How WRC can better use social media

[focus206]

I just watch some AMERICANS reacting to rally for the first time. I know that some are fake and surely some of them probably already heard about this sport, as Pastrana, Block and Semenuk are huge names there, but America being completely blank on this sport, no wonder that there is no popularity on numbers. It's about time, WRC should be coming there.

American average Joes or American motorsport fans?
American average Joes that don't care for cars are probably going to look amazed on camera for views and never watch a rally video again.
American motorsport fans... even if few become rally fans, how many are going to travel from let's say Oregon and California all the way to Tennesse to watch a couple of stages?
I don't see why USA deserves a WRC round nor why they should be involved, since they can't even promote their own national rally championship to themselves.

 

[27Stan]

American average Joes that don't care for cars are probably going to look amazed on camera for views and never watch a rally video again.

Which is fine if they get 500k viewers per video, but who is watching? I guess not Americans if it's 'American reacts'.

I don't see why USA deserves a WRC round nor why they should be involved, since they can't even promote their own national rally championship to themselves.

They didn't have F1 there before F1 went there ( ) but now there's 3 GPs a year and it's the biggest thing since aerosol cheese. Which European national series is the shining example?

 

[SubaruNorway]

For me it was a mix of things i guess, dad worked at Subaru, Petter went to Ford in 99, Colin McRae 2.0 and then it really took off once Petter came to Subaru. Dad filmed my first event Rally Hedemarken 2002, watched that video on repeat and here i am, 20 years later still filming rally cars

 

[27Stan]

I caught an American Reacts the other day, and they usually link to the video, which this time was @SubaruNorway Rally Finland 2026. Just wondering if that helps send viewers through, and what you feel about these reaction videos?

 

[focus206]

Which is fine if they get 500k viewers per video, but who is watching? I guess not Americans if it's 'American reacts'.

I can see Americans watching "American reacts" series, if they bring stuff that is not usual to American viewers.

They didn't have F1 there before F1 went there ( ) but now there's 3 GPs a year and it's the biggest thing since aerosol cheese. Which European national series is the shining example?

I don't know about F1, I don't care for it. I only know it's now American owned and if they want, they can make one million GPs a year there, and about disgruntled fans who don't like American tracks taking the place of classic tracks because of "USA, USA, USA".
Pretty much almost every European national rally championship has better entry lists, even from small countries. Americans are sold as marketing geniuses, yet they can't raise the interest towards their rally series and make their entry lists not minuscle and filled with Impreza RS from the 90's. Although I admit they started swapping the Impreza RS for various Fiesta ST.

 

[SubaruNorway]

I caught an American Reacts the other day, and they usually link to the video, which this time was @SubaruNorway Rally Finland 2026. Just wondering if that helps send viewers through, and what you feel about these reaction videos?

Everything helps! Kristian Sohlberg and Joonas Lönn does it on Twitch for example, always nice to see. Usually i just share my video's on this forum, some discord channels, a few FB pages, maybe a 20 euro promotion on instagram and then i just let it live it's own life really. Rallye Magazine on FB has maybe been one of my biggest helper in promotion

 

[typhoon]

American average Joes or American motorsport fans?
American average Joes that don't care for cars are probably going to look amazed on camera for views and never watch a rally video again.
American motorsport fans... even if few become rally fans, how many are going to travel from let's say Oregon and California all the way to Tennesse to watch a couple of stages?
I don't see why USA deserves a WRC round nor why they should be involved, since they can't even promote their own national rally championship to themselves.

US market is huge. Even if they're able to catch just a small fraction of that market, let's say 100K "average Joe" (on a 300 million people), there you have hardcore fans that would mean 100K subscriptions, 100K people buying merch and probably 10K people buying any type of hospitality package or VIP access for the event.

It would easily get 8-10 million euros more into the championship.
For the US market is nothing, for a series like WRC is a massive leap forward.

 

[27Stan]

Pretty much almost every European national rally championship has better entry lists, even from small countries. Americans are sold as marketing geniuses, yet they can't raise the interest towards their rally series and make their entry lists not minuscle and filled with Impreza RS from the 90's. Although I admit they started swapping the Impreza RS for various Fiesta ST.

The topic is social media coverage, not entry lists which are often misunderstood. Even with unsocial media, Dirtfish does a pretty good job for ARA and is No 1 for WRC in English.

