New Video Player to Debut on MazdaMotorsports.com

The permanent addition to the site gives fans an easy way to find MX-5 Cup races and other livestream broadcasts

The Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich attracts a loyal online audience for the live streams of its races, and that audience will again be able to tune in to this weekend’s season-opening races at Circuit of the Americas. But fans of the series will have a new place to watch John Dean II, Nathanial Sparks, Selin Rollan and Michael Carter duke it out in identically built Mazda MX-5 Cup cars: right here on MazdaMotorsports.com.

A new video player will live on the homepage, providing a place to watch whenever Mazda is streaming something, be it MX-5 Cup or perhaps in-car video from one of its RT24-P prototypes in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

“We’ve livestreamed MX-5 Cup races in the past, either to Mazda’s Facebook page or Mazda’s YouTube channel,” explains Mo Murray of Mazda Motorsports. “We will still upload them on the YouTube channel after the fact; but in terms of livestreaming, we want to build an audience and give them a destination, so we’ve put a player on MazdaMotorsports.com that will stay there. It’s an easier address and an easier place to go. Once there, you click on the player and get the livestream the same way we presented it last year.”

While the new video player won’t provide archived content – fans will still have to go to YouTube for that – the plan is to build a video library for MazdaMotorsports.com. Another place fans may be able to watch the race is at Mazda’s new Retail Evolution dealerships. Those that have remodeled to the new format have nine-panel video screens that will be showing MX-5 Cup when it’s streaming.

This weekend’s race marks the debut of the higher-revving, 181hp ND2 Miata in MX-5 Cup competition. Thirty-two cars are entered across two classes – one for the new/updated ND2 cars, and one for the ND1 cars. It will also mark the first MX-5 Cup race for Mazda Road to 24 Shootout winner Carter, and it will all happen alongside the NTT Data IndyCar Series at Circuit of the Americas. 

The first race of the MX-5 Cup season opener from Circuit of the Americas will be held on Saturday, March 23 at 4:30 p.m. ET with the second race on Sunday, March 24 at 9:05 a.m. ET.