The UIM E1 World Championship has announced a raft of broadcast partners for its debut season that will bring the world’s first electric raceboat championship to a truly global audience.
Coverage of the championship, which is backed by high-profile celebrities including cricket superstar Virat Kohli, tennis legend Rafael Nadal and American football great Tom Brady, will reach more than 500m homes in over 150 markets across the world to connect it with a new, international fanbase.
E1 has agreed a number of deals, including with Star Sports across India and the subcontinent and with digital media giant Tencent to stream action from the Series to a Chinese audience across its platforms.
E1 Fans across the United States can enjoy the unfolding stories and exciting racing action of the 2024 inaugural season on CBS Sports Network. With a race in Miami already announced for Season 2 and teams from American sporting legend Tom Brady and entertainment icons Marc Anthony and Steve Aoki ready to go head to head, there’s plenty for fans based in the US to enjoy.
In the UK, national broadcaster ITV will air the action across ITV4 and ITVX with the first race kicking off in Jeddah on February 2-3, 2024. Since 2023, ITVX has had more than one billion streams and is one of the most watched video platforms in the United Kingdom.
PX Sports, the Spanish-language broadcaster has partnered with E1 to showcase the racing to a wide number of markets in Latin America, while Supersport will air the championship to over 52 markets across Sub-Saharan Africa. The Saudi Sports Channel Company (SSC) will act as the first host venue rights holder in just a few weeks at the E1 Jeddah GP, broadcasting throughout the MENA regions alongside Dubai Sports.
The deals follow the recent announcement that E1 World Championship will be partnering with Aurora Media Worldwide, the multi award-winning agency, to broadcast globally to more than 500 million cumulative global audiences covering more than 22-hour time zones. With a new and innovative approach to sports production on water, E1 will be using state-of-the-art technologies and graphics to bring a new experience to sports and entertainment fans around the world.
The broadcasters for the Championship’s first season were announced ahead of the first ever E1 World Championship race on Friday, February 2nd, and Saturday, February 3rd.
The new broadcast deals are set to play a key role in building fandom across the world for the new series – bringing the personalities, drama and spectacle of the championship to life across the first season. This will be supported by a comprehensive digital and social media strategy to capitalise on the vast fan base that the celebrity Team owners already command.
E1, which operates at the intersection of sport and entertainment, is set to usher in a new era of racing on water with pilots competing to become Champions of the Water across a seven-race season in global cities including Jeddah, Venice, Monaco and Hong Kong.
Rupert Hunter, chief commercial officer of E1, said: “We are proud to be delivering a global championship to a worldwide audience through a brilliant network of broadcast partners. With our race calendar spanning three continents, and race owners from across Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, we’re excited to connect with a new fanbase as we redefine racing. Our broadcast proposition is unique in bringing together sport, entertainment and sustainability and promises to deliver an action-packed season of drama like no other.”
