Image: Jeff Crow.

Australian Motocross Championship promoter Williams Event Management (WEM) is evaluating a strategy that could see the Monster Energy MX Nationals broadcast live on television in 2015.

This season the final motos have been aired live via online streaming through series partner My Sport Live, a platform that has been significantly boosted by the addition of a satellite uplink in the second half of the 2014 season.

Last weekend’s Raymond Terrace round saw renowned producer Jolyon Zentner join the My Sport Live crew as producer of the live streaming program, which has sparked plans to investigate free-to-air television options for the production ahead of 2015.

Zentner previously played a major role in the live broadcast of Super X, as well as producing the 2011 MX Nationals television program that aired on SPEED – the last year the series featured on television.

“Jolyon coming back on board came by pure chance as he’s now a freelancer, so the opportunity to have him come back on board is fantastic,” WEM general manager Kevin Williams told MotoOnline.com.au.

“He was heavily involved in Super X’s live broadcasting from day one and was the producer of our television program the last time MX Nationals was aired. He’s locked in for the next two rounds to see what we can do.

“The equipment that we’ve got will enable us to create television-quality programs and certainly with Jolyon coming on board, our plan is to do that. We anticipate over the final rounds to create a pilot program to present to the networks.

“Ideally, we’re going to have that option of being on a free-to-air network and the addition of the live satellite broadcast truck does give us that option of going live for the final motos. The ideal scenario would be having the opening motos live on the net and the final motos live on television. Can we achieve that? That’s unknown, but the steps are certainly in motion to deliver.”

WEM’s involvement with My Sport Live has proven paramount in the stability of the sport moving forward, moving to capitalise on the flexible broadcasting options available by investing in the equipment and ongoing production of MX Nationals programming.

“The problem with the market today, if you’re not in control of your destiny and somebody else is, there’s such a vulnerability in change,” Williams said. “We are building a program with live stream that is long-term and sustainable.

“On Sunday night we’d had 3000 people watch it and since then there’s been around an extra 3000. For our sponsors, partners and everybody else, it’s a sustainable product that will only improve from here.”

With Raymond Terrace’s live stream rating as one of the most popular of the season to date and ultimately running without a hitch (click here to view the on-demand replay), WEM and My Sport Live continue to see advancements and consistency in the end-product as experience increases. Those assets will be instrumental in creating a package for television.

“There’s been some new technology released over the past couple of months that has allowed us to produce a much higher quality program,” Williams explained. “We have invested in new camera gear and had previously faced challenges with the internet service. We searched for our next option and fortunately we were introduced to Sydney Teleport, who provide the live uplink.

“It worked great at Swan Hill when we introduced it, there were some technical difficulties at Conondale, but we had it working properly again at Raymond Terrace with Jolyon there. That track’s elevated points really helped us capture the event and Jolyon’s experience in producing and working with the team has helped us take it to the next level.”