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Racer Network

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Racer Network
CountryUnited States
Broadcast areaInternational
HeadquartersBrownsburg, Indiana
Programming
Picture format1080i (HDTV)
Ownership
OwnerRacer Media & Marketing
History
LaunchedOctober 1, 2004
Former namesMAVTV (2004–2025)
Links
WebsiteRacer.com

Racer Network (formerly known as MAVTV) is an American cable and satellite television channel owned by the motorsports media company Racer, which mainly airs programming focused around motorsports and programming for automotive enthusiasts. CJ Olivares serves as the network's president.

History

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Former MAVTV logo

MavTV (short for Maverick Television) launched on October 1, 2004, based out of Atlanta with distribution limited to select cable companies. The network was privately held and founded by four former executives from Showtime Networks—Steve Severn, Steve Smith, Doug Jost and Rob Stevens. It had no connections to the NBA's Dallas Mavericks or Mark Cuban, their owner, nor to Maverick Television, a British reality television production company owned by All3Media.[citation needed] It featured male-oriented programming including motorsports, mixed martial arts and professional wrestling.

The network's 1080i high definition feed was launched during the fall of 2008. The standard definition version of the network is downscaled from the HD master feed at the cable operator's headend level.

In October 2011, longtime partner lubricants company Lucas Oil purchased MavTV; the company had provided and sponsored most of the network's motorsports rights even before their purchase, and the network was likely to go dark without the purchase as programming rights had deteriorated towards barter programming and heavy repeats of library content. The network was quickly reformatted away by the new management from a completely male focus towards a general action-oriented family programming direction, while retaining motorsports programming including the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series and Lucas Oil Pro Pulling League. The network was also advertised on the containers of many Lucas Oil products.

On July 4, 2012, Lucas rebranded the network, making MavTV's name all capitalized, but with the MAV initials standing for "Movies, Action, and Variety" with the addition of films and more concert programming to the schedule, and a gradual drawdown of motorsport-related programming, to help maintain its cable carriage mainly among digital sports tiers. However, classic-oriented digital over-the-air networks gained popularity at the same time, including Antenna TV, MeTV, Movies! and getTV. Therefore, the network eventually returned to an all-motorsports schedule by the start of 2016.

On March 27, 2025, MAVTV was acquired by motorsports media company Racer, which quickly made its mark by rebranding the channel as Racer Network the same date, with a new imaging campaign to come to reinforce the brand.[1]

Programming

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Motorsports

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MAVTV satellite broadcasting van at 2018 ARCA race

MAVTV contracted with the Automobile Racing Club of America, the auto racing sanctioning body, to air at least 6 races in 2008, including both 100-mile dirt races at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, and the Southern Illinois State Fairgrounds in DuQuoin.[2] SpeedFreaks hosts Kenny Sargent and Crash Gladys also appeared on episodes of the Lucas Motorsports Hour.

MAVTV sponsored the MAVTV 500, the final race in the 2012 season of the IndyCar Series, which took place at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.

MAVTV did their first live motorsports event, the Lucas Oil Challenge Cup featuring the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series on October 27, 2013, from Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park. They will also do live coverage of the Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals, one of the biggest midget car races every year. The East Bay Winter Nationals from the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and all Moto1 rounds of the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motorcross championship in 2014.

In 2014, MAVTV partnered with professional road racing series Pirelli World Challenge to air the Pirelli World Challenge Touring Car Championship.

As Fox's Speed converted into the general-interest Fox Sports 1 in 2012, MavTV added several of its former motorsports programming.

In 2017, MAVTV signed a multi-year deal with ARCA Racing to bring almost all their races live or broadcast at later time/date. Outside the races broadcast from Fox Sports.

In 2018, MavTV signed a deal to show highlights of Tony Stewart All Star Circuit of Champions[3] Also MAVTV expanded its coverage of ARCA Racing with 11 of its 12 races broadcasting live[4]

In 2019, MAVTV is showing all of its ARCA races its broadcast live for the first time.[5]

In 2020, the network began to air the MotoAmerica road racing series. In 2023, it signed rights for the Monster Jam and Formula Drift.

In 2024, the European racing series DTM switched from Motor Trend to the Racer Network. Since then, the races have been broadcast live or as highlights. The same year, the network began to air the Speedway World Championship.

Other programming

[edit]

Before Lucas Oil took over full management of the network in late 2011, MAVTV also carried male-oriented programming such as the second season of Rad Girls, American Tailgater, Wrestlicious TakeDown, Ultimate Combat Experience, Bikini AllStars and Best of the Best. In addition, MAVTV presented the male-specific documentary series Manumentaries.

Overnights had been filled by music video/interactive SMS programming from NOYZ via a time brokerage agreement before that company went bankrupt in early 2008.

