The world of racing has certainly drawn great lymph from the landing on social networks. The possibility of reaching an extremely large audience and, above all, without the burden and filter of intermediaries represents a not inconsiderable boost within the media mix of a team, a driver or a brand.
The great popularity of these platforms and their widespread use has hardly ever led to their presence as investors. Different discussion is what concerns some sites and software with a different and smaller user base and popularity.
Last on this list is Only Fans, the controversial subscription sharing platform dedicated to digital creators. This increasingly popular entertainment service has implemented a rather widespread strategy in supporting various stable and driver campaigns. These are in most cases national trophies and local stables, precisely to ensure maximum freedom of management.
Indeed, the principle of these partnerships is that drivers and team insiders can document activities on and off the track through OFTV (Only Fans TV), the social network's free app.
In the sphere of GT racing there are two main formations and wear the blue platform livery. The first, in chronological order, is Enduro Racing: this British stable fielded a McLaren 720S GT3 in the British GT. At the wheel is the duo Morgan Tillbrook and Marcus Clutton.
The 2023 season will see the addition of a joint venture between P1 Groupe and Molitor Racing Systems (MRS): this partnership will bring 2 Porsches to the track well on two different stages. In the first case a Porsche 992 GT3 Cup for the 24 Hours of Dubai Ceventric, in the second a Porsche 991 GT3R for the entire SRO GT America season.
Alex Vogel (USA), Alex Sedgwick (UK), Leon Koehler (Germany) and Jukka Honkavuori (Finland) will take turns behind the wheel. Vogel will then be the standard bearer for the U.S. series. All drivers will be engaged in creating content for the platform in addition to driving rounds.
On the two-wheeled side, OF's sponsorship of the newly crowned Supersport class champion in MotoAmerica stands out. In fact, Ducati Warhorse rider Josh Herrin has been wearing the white/blue logos clearly visible on his helmet since last year. In his case, subscribing to the channel allows for exclusive videos from race weekends, riding lessons on the track and on the road, a more direct relationship with subscribers, and the ability to access promotions and giveaways from other sponsors.
In road racing the Onlyfans livery connotes entirely the Yamaha R1 of TimoThée Monot. The private pilot who with the team of the same name participates in events on French soil, the prestigious Macau Grand Prix as well as the stages of the hillclimb racing championship. His channel features onboard videos, reports from official events and races with historic motorcycles, the detail of restorations carried out by the workshop, and more.
Switching to taxidermy Onlyfans is also Logan Karnow's new main sponsor in Monster Energy AMA Supercross. The Ohio rider found a very unique way to make up for the early and unexpected termination of the partnership with the previous main sponsor, which occurred in mid-2022. That's when Logan put out a plea for support through his socials, and a creator with more than 25,000 followers-Hanna Ray-took it upon herself to cover the expenses for the next race in exchange for having her account featured on the bike's fairings. Other characters joined in the remaining races and so Logan tried to "knock" directly on OnlyFans' doors through their email and within a few videocalls the collaboration was underway.
Supporting social initiatives
Interesting peculiarity of the initiatives involving OnlyFans is to support specfic causes where motorsport can become a carrier of messages. For example within the Type R Trophy, a Honda one-make race that takes place on British soil, Mansell Racing takes advantage of the platform to offer content dedicated to its activity in the championship by expanding its visibility. In addition, every penny earned through subscribers is donated to Crohn's & Colitis UK, a charity that deals with Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and other forms of inflammatory bowel disease.
Another interesting goal is to encourage the presence of women in motorsports disciplines. Indeed, few and quite rare are the appearances of female personalities in this competitive environment. However, the current trend leads us more and more to broaden the perimeter of opportunities. And here more and more entities are working in the direction of including not only drivers but also support staff and professional figures generally belonging to the opposite sex.
We can count here, among the most recent formations, that of Team Valkyrie. This all-female team decided to rely precisely on OnlyFans to convey their campaign.
The 3 girls brought a Citroen C1 to the race in the eponymous one-make within the 2022 BRSCC Club Car Championship. Amy Riley, Shannon Tobin, and Magdalena King's dream is to finally have more continuous access to higher and higher level racing while showing a new paradigm related to creating and managing their own content on platforms such as OF.
Overall, it is clear how the British platform is adopting a diversified strategy whose twofold goal is:
- On the one hand, support less prominent realities and personalities so that they have support that can increase their communication skills and potential.
- On the other hand, having a recognizable presence even in more relevant areas so as to increase brand awareness and brand reputation.
Weighing on everything certainly is the need to present itself as an open terrain for all kinds of content that encourages diversity of themes and voices, freeing itself as much as possible from the image of a platform based primarily on the presence of nudity and adult material.
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