Should Monster Trucks Be Streaming? The Future of Monster Trucks in Broadcasting

The speed of technology advancement today is almost bewildering if you step back and look at how much humanity has innovated in the last century. 100 years ago we were just on the brink of huge breakthroughs with cars, planes, and communication and now every aspect of our daily lives seem to be tied to modern technology. Just take a look around at the next pit party you attend and count the number of smart phones and tablets compared to the number of actual cameras being used for taking photos. While monster trucks may not be the most technologically advanced things in the world, is it time for the sport’s biggest player Monster Jam to explore live streaming events?

This morning millions of ravenous football fans are taking in an experience many would’ve thought of as unheard of just five years ago: An NFL game being broadcasted exclusively online. It’s an interesting benchmark on the state of current technology that one of the world’s biggest and most powerful sports leagues has taken a chance on moving away from the standard TV angle. While the broadcast stream has come with some hiccups and growing pains, the overall experience has been pleasant for many users with high quality, broadcast equivalent visuals and audio and in some cases even better than what is offered over Cable/Satellite/Over The Air. It’s a testament to where the future of media is heading: it’s heading online. All the major players in sports have the ability for fans to watch regular season events online. The NFL has their Sunday Ticket streaming package available under certain restrictions, the MLB has League Pass, the NBA has their League Pass, and the NHL has Game Center. While certain broadcast deals make some games exclusives to broadcast partners like Monday Night Football to ESPN, or NHL on NBC Sports games, a large majority of their games are available to consumers to watch at their convenience. As an NHL Game Center subscriber myself I’ve used it all over the country to keep up with hockey while working and traveling to events, or even just around the house (not missing the game while walking the dogs is so convenient).

So with all the major sports leagues offering their own forms of streaming packages, why not Monster Jam? With a majority of the major stadium events taking place in NFL stadiums the technology is already in place to provide HD visuals and stable internet connections to upload on the fly. Essentially with some tweaks in how the live event production is conducted, Monster Jam could easily take their in stadium production feed and make it available to the world. For those of us who weren’t at the Path of Destruction events over the summer, Monster Jam did just that to live stream both Tom Meents’ front-flip attempt in East Rutherford, and his double back-flip attempt in Foxborough. It was the first time live Monster Jam events were made available to fans since the live broadcast of the Atlanta Monster Jam on SPEED back in 2008. Unfortunately the streams for the most part only offered the stunts themselves and were subsequently shut off at the start of intermission, for many fans it was a glimmer of hope that perhaps events could be live streamed in the future.

For the die-hard fans right now keeping up with live results is quite frankly a mess. While online outlets such as ourselves and our friends at TheMonsterBlog try to do our best to provide coverage through social media of every event possible, unfortunately we can’t be everywhere at once. In those cases, you’re pretty much relying on fellow fan accounts or combing through social media to try and piece together results with whatever media is available. If you’ve ever had four or five tabs open browsing through the various monster truck related hashtags on a Saturday night, we know your pain all to well. Trying to get good info during the World Finals can be even tougher despite it being the sport’s biggest event (Any old mayhemer’s remember the audio stream? #JoeLoweAteABaby). The insiders of the sport often resort to the same tactics while at events trying to find out what’s happening elsewhere. We’ve had driver’s wives even text us to try and find out what’s happening where they’re competing that night. There’s also been many late night exchanges during load out in show offices on the east coast where drivers, crew, and staff flip through their phones trying to find out who did what at a mid-west or west coast show. Earlier this year in Tampa we were munching on some post show pizza and desperately searching for footage of NEA taking out the starting gate inflatable in San Diego. While we resorted to flipping through hundreds Instagram posts to find any info on other shows, we could’ve easily turned on a TV to watch our two wheel brethren in Supercross live on Fox Sports 1 every weekend. Sunday mornings at the airport have had similar experiences to that spent during load out. We’ve spent plenty of time exchanging phones back and forth to view a YouTube or Instagram clip with drivers as we try to piece together how things played out elsewhere. (Airports with free Wi-Fi, you the real MVP.) I distinctly remember spending about an hour looking at different angles of Carl VanHorn’s freestyle in Anaheim with him as he analyzed how his shocks were working and where he felt he could’ve done things differently in his run.

The first argument against the live stream route is often that it would hurt attendance at the events themselves. With monster trucks being a bit of a niche sport would fans opt for a cheaper streaming experience and forgo the cost of paying for tickets to attend a live event? While that itself could be a long debate there’s always the option of localized blackouts to encourage fans to attend the live events.

Another big question is that is there enough demand to invest in creating a streaming service? There are over 700,000 fans who have liked Monster Jam on Facebook alone but how many of those same fans would be interested in purchasing a streaming package? It’s hard to gauge just how many of those fans are more than just casual observers, but analytics could help show how many fans are repeat visitors that regularly engage with social media accounts.

So we raise these question to our readers, would you be willing to subscribe to a streaming package to follow Monster Jam? If so, what would you be willing to pay for it? What do you want to see happen for the future of coverage? Let us know what you think here in the comments or shoot us a comment on our social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter.