IRG CEO Chris Lencheski：The biggest challenge is having venues in the Chinese market

(Photo Credit: gettyimages/Sam Greenwood)

Earlier this month, at the World Sports Ecosystem Summit in Beijing, we were able to speak with Chris Lencheski, Vice Chairman & CEO of IRG Sports & Entertainment, Senior Adviser to the management and board of MP & Silva. He shared his ideas about event operation, athletes commercial value and the future of Chinese market.

Yutang: As we know, IRG has been promoting motorsports in the United States, Canada and Australia. Could you give us a bief introduction of motorsports in those markets?

Chris Lencheski: Sure. In the United States specifically, Nascar is the dominant form of motorsports property. Drag racing is probably the second if you will. It is only issue of scale, their venues are larger than our venues, but we have more events. It makes sense that IRG produces over a thousand events in a year. While Nascar might produce 150，so we’ll have many more events with a crowd of 20,000 or 30, 000, and less events with 90, 000. We have 180 tracks that we sanction in the United States. We are also racing in Mexico.

We are in North American platforms, moving in Australia, moving into soon other places where we’re taking our top-level series just like F1 does, moves around the world. We’s taking our top-level series moving around the world, that’s our plan.

Yutang: How did you make your sports fit in the local cultures?

Chris Lencheski: Well, I will tell you what, you know, they say the United States is one country, it is really “8 countries”. I mean you think about it. You have Northeast, you have Southeast, the West Coast, they are culturally very different than others. What we are trying to is try to make sure that our customers are gonna see quality racing, you’re gonna have safe environment, they’re gonna have access to racers, autographs, pictures to make it very accessible. This is really important on our racing. Nascar, Indycar, drag racing, whatever it is, we’re trying to make our drivers as accessible as possible from Day One. And in our sports, you can walk on the field. You cannot do that in any other sport around the world.

So right before the race, we actually have fans on the track. You know we’ll clear the track when we do the racing. So that experience is really unique. The other side, particularly in drag racing, because you can hear the sound, and there is a lot of staff you can feel. When you talk about unmitigated power engines, you clearly feel the sound. So you can circumstance, and you feel it on your body. That’s part of the great experience.

Yutang: Any competitor in those markets?

Chris Lencheski:  Sure, we absolutely have competitors. The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) should be probably the largest competitor. We are uniquely larger than they are internationally, but they are in the United States larger than we are. Next year, our new platform will probably be bigger than they are, relative to the scale, service offerings that we make in our classes. But frankly, I like competition, competition drives us everyday to be better what we do. I’d like what they’re doing and I like something else we’re doing to produce services in different areas. What we made on track is what they don’t make on track.

Yutang: How many events a year in IRG’s portfolio? What’s the best way to organzie an event, perhaps in terms of volunteer recruitment, site selection, budget and sponsorships?

Chris Lencheski: Right now we produce over a thousand events in various levels in the IRG’s portfolio. We always start with market sides first, if there is a venue capable of producing races, it’s going to be safe for the customers, and for the driver. It’s also then the ability for that promotor who might own a track to afford the sanction, it is not inexpensive. Then we allow them to individually determine how many people they need on site to organize an event, some tracks need a few hundred to make the event work, some tracks need less than thirty. It’s usually a matter of their own manner of management.

Different tracks have different needs, we cannot always build the same. So we actually look at market play sides, then we do our promoters ability, and then we look at our interested sponsorships, so our sponsors will ask to go certain markets.

Yutang: In your opinion, how to market your events by partnering with sports broadcasters?

Chris Lencheski: We have partnered with TV networks, and we also partnered with digital networks. In the case of ESPN, we have them both. They are quality partner. In the past, we have been on the ESPN, but we’ve also been on NBC, we’ve also been on the CBS Sports. Generally, we have set up our networks annually.

Yutang: How do you improve your fan/customer engagement, especially among millennials and Generation Z?

Chris Lencheski: For us we’re going to Wi-Fi enabled trace if you know dragstrip, two cars set of lights. Then you go yellow, yellow, red, red, green, then they take off. So we have to be able to make Wi-Fi accessible. So that you can circumstance to watch on real-time, and see the splits, and speeds, which are the fans want to know. They want to know how far the cars can go, how fast they move the gears, if you’re really into it, you’re into it. They want to know how many gears to use, so we’re doing that to engage and also social media strategy we have for our drivers, we manage accounts so that they can communicate with their fans.

Yutang: In what ways IRG could help athletes exploit more commercial value?

Chris Lencheski: Every athlete has a different side of ecosystem. Individual athletes are generally determined by their skill sides. If they are star players and performers, they can drive more commercial opportunities. And a lot of them have agents, and have a marketing group behind them. Then they are trying to work with their league partners in a lot of cases. For example, Samsung is a sponsor of the league but not a sponsor associated with players, a good way to go get players. For our drivers, we wear the sponsorships on the cars to easily to be found out.

Yutang: As you said, you are very interested in the Chinese market, then what’s the challenges for you?

Chris Lencheski: Well, the biggest challenge is having venues that are safe doing what we do. In our cases, we need a proper stretch that is capable of hosting two cars at 300 miles an hour. There are many venues like that and we have proper seats built here. We can run on streets if they are are wide enough. So it’s about venues right now in China.

About Mr. Lencheski:

Chris Lencheski is one of the most well respected professionals in the global sports and entertainment landscape. With over 20 years of professional experience, he has authored industry-setting standards and practice guidelines followed by major entities from network and cable television groups to Fortune 500 companies. His work has included collaborations with the Americas' Cup, the Olympics, Formula One and World Cup projects as well as a host of international and national properties from every major league to governing bodies. He is recognized as an authority in identifying and leveraging rights sponsorship, partnership strategies and alliance opportunities to drive dramatic increases in sales, digital and television carriage distribution and CPG market visibility. Prior to IRGSE, Mr. Lencheski was President of Comcast-Spectacor subsidiary Front Row Marketing and Analytics (FRMS) - the 35 offices multi-continent stadia, sports media commercial rights and entertainment agency inside the greater Comcast ecosystem.

Please note: this article is a condensed version of the original interview.