 

[saco0o]

im 40 but the first time i checked wrc was when raikkonen left f1 to race there with the redbull car and then with the iceone car.
block was doing some rounds too and i also knew him from some stunts and xgames
it was this involuntary 'cross promotion' thing, with racers that i already liked.
for me thats the easiest way you can lure other motorsport fans to come and take a look... making them have to come and see what their favorite racers are doing.
wrc is very impressive overall, not thaaat hard to catch someone's attention (racing fan), but it gotta be on youtube, avaliable. especially nowadays.

idk how but wrc also could benefit from finding a way to have youtube's algorythms linking them more and more with racing games and the rally crash videos (rallying is spetacular for that haha). these people need to get the algorythm suggesting them "hey, wrc is live, come watch".
during the rallycross broadcast is so normal to have people on the chat asking about the sport. most are gt-touring-endurance fans. not many people, for sure, but if they want to try everything, thats one thing

 

[focus206]

US market is huge. Even if they're able to catch just a small fraction of that market, let's say 100K "average Joe" (on a 300 million people), there you have hardcore fans that would mean 100K subscriptions, 100K people buying merch and probably 10K people buying any type of hospitality package or VIP access for the event.

It would easily get 8-10 million euros more into the championship.
For the US market is nothing, for a series like WRC is a massive leap forward.

I don't believe those optimistic numbers will ever happen, doesn't matter how huge the market is.
If a good number of Americans already cared about rallying, they would have had a better national championship by now and more drivers going international. But it's a niche motorsport, even more than in Europe.
As for new fans, I'd say the overwhelming majority of people (including Americans) who care about cars, can tell you what rallying is as a concept, it's not something unheard of. They only need to watch some rally videos or maybe play a rally game, if they care about getting involved and interested, as a beginning.
For the true average Joes who don't care about cars to begin with, I don't see why anyone should bother to sell rallying to them.

 

[focus206]

The topic is social media coverage, not entry lists which are often misunderstood. Even with unsocial media, Dirtfish does a pretty good job for ARA and is No 1 for WRC in English.

Small entry lists are a sign that rallying in the USA is a very small thing, as if it wasn't obvious already. Therefore, why should WRC go to USA? They won't bring anything to WRC, unless one believes that everyone in America will go crazy for rallying because of a small handful of rally cars in Tennessee, and that will make WRC mediatically explode worldwide. They can't make ARA "explode" to reach the level of small European national championships.
WRC also went to Mexico, not really a big rally country either. But I don't think anybody expected some sort of rally revolution from Mexico.

 

[27Stan]

It's off topic now, so replied on USA in the calendar thread

2

Post in thread 'WRC Calendar 2027'

31 Aug 2026

USA is Rally TVs single biggest market. And if attracting manufacturers is important, being there helps. Entry lists have nothing to do with it.

But, the geographical spread of ARA National is much larger than ERC and has more regular starters. And the entry lists of the ARA rallies are split between the national and regional championships - which also each get regular starters and still cover more ground than European countries like Latvia, Estonia and Croatia - and local drivers.

Add also the early collapses of AAA and ACA allowed a free market for motorsport sanctioning, so there are...

• 27Stan

• 

 

[typhoon]

I don't believe those optimistic numbers will ever happen, doesn't matter how huge the market is.
If a good number of Americans already cared about rallying, they would have had a better national championship by now and more drivers going international. But it's a niche motorsport, even more than in Europe.
As for new fans, I'd say the overwhelming majority of people (including Americans) who care about cars, can tell you what rallying is as a concept, it's not something unheard of. They only need to watch some rally videos or maybe play a rally game, if they care about getting involved and interested, as a beginning.
For the true average Joes who don't care about cars to begin with, I don't see why anyone should bother to sell rallying to them.

Optimistic the 0.03% of US population? And I'm considering that amongst those 100K, probably half of them will go for their "hero" because it became their best influencer on social media or random Texas guys going at the rally (so spending money at the event) because they want to do a 3-day barbecue.

If Liberty was able to revamp F1 there, after the joke/nightmare of Indy 2005, everyone can.

 

[focus206]

Optimistic the 0.03% of US population? And I'm considering that amongst those 100K, probably half of them will go for their "hero" because it became their best influencer on social media or random Texas guys going at the rally (so spending money at the event) because they want to do a 3-day barbecue.

If Liberty was able to revamp F1 there, after the joke/nightmare of Indy 2005, everyone can.

