This article was originally posts on Sports Business Journal: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2026/08/05/fast-loud-and-built-for-the-feed-how-smx-engages-next-gen-fans/
In a sports marketplace where next-generation fans are harder to reach and increasingly fragmented across screens, the Monster Energy SMX World Championship is building a growth story around compelling personalities, evolving storylines, live spectacle and content designed for television and social media.
Created by unifying Supercross stadium racing and Pro Motocross outdoor racing into a single world championship platform, the SMX League® offers partners a powerful proposition: a young, passionate and highly engaged audience reached through national television, year-round streaming, live events and short-form digital content.
Turning Viewing into a Weekly Habit
SMX’s media value starts with accessibility. Peacock has become the home base for the championship, streaming race-day programming across the full season, while NBC provides broader reach through select national windows. Core fans can follow every round live or on demand, while casual viewers still encounter marquee events on a major broadcast platform.
NBC Sports’ 2026 Supercross coverage alone delivered the sport’s most-streamed season on record, with Peacock streaming up 12%, unique viewership up 27% while seven races on NBC and Peacock showed an 8% gain in viewership versus 2025. Additionally, the 2026 season included the two most-watched Supercross races ever on Peacock (Anaheim 1 and Anaheim 2), and the season was also the fastest on record to reach 1 billion minutes consumed.
Internationally, SMX is also experiencing double-digit growth in all three of its language variations available via the SMX Video Pass. The English stream increased 10% year over year with almost 96 million minutes watched. The Spanish stream improved by 51%, while the French stream increased by 13% in only its second year. The SMX World Championship is where the world comes to race as athletes hail from Australia, Japan, Germany, France, New Zealand, Spain and the United States, which is helping fuel the global viewership growth and a 20% increase in subscriptions.
A Festival Feel with Built-In Youth Appeal
SMX also has an advantage many sports properties are trying to manufacture; its events already feel like a show. The sound, aura, pyrotechnics, rider access and festival-style atmosphere make it highly experiential for fans raised on shareable moments and live entertainment.
Unlike many traditional sports, SMX offers a full-day experience before the Main Event. FanFest, qualifying sessions, autograph opportunities and podium moments create proximity between fans and competitors. The athletes are visible, approachable and increasingly active in shaping their own brands.
FanFest set outside State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, typically draws 30K-plus fans early to the race, taking advantage of the full-day experience and partner activations.
The attendance numbers show that the experience is translating into demand. The Anaheim Opener, San Diego and Anaheim 2 events all delivered sold-out crowds to open the 2026 season, with more than 124,000 fans attending the first three rounds and more than 68,000 attending pre-race FanFest.
Season-level numbers reinforce the scale. More than 1.1 million spectators entered the turnstiles during the 2025 season. For sponsors, that means numerous markets, multiple activation windows and a consistent in-person audience starting in January and running through the postseason in September.
Live attendance gives brands value beyond impressions. It puts them in a high-intensity environment where fans are emotionally invested, physically present and often attending with family or peer groups. Ultimately, fostering an environment where partners can connect with potential consumers and SMX can convert first-time attendees into returning fans.
The Sport Is Built for the Scroll
Social media may be SMX’s most natural growth lane. The sport is inherently visual. Iconic tracks featuring intense starts, triple jumps, fast rhythm sections, close calls, podium reactions and behind-the-scenes athlete moments all translate cleanly into short-form video. In an era when many leagues are trying to retrofit their products for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, SMX begins with content that already looks native to those platforms.
Through the first half of 2026, SMX social channels added almost 600K new followers. Social content generated over 1 billion impressions and 407 million video views, with impressions up more than 45% year over year and video views up nearly 20% for that same period.
Short-form content is becoming a clear discovery path as Instagram reels, YouTube shorts and TikTok routinely garner between a quarter million and 1 million views, with 40% of that audience in the 18-to-24 demographic. A 20-second highlight can introduce a racer, a rivalry or a championship storyline, and then pull new fans toward athletes, race coverage and live attendance.
The athlete and creator side adds another interesting layer. Superstar Haiden Deegan alone has more than 6 million followers across major platforms. At the 2025 SMX World Championship Final in Las Vegas, a creator and celebrity guest group represented more than 81 million followers, extending the event far beyond the venue.
Standup comedian and influential podcast personality Theo Von pictured with two-time Supercross Champion Eli Tomac, who has a social following of 2M -plus. Von attended the Supercross race in Nashville at Nissan Stadium.
SMX’s appeal is not based on one metric though. It is the combination of a young audience, a visual product, a credible broadcast partner, growing streaming behavior, a strong live-event experience and an athlete base that can create culturally relevant content.
To learn more about SMX, visit supermotocross.com/smx-snapshot.
