Monster Jam
 | |
| Private | |
| Industry | Sports Entertainment |
| Headquarters | Palmetto, Florida, United States of America |
Key people | Scott Douglass, Head announcer. |
| Parent | Feld Entertainment |
| Website |
www |
Monster Jam is a live motorsport event tour and television show operated by Feld Entertainment. The series is sanctioned under the umbrella of the United States Hot Rod Association (USHRA) and takes place primarily in the United States. Although individual event formats can vary greatly based on the "intermission" entertainment, the main attraction is always the racing and freestyle competitions by monster trucks. The sport has been held every year since 1992.
There is more than just monster trucks that entertain the crowd. Other attractions include Quad (ATV) Racing, Demolition Derbies,Speedster competitions, Sand Racing, Pro Truck Racing, FMX, and Transforming robots. There is a special kind of ATV racing that's owned by FELD Motorsports called "Quad Wars", where two ATV teams represent a state or a city and race for their naming rights.
Live events
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Monster Jam shows are held throughout the whole year with more shows during the winter than the summer, and travel around the country in U.S. and Canada. Shows are also being held in other locations around the world, such as Europe, Australia, Mexico, Costa Rica, The Philippines, Saudi Arabia and recently Japan.
Fan Meet and Greet
Fans attending a Monster Jam event are given the opportunity to meet the performers during the "Pit Party" and autograph sessions. The drivers autograph memorabilia, clothing, flags and other merchandise at these events.
Monster Jam World Finals
Held at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, it is the culmination of the Monster Jam season with only the top competitors competing. It is often referred to as the "superbowl of monster trucks" and features drivers competing for the Racing and Freestyle Championship.
In 2012, Monster Jam started a new competition called the "Young Guns Shootout" on Double Down night. The following year it was announced that the winner of this event would get an automatic bid to the "main show"
On February 15, 2018, it was announced that World Finals 20 would be the first World Finals not held in Las Vegas, bringing the experience to more fans across the country. It will begin a new schedule of rotating host locations.
The original location for World Finals 20 was set to be MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ, but an unknown reason prompted Monster Jam to have to reschedule the event, and move it to a new location. The new date and location was announced on September 5, 2018, to be at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, FL, May 10-11, 2019.
Shows and Competition
At Monster Jam shows, monster trucks face off in three different forms of competition - Racing, Two-Wheel Skills, and Freestyle. In the smaller shows they have a donut contest as well. The goal in Two-Wheel Skills is to do the best trick possible on only two tires (wheelie, stoppie, bicycle, etc.)
In the donut competition a driver tries to spin their truck until he/she gets dizzy, the truck can't go any more, or they think they have a high enough score to win. Side-by-side racing is traditional heads-up tournament racing, where the first truck to cross the finish line moves onto the next round until it is eliminated or wins the racing trophy by winning the Championship race.
The freestyle competition allows drivers two minutes on an open floor to show off their skills as they drive the trucks over cars, and doing stunts and tricks with their trucks. The freestyle winner is determined by 6 judges each giving a score out of 10. The high and the low scores are dropped that the fans gave. The max score is 40. There are two winners from both events, however if the same person that won racing that night also won freestyle that night then they get the biggest trophy, next to the world finals trophy, the Double Down trophy, named after the Double Down activities in Las Vegas at the Monster Jam World Finals.
Monster Jam Track Before 2014 (1992-2013)
Monster Jam New Track (2014–Present)
The Tour
The tour begins in the spring each year and ends in March with the World finals in Las Vegas every year. The tour visits many major cities in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia.
In 2015 an arena tour called "#MoreMonsterJam debuted and featured ATV races, Speedster races and obstacle races, monster truck wheelie and donut contests, monster truck obstacle course racing and freestyle. This tour featured 8 drivers driving 3 different vehicles in a points series. The top 2 finishers got an invite to the Monster Jam World Finals 16.
In 2015, Monster Jam started its first stadium tour called the Fox Sports 1 Championship Series. This tour followed 16 drivers each weekend on Fox Sports 1 competing for points in qualifying, racing, obstacle course racing and freestyle. The top 4 in the series got invites to the Monster Jam World Finals 16.
In 2016, Monster Jam will feature an East and West Coast #MoreMonsterJam series with only the winner of each tour getting an invite to Monster Jam World Finals 17.
In 2017, Monster Jam had three arena tours called Monster Jam Triple Threat Series. An East, West, and Central where 8 drivers on each tour battled it out for one spot in Monster Jam World Finals 18. Monster Jam will also have two FS1 Championship Tour called Monster Jam FS1 Championship Series. An East and West where 14 drivers battled it out each weekend for one spot in Monster Jam World Finals 18.
Licensing
Mattel's Hot Wheels brand produces officially licensed toy versions of monster trucks under the Monster Jam name. They also sponsored a monster truck, which competed in the series in previous years. However, in 2008, the Hot Wheels truck was not on the circuit, replaced in the line up by Donkey Kong. In late 2011, Monster Jam announced a new Hot Wheels truck, named "Team Hot Wheels Firestorm". The current driver of it is Scott Buetow, and at the 2012 World Finals, Neil Elliott drove it in his Maximum Destruction chassis. Five officially licensed Monster Jam video games have been produced. The first two, Monster Jam: Maximum Destruction, a vehicular combat game, and Monster 4x4: Masters of Metal, an arcade racing game, were published by Ubisoft. The third, titled simply Monster Jam, was released by Activision on November 13, 2007, and a sequel to it called Monster Jam: Urban Assault was released on October 28, 2008. A fifth game, Monster Jam: Path of Destruction, was released on November 9, 2010. On June 17, 2015 Monster Jam Battlegrounds was released as a download from Xbox Live and Steam. Monster Jam: Crush It! was released on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on October 25, 2016, and was later released on Nintendo Switch on October 31, 2017.
Media coverage
Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 have aired some coverage since early 2014. Prior to that, Monster Jam aired on TNN and SPEED. "Season in review" packages occasionally air on CBS as part of the CBS Sports Spectacular. Clips from events are periodically posted on Monster Jam's official YouTube and Facebook pages.
There are 12 announcers. The announcing team is led by their flagship announcer Scott Douglass.
It also airs on One in Australia.
The show was derived from "Monster Wars", then later aired on ESPN2 as "Inside Monster Jam", later transformed into Motor Madness Monster Jam. TNN covered Monster Jam events starting from 1998 when PACE brought out USA until 2002 when Motor Madness was cancelled.
In 2000, Simitar brought the footage from Inside Monster Jam under PACE's permission for a 5 tape set of Inside Monster Jam.