In 2007, MAVTV struck a deal with the Women's Flat Track Derby Association to broadcast two of the three roller derby finals: the Eastern Regional Tournament (Heartland Havoc, which was broadcast as a series of one-hour weekly episodes)[6] and the National Championships (Texas Shootout).[7]

On April 27, 2010, MAVTV signed a deal with Sony Pictures giving them access to select titles from Sony's film library. The deal was part of MAVTV's programming strategy to expand its schedule and abandon their former all-male programming direction.[8] The network added films from the Warner Bros. Pictures library in July 2012. Therefore, MAVTV aired several classic cowboy programming such as The Lone Ranger, Starsky & Hutch, and Bonanza.

In 2013, MAVTV added the King of the Cage mixed martial arts promotion[9] and Championship Wrestling from Hollywood.

Personnel

[edit]

Key people at Racer Network include:[10]

  • CJ Olivares, President of Racer Network
  • Mark Carter, Vice President of Sales
  • Scott McLemore, Director of Production & Programming
  • Kathy Baichtal, Director of Programming & Scheduling
  • Shawn Stafford, Director of Network Operations
  • Marc Mazarin, Director of Marketing

Carriage

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Racer Network can be found in the US on Cablevision, Spectrum, GCI in Alaska, select cable systems within the Caribbean Co-op, Xfinity, RCN Corporation, AT&T U-verse and DirecTV.

As per an email sent to its subscribers, Verizon FiOS removed the channel from its TV service along with Youtoo TV, Blue Highways TV, and Black Belt TV as of December 31, 2012, making it available as an "On Demand" service. However, the channel returned to Verizon FiOS on June 10, 2014.

DirecTV added MAVTV on June 10, 2013. The channel is carried in high definition.[11]

MAVTV Canada was launched in January, 2017 in a partnership with the Neon Star Sports & Entertainment Inc, which produces Canadian content.[12] It rebranded as REV TV Canada in 2020.

Dish Network previously carried MAVTV in high definition from May 8, 2009 to May 12, 2015. Dish dropped the channel as MAVTV and its parent company Lucas Oil failed to reach a new agreement to continue carrying the channel.[13]

FuboTV was added in March 2018 with Sportsman Channel, Outdoor Channel, World Fishing Network, Outside TV and till late October motorsports.tv to the Adventure Plus Package.[14]

A free version of the channel, branded "Racer Select" (formerly "MAVTV Select"), provides a selection of network programming through advertising-supported over-the-top media services Pluto TV, Stirr, The Roku Channel and Plex, among others.[15]

Programming

[edit]

Motorsports coverage

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Oval racing
Road racing
Drag racing
Drifting
Off-road racing
Motorcycling
Boat racing

Motorsport highlight and reality shows

[edit]

References

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  1. ↑ Brown, Maury. "MAVTV Purchased And Rebranded By Motorsports Outlet RACER". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2025-04-02. Retrieved 2025-04-20.
  2. ↑ Archived September 28, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ "MAVTV | Eight Arctic Cat All Star events to be broadcast on MAVTV in 2018". www.mavtv.com. Retrieved 2019-02-02.
  4. ↑ "MAVTV | ARCA and MAVTV Motorsports Network Announce 12-Race Broadcast Schedule". www.mavtv.com. Archived from the original on 2019-02-02. Retrieved 2019-02-02.
  5. ↑ "Every ARCA race will air live on TV in 2019". Autoweek. 29 January 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-01-30. Retrieved 2019-02-02.
  6. ↑ "[Update] WFTDA tournaments on MavTV | Lead Jammer - Roller Derby News". leadjammer.com. 14 August 2007. Retrieved 2 February 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  7. ↑ Zack Dundas (27 September 2007). "Roller Derby Madness". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2015-06-05. Retrieved 2015-10-04.
  8. ↑ "News". MAVTV. Retrieved 2015-10-04.
  9. ↑ "Off Road season finale starts a new era for". MAVTV. 2013-10-21. Archived from the original on 2015-10-05. Retrieved 2015-10-04.
  10. ↑ "Contacts". MAVTV. Archived from the original on 2015-10-27. Retrieved 2015-10-04.
  11. ↑ "DIRECTV launches MAVTV channel". HD Report. 2013-06-11. Archived from the original on 2015-10-06. Retrieved 2015-10-04.
  12. ↑ December 2016, Kent Gibbons 06 (6 December 2016). "MAVTV Sets Canada Launch in January Via CCSA". Multichannel News. Archived from the original on 2021-01-08. Retrieved 2021-01-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ↑ "Dish Network Awareness". MAVTV. Archived from the original on 2015-10-13. Retrieved 2015-10-04.
  14. ↑ Bouma, Luke (2018-03-07). "fuboTV launches "Adventure Plus" Add-on with Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel, & More". Cord Cutters News. Archived from the original on 2019-05-31. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
  15. ↑ "MAVTV Viewing Platforms". mavtv.com. Archived from the original on 2022-08-01. Retrieved 2022-06-28.
[edit]
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