seven network.

Foxtel's existing reach is only 34 per cent of Australian households.

Foxtel chief executive Richard Freudenstein said: “We recognise that many Australians feel that Foxtel is too expensive to fit comfortably into their budget. They know that we offer fantastic content, but they just don't feel they can stretch their finances to afford it.”

At least now it will be more affordable for fans wanting to watch V8 Supercars – and Fox is committed to screening all practice, qualifying and races – but there will still be some who refuse to pay for what they have enjoyed for so long for free.

LDM revealed this week that V8 Supercars Australia had begun legal proceedings against it over the REC and claimed that action “greatly inhibits the team's planning an ability to field a two-car team” next year.

The team said it “intends to vigorously defend the proceedings”.

“We have some great momentum at LDM right now,” said team principal Lucas Dumbrell, claiming to have a new multinational sponsor to support a second entry next season.

LDM's sole Holden entry this year, driven by veteran Russell Ingall and backed by Phil Munday's Repair Management Australia, has had six top-10 finishes and a best of fourth place after only two top-10 finishes with two cars last year.

The other two RECs handed back at the end of last season were from Dean Fiore's Triple F and Tony D'Alberto Racing.

V8 Supercars Australia, which offered the three RECs for sale with an August 1 deadline for tenders, has not been able to announce any outcome to that process and has not commented on the legal action against LDM.

It's the last chance to make The Chase with only two of 16 spots in that elite company open for the 'playoffs' over the final 10 rounds of the season. Nineteen drivers will be fighting for the two vacancies.

Ambrose has never won a Cup race on an oval track – his successes, in previous years, have been at New York's Watkins Glen road course.

“It's come down to Richmond [a ¾-mile or 1.2km oval]. We hoped we weren't in this position and not have all this pressure, but we're in it to win it,” Ambrose said.

 “That's what it's going to take for us, and that's what we're going to go and try to do.

“We are in that group of cars that have nothing left to chance but to just go for it.

“The last two weekends haven't been good for us, so hopefully we're due some good luck.

“It's going to be a fast race, an aggressive race, and we're going to need everything to go our way this weekend.

“We want to be in position at the end, and that starts with good practice sessions, good qualifying and a good strategy during the [400-lap] race.

“Our team [Richard Petty Motorsports, running a Ford Fusion] is plenty strong enough and we can grab that final spot.

“It's our only goal this weekend.”

Among the 14 drivers already qualified for The Chase, series points leader Jeff Gordon and fellow Chevrolet drivers Dale Earnhardt Junior and Jimmie Johnson and Roger Penske's Ford drivers Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski each have won three races this season.

Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards have two wins each, while Kasey Kahne, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Kurt Busch, Ambrose's teammate Aric Almirola and this year's Watkins Glen winner AJ Allmendinger each have one victory.

Matt Kenseth has claimed a Chase place on points alone, while four drivers can make it without winning at Richmond – Ryan Newman, Greg Biffle, Kyle Larson and Clint Bowyer (the centre of controversy at this track last year when he deliberately spun to cause a caution period to manipulate the race results, bringing Michael Waltrip Racing a US$300,000 fine and a suspension for the Toyota team's general manager).

Among the 19 drivers including Ambrose who need to win Saturday night's race to make The Chase is the Sprint Cup's only woman racer, Danica Patrick.

Ambrose's best finish in 11 previous Cup starts at Richmond was fifth and he's had two top-five finishes at short oval tracks this year. Richard Petty Motorsports has been strongest at short tracks this season, but it's an uphill battle for Ambrose.

The August 23 race at Bristol, Tennessee, was down 18 per cent in ratings and 20 per cent in viewers from last year.

The average American audience on NBC Sports Network for races in the IndyCar open-wheeler series won last weekend by Australia's Will Power was 378,000 viewers.

While that was reported by the Associated Press to be the second-highest average for an IndyCar season on the network since it started showing the races in 2009, and up 34 per cent on last year, it was still short of its best – 402,000 in 2011 – and a shadow of the series in its heyday.

On those raw numbers the IndyCar audience in the US may only be 25-40 per cent more, in a country with 15 times Australia's population, than the V8 Supercar audience in Oz, although the counting methods used by The Nielsen Company in the US and OzTam in Australia are different.

The event will have parallel tracks at an outdoor circuit on the Caribbean island's Bushy Park after being staged in stadiums over the decade up to the Thai cancellation.

Jamie Whincup, perhaps on the way to a record sixth V8 Supercar Championship this year, and five-time 500cc motorcycle world champion Mick Doohan have been Australia's most recent representatives at the ROC, in which competitors drive several types of identical machines for individual and national glory.