The first race in the new Extreme E motorsport series reached a global audience of 18.7 million viewers.
According to figures from YouGov Sport, the broadcast covered close to 900 million households in over 180 countries. There were more than 1,500 hours of broadcast coverage with China topping the table, closely followed by Europe and Asia.
The series counts ITV, BBC, Sky Sports, FoxSports and Eurosport amongst its global broadcasters.
Ali Russell, chief marketing officer at Extreme E said: “We’ve seen a phenomenal success for Extreme E’s first ever event. Our strategy of attracting strong free-to-air partners, and a digital first, always on approach, when combined with our exciting and innovative racing format and a sporting platform with pitted males and females racing equally together created a truly winning combination.
“These numbers demonstrate the massive appeal, not only of our racing format, but also our wider messages around the climate crisis, both of which featured heavily in our broadcast,” added Russell.
“As a sport without spectators on site, these figures are fantastic as they show our broadcast only model really does work to engage people on so many levels, whether that be through broadcast, social or press. We are looking forward to building on these statistics as we continue through Season 1 and bringing the messages of our series around environment, electrification and equality to as many people as possible.”
The next race in the series takes place at Lac Rose in Dakar, Senegal from 29th-30th May
