Xumo, a joint venture from Comcast and Charter, is diving into the world of stock car racing as part of a partnership with NASCAR.
Starting May 1, the NASCAR Channel will be available across Xumo's streaming platforms. This includes the Xumo Stream Box, Xumo smart TVs, and the Xumo Play free streaming service.
The Xumo Stream Box is available as a standalone purchase. It is also available to customers of Xfinity, Spectrum, and Mediacom, among other providers.
The free Xumo Play app is available on all major streaming platforms, including Amazon, Android, Apple, Roku, Samsung, Sony, Xfinity, Xumo, and more.
This partnership is not out to replace the NASCAR Channel that launched this year on Tubi. Instead, it will bring together all sources of NASCAR content into one easy-to-find hub. This includes re-aired races, documentaries, podcasts, and other content built for racing fans.
"Tubi is an app on the Xumo platform," Fern Feistel, Vice President of Marketing at Xumo, told AltDriver on Wednesday. "And so what we are bringing to consumers is actually the opportunity to aggregate all of the NASCAR content in one place.
"So, whether that be on Tubi, on Xumo Play, or on YouTube, for example, or coming soon, Prime Video -- other places where races will be streaming -- you can simply say 'NASCAR' into the Xumo voice remote, and it comes up all in one place. Everything that has to do with NASCAR is all in one destination."
An example of the NASCAR hub on the Xumo platform
This move into NASCAR is part of a deliberate process. Feistel noted that sports are becoming a major part of the streaming business model, to the point that this genre is top five among all 25 genres offered on the Xumo platform.
Xumo currently delivers content for fans of other sports with The NBA Channel, NBC Sports NOW, NFL Channel, PBR RidePass, and PGA TOUR.
The audience, as Feistel has learned, loves to revisit classic sports moments from history. PGA fans will watch re-airs of The Masters Tournament on Xumo platforms. Poker fans will continuously watch old seasons of the World Series of Poker.
"Sports and motorsports alike is really a growing genre, sub-genre, and main genre on FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television)," Feistel continued.
"And so we are very excited to now be building out our streaming offering to include NASCAR because we historically have not had a NASCAR channel. There historically has not been a NASCAR channel."
The launch of the NASCAR Channel is only the first step into the world of racing for Xumo. The streaming company will also build out its presence at the race track with seven stops this season.
Starting this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, Xumo will have a presence in the NASCAR Fan Zone. The company will show racing fans how to find the new NASCAR content on various Xumo platforms with live displays, and it will provide some necessities throughout the weekend.
"We will be giving away tons of things that will make the NASCAR experience easier on the fans," Feistel said. "So relief from the heat in some respects, a place to sit. There will (be) potentially batteries in case your scanner runs out, right?
"So there are things that we're trying to fill those little gaps of just those little things that are like, 'Oh God, I wish I had that,' or 'wish I remembered this.' If parents are bringing their kids, we'll have headphones, noise-blocking headphones."
A render of the Xumo track presence
The race weekend at Texas Motor Speedway will only be the start of the at-track presence. It will continue at North Wilkesboro Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Chicago, Bristol Motor Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and Phoenix Raceway.
The street race in Chicago will be Xumo's marquee event. Feistel said that the company will be the sponsor for the third-annual Cup Series race in The Windy City as it continues its quest to connect with racing fans.
"This is a fan base that we have not been able to get up close and personal with," Feistel said. "And so I'm very excited to be in it. We are not just preaching from the top of a mountain.
"We are in it. We are there with the fans. We will be creating content at the track, working with NASCAR to do fan interviews and hear from them directly.
"We are hoping to be agile and pivot -- even from activation to activation -- to make sure that we are responding and giving fans really what they want from us."