Yes, I think it's optimistic, as is 100k Joes that become hardcore fans because there's a WRC rally in Tennessee.
For the vast majority, if those Joes are already rally fans, nothing stops them from becoming hardcore fans right now (well, what stops them would be the same thing that stops everyone around the world).
If those Joes don't care about cars, the success percentage of them becoming hardcore fans because of WRC Tennessee becomes microscopic. That's the way I see it.

 

[wyler]

I don't believe those optimistic numbers will ever happen, doesn't matter how huge the market is.
If a good number of Americans already cared about rallying, they would have had a better national championship by now and more drivers going international. But it's a niche motorsport, even more than in Europe.
As for new fans, I'd say the overwhelming majority of people (including Americans) who care about cars, can tell you what rallying is as a concept, it's not something unheard of. They only need to watch some rally videos or maybe play a rally game, if they care about getting involved and interested, as a beginning.
For the true average Joes who don't care about cars to begin with, I don't see why anyone should bother to sell rallying to them.

ara recap video on social media have a way bigger numbers than erc (in the order of 50-70k to 10-20 k) when wrc is 100k-150k, so even if it is definitely a niche, it is a big niche compared to european numbers.

 

[focus206]

ara recap video on social media have a way bigger numbers than erc (in the order of 50-70k to 10-20 k) when wrc is 100k-150k, so even if it is definitely a niche, it is a big niche compared to european numbers.

ARA is the only championship in USA, alongside the regional series. Sure, there's also that joke of "North American Rally Cup", where basically no American bothers to rally in Canada and basically no Canadian bothers to rally in USA and has like 3 entrants.
Europe has ERC, national championships and regional series, other than international cups like Mitropa, Alpe Adria etc, do we add them all to the equation? I don't even bother watching ERC recaps either, since they're so short and I watch it live anyway.

 

[wyler]

ARA is the only championship in USA, alongside the regional series. Sure, there's also that joke of "North American Rally Cup", where basically no American bothers to rally in Canada and basically no Canadian bothers to rally in USA and has like 3 entrants.
Europe has ERC, national championships and regional series, other than international cups like Mitropa, Alpe Adria etc, do we add them all to the equation? I don't even bother watching ERC recaps either, since they're so short and I watch it live anyway.

the point says. for whatever reason, ara is doing the numbers that are interesting for the stakeholders.

 

[typhoon]

the point says. for whatever reason, ara is doing the numbers that are interesting for the stakeholders.

Exactly, totally agree.

I would add something on top of it: if ARA and rallying was so irrelevant, it wouldn't make sense for a manufacturer to spend money (not much for building as they're cheap, but in development and marketing too) on a national championship.

As Wyler said, the numbers are sufficient to justify the investment to the Board.

I'm sure the WRC will be able to screw every single dollar from a round there.

If you see how the Americans are screwing every Formula 1 video on YT-FB-IG-TT reel, everything has a sponsor on it. Pirelli Hot Lap, Aramco Power Data, AWS Spaceship time, MSC Best Holiday Look etc.

The value of a single viewer in Italy is very different to a viewer in the US. The CPM (the money Google for 1000 views of an ad in a specific market) there is ridiculously higher. Even 1000 viewers values more than 5000 in Europe.

 

[focus206]

I would add something on top of it: if ARA and rallying was so irrelevant, it wouldn't make sense for a manufacturer to spend money (not much for building as they're cheap, but in development and marketing too) on a national championship.

If rallying was so relevant in USA (with these incredible tens of thousands of views and national importers entries), why is the level of rallying in their championship so low, with a great slice of cars being old and/or amateurish almost stock cars? Why can't they even have a decent North American championship? And why the number of American rally drivers who bothered having any sort of international program is microscopic? (The answer is not "because there's no American WRC round", we've had way more drivers from outside of Europe doing international programs regardless of the calendar).
In other words, if American are so into rallying, why isn't USA a rally powerhouse yet? It doesn't seem to me that all those views and interest into ARA translates into practice.

 

[Kenneth]

BTW there was the video filmed at Barum showing the test track where Audi did the secret tests. It's 3 minutes long and currently has insane... 3k views on YouTube.

That's the type of content that should have been IG reel! Nobody will watch that on YT...

There was even one crew driving Audi at Star Rally, take could take him and film him doing one lap around the track or something, but it could totally work as it was.

It's a very good example of a great idea with a terrible execution .