News 28 Oct 2022

AUSX series yet to secure ongoing broadcast agreement

Fans won't be able to watch Adelaide live this Saturday night.

Image: Foremost Media.

Tomorrow’s second round of the 2022 Fox Australian Supercross Championship (AUSX) in Adelaide won’t be televised or live-streamed, with the series yet to secure an ongoing broadcast deal.

Following the exceptional season-opener alongside the World Supercross Championship (WSX) one week ago live on 7plus, series commercial rights-holder AME Group hasn’t confirmed any specific arrangements for rounds two, three or four.

“We’re not going to take a production to Adelaide,” AME general manager – events and commercial, Ben Williams told MotoOnline. “We are going to take some guys that we can do behind the scenes colour pieces with the mindset that we do a post-produced show from Adelaide. I’ve got a meeting, we’ve been talking to SEN – they’ve got a new production arm – around assisting us with our production.

“We have also got conversations ongoing with Seven off the back of the World Supercross round, so that is really positive. I think the quality of what we produced last [Friday] night, that only strengthens our ability to be on mainstream TV – really positive conversations happening in that space and hopefully we can have some consistency there also. Newcastle definitely, we will do a big production there, potentially live… Still working out the final details and then rounds two and four will be wrapped up in a post-produced show.”

That is despite the official AUSX website’s ‘Live’ page indicating that ‘Livestream details are coming soon’. It’s a topical standpoint for the AUSX series after Motorcycling Australia (MA) invested in and managed to deliver a quality live broadcast package throughout the Penrite ProMX Championship. It also has broadcasts in place for the Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK), which is live, and a post-produced program for the Australian Off-Road Championship (AORC).

AUSX operations have undergone significant changes in the lead-up to the first season in three years, now solely fronted by AME Group rather than AUS SX Holdings, both of which were previously led by Adam Bailey and Ryan Sanderson before the pair became directors of WSX rights-holder SX Global. Bailey remains a non-executive director of AME, but is understood to have minimal – if any – involvement in AUSX.

While last weekend was operated under SX Global with a further AME connection as the WSX series’ media agency locally, this weekend in Adelaide will be effectively promoted by Gilbert Event Management, Newcastle next month is directly under AME and the final round of the season belongs to MAP Event Group (formerly Troy Bayliss Events). Both Gilbert and MAP have run AUSX rounds in past years.

It’s unclear what any post-produced programming will consist of without a full production team on location at least for this weekend, while Wagga Wagga’s final round also remains TBC in terms of television. The business model, it is believed, places a real emphasis on the individual event promoters in Adelaide and Wagga Wagga attracting spectators, rather than focusing on any broader commercial strengths through wider audiences.

There are 15 riders currently entered for the premier SX1 category, 20 in SX2 and beneath 15 entries for SX3, which wasn’t part of the program at Marvel Stadium. Tickets to watch this weekend if you’re in South Australia are available through Ticketek.

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