The 2016 season has been a pivotal one for the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). The organization not only enlisted a new TV network partner, Fox Sports, but also built an in-house TV-production team from scratch, increased its social-media and online-streaming presence, and, most important, saw its total TV viewers grow from 14 million last year to 34 million this year, not counting the championship weekend, which took place this past weekend in Pomona, CA.
NHRA race coverage is complemented by plenty of interviews from the pit area.
[Building the production team] was a huge expense and a big investment, says Terry Blount, VP of public relations and communications, NHRA. We felt the most important thing we had to do this season was fix television. If we fixed television, then it would filter down to all the other things. But it was something we felt we had to do.
The return on that investment doesn't lie; all season long, NHRA has found new success: Sunday Finals TV ratings are up 25% from 2015, and the important 18-49 demographic is up 52% from a year ago.
That is the most important thing to me, says Blount. We are growing younger while motorsports in general is skewing older.
And social-media numbers are also up, with Twitter followers doubling in less than nine months.
One of the first moves the NHRA did as part of its renewed commitment to improving the TV product was to hire Ken Adelson as VP, executive producer, and chief content officer. For nearly two decades, he had called the NBA home and, from 2008 until 2011, had built from scratch the broadcasting and digital-media departments for the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder. So he knows what it takes to get a new department off the ground.
It's been an incredible commitment by the NHRA to take the bull by the horns, have control of our own multimedia operation, and get out the messages we thought had not been getting out in the past, he says. And the new contract with Fox was great, as it increased the number of hours from 125 a year to more than 500, including live shows on Friday night that just happened organically during the season.
Part of that commitment involved also adding a state-of-the-art television studio in the Wally Park Broadcast Center at the NHRA office in Glendora, CA, where features, news reports, and live interviews each week are produced and streamed online.
The core, however, is the race coverage as well as coverage of all the happenings around the track. The unique atmosphere of an NHRA race allows fans to walk around the pit area, visit with race teams and drivers, and much more. It is, for all intents and purposes, a nitro-fueled county fair.
Adelson brought in Mike Rokosa, also formerly of the NBA, to serve as NHRA technology executive. The two, along with a team of more than 60, are making sure the quality of the productions continues to improve this year in advance of a big move to Game Creek Video's Nitro, which will house the production team beginning in January. The team is currently working out of an F&F Production trailer (previously, a Crosscreek truck), with a Screenworks truck for the in-venue show.
The biggest thing is that the [Nitro] B unit will be a full extension of the A unit, with a Grass Valley production switcher and Calrec audio console for submix needs [and integration] with the Calrec Artemis in the A unit, says Rokosa, noting, The in-venue show will have all of the resources the main show has on the EVS network, so that will enrich that show as well.
The front bench in the F&F truck the NHRA production team called home, cranking out more than 550 hours of coverage for Fox Sports, up from 125 hours last year
The normal race production comprises four hard cameras down the line: one covering the start, a second at the 1,000-ft. finish line, a third at the quarter-mile finish line, and a fourth at the end of the track near the sand pit. There are also two handheld cameras at the starting line and three POV cameras and an additional five POV cameras along the track walls.
High-speed coverage is also part of the mix. Slow-motion transforms this sport, notes Adelson, because the naked eye can't see the tires physically change.
One of the big changes he has brought to the production is the use of virtual graphics from Sportvision, complementing a new Vizrt graphics package built by the team at Fox Sports.
One of the things I noticed was that there is no finish line, as the heat from the tires is too much for a painted line. So we have a virtual finish line, says Adelson. We also have virtual player cards that pop up behind the cars and show the picture of the driver and the sponsor. [We] also have sponsored lanes.
This past weekend also saw some new technology deployments. The Sony HDC-P43 box camera made its broadcast-TV debut (capturing HDR images that are expected to be seen at CES and other industry trade shows) at the start line.
Sony is going to be one of our technology providers for the new mobile unit, and they tested some of their newest, latest, and greatest equipment this weekend, says Adelson. Next year, the Sony HDC-4800 high-speed camera is going to become the standard for our coverage.
The NHRA truck compound features an F&F truck, a BSI truck, an Encompass Digital satellite uplink, and a Screenworks truck.
Also on hand was a new RCP system from Inertia Unlimited, used to paint the Marshall POV cameras located around the track. That unit is being sold by Marshall but is wholly designed and manufactured by Inertia.
This weekend, says Rokosa, we also used VR642 camera from VER and shot at close to 1,500 frames per second.
Another big step forward next year will be the move to surround-sound audio rather than stereo audio.
Sound is what a lot of the experience is, and you don't feel it at home because i
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
The 2016 season has been a pivotal one for the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). The organization not only enlisted a new TV network partner, Fox Sports, but also built an in-house TV-production team from scratch, increased its social-media and online-streaming presence, and, most important, saw its total TV viewers grow from 14 million last year to 34 million this year, not counting the championship weekend, which took place this past weekend in Pomona, CA.
