NIGHT of the JUMPs Takes the Plunge into E-Sports – with Teamplace

Because of the coronavirus, the organizer of the international series of freestyle motocross events is adding a second string to its bow with e-sports. Teamplace helps with sharing photos and videos.

Breathtaking motorbike stunts in front of thousands of spectators from around the world, pyrotechnics and driving beats are the norm at NIGHT of the JUMPs, an international series of freestyle motocross events. But what’s normal in this year of 2020? Instead of thrilling events, a virus keeps the world in suspense. So the event organizers, like SportPlus Marketing, owner of the NIGHT of the JUMPs brand, had to come up with something to pass the time.

There were actually supposed to be seven spectacular competition events – 3 in Europe, 4 worldwide – but with the ban on large gatherings, Jörg Hotzel, managing director and co-owner of SportPlus, and his colleagues had to rethink things. The first live major events are planned for summer 2021, and Hotzel said people weren’t buying tickets anyway at the moment.

What is important to him: “During this long event hiatus, we cannot under any circumstances lose contact with our fanbase that we have built up over the course of two decades.” The event organizer has more than 52,000 followers on Instagram alone. 

Thus was born the idea to give the entire follower base access to spectacular photos of past events via a Teamplace. The whole thing is coupled with a large raffle. Anyone who registers for the NIGHT of the JUMPs Teamplace within a specified period of time has a chance to win valuable prizes like a drone, VIP tickets or merch packs.

But that’s not all the organizers came up with. For a long time already, they had been in talks with the manufacturer of the motocross game TiMX. The decision was accelerated by the coronavirus lockdowns: NIGHT of the JUMPs got into e-sports and is organizing the E-FMX World Championship 2020 for the first time.

There are 16 top riders who also compete at the NIGHT of the JUMPs. “They drive the same motorbikes and use avatars that look like them,” said Jörg Hotzel. Since the riders are spread out around the world and technical reasons make it difficult or even impossible to have all riders virtually racing at the same time, the riders film themselves playing and then share the videos they recorded with the organizer in order to produce a broadcast. “We tried three different systems for uploading and then immediately scrapped them. We found what we were looking for in Teamplace. The riders do very well with the operation. The system is really great,” said Hotzel.

In the meantime, the second program on qualification has already been “broadcast.” The makers of NIGHT of JUMPs were able to get FC Moto as a sponsor for the new format. And the tour sponsors of the real series – Red Bull Spect Eyewear, Neoh and Red Bull – also support the new format. A total of five programs are initially planned, in which the standings in the e-FMX World Championship will be decided. It is just a beginning for now, said Jörg Hotzel. But in any case, they stay in the conversation this way.

While using Teamplace, he and his employees got a taste for it. In the meantime, the event organizer is considering using Teamplace with its total of six permanent employees in the home office, this time in a very unspectacular way for sharing and editing normal documents.

Make sure that you do not miss our raffle. We’re raffling exclusively one time 1 DJI Mini 2 Drone, 1 of 2 Sets of Two VIP Tickets, and 1 of 10 NotJ Merch Packs. Further information can be found here.

©Foto: NIGHT OF THE JUMPS