Best In The Desert Wraps up 2020 on a High Note; Year-End Review Sees Record Participation, Growth, and Resilience with Web Traffic, Social Media, and Television Broadcast Audience Growing Exponentially
Posted December 30, 2020
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Las Vegas, NV 12/30/2020 – 2020 will go down in the record books as one of the most trying years ever for off-road racing with the industry facing challenges on many fronts. One of the lone bright spots was Best In The Desert who proved, once again, why they are the leader of the pack when it comes to off-road racing events. Despite all shutdowns, travel bans, and stringent COVID-19 regulations, Best In The Desert had one of its most successful years ever with record turnouts at many key events.
Highlights from the year included the largest competitor fields ever for the Silver State 300, the Maxxis Tires “Casey Folks” Vegas to Reno Presented by Fox, and the BlueWater Desert Challenge. Best In The Desert’s 2020 series also featured the largest payout in the history of off-road racing with over $575,000 paid out in purse money in 2020.
Post COVID-19 lockdown results were spectacular and built on the momentum that Best In The Desert enjoyed coming off the early races like the BlueWater Resort Parker 425 Presented by Jimco, Tensor Tire Parker “250,” and King Shocks Desert Classic which also saw huge turnouts. Best In the Desert proved it has the know-how and management capabilities to hold events even during trying times such as these and gave the desert racing community a much-needed boost and something to look forward to despite all the other negative news and event cancellations.
“2020 was a year like no other and while we would never want to repeat it again, it was a great test of our organization,” commented Best In The Desert CMO and Co-Owner Bryan Folks.
“Never before have we faced so many challenges, but in the end, I am very proud to report that we rose to the occasion. The fact we kept off-road racing alive and viable for thousands of fans and racers and, in the process, set records for many of our events was very gratifying. Even more gratifying is the tremendous support and confidence we received from the racing community and industry. Our success in 2020 reflected the success of off-road racing overall and the type of people involved. We look forward to 2021 and are working hard to shore up our organization to be the best we can be. Thank you to everyone for their support and trust in Best In The Desert.”
Additional milestones in 2020 include web traffic hitting all-new levels with over 500,091 unique visitors coming to the Best In The Desert website. In fact, the website experienced so much traffic the site briefly crashed during Vegas to Reno race day. Social Media activity and following saw new highs as well. Starting in January, Best In The Desert brought on full-time Social Media Manager JC Silva who grew viewership steadily throughout the year with an ever-growing series of live coverage from each of our events. Through selective live streaming segments of key moments of each 2020 Best In The Desert event, the Best In The Desert’s Facebook and Instagram channels had over 1.6 million minutes of video watched in 2020. Further growth is projected for 2021.
Another bright spot was the viewership of the Best In the Desert TV series on MAVTV. For the first time ever, Best In The Desert controlled 100% of the rights to its television series, and through a much more hands-on approach to the content and production of the show, the association saw a huge increase in viewership in 2020. All together, Best In The Desert programming was watched in more than 350,000 homes with viewership approaching 750,000 individuals through original and repeat airings of its four televised races.
Another one of the highlights of the year was the announcement that Best In The Desert had formed a new operations team led by Best In The Desert veteran Jeff Phillips. Phillips brought years of race management experience along with several other key staff members to help improve Best In The Desert’s level of professionalism and in-house event management capabilities.
In addition to the MaxxisTriple Crown Series, which accounted for the extra-large purse payouts on top of regular prize money, Best In The Desert teamed up with 4Wheel Parts to offer the Youth UTV Series focused on developing and expanding this much-needed playing ground for future stars of the sport.
Though 2020 was a tough year for more than just off-road desert racers, Best In The Desert managed to pull off a variety of impressive metrics and is ready to take 2021 head-on.
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