You've probably seen the clips. A giant corn on the cob disintegrating at forty miles per hour. A makeshift Batmobile losing a wheel before it even hits the first jump. It’s glorious, honestly. But finding exactly where to watch Red Bull Soapbox isn't always as straightforward as checking the local TV listings. Because these races happen all over the globe—from the hills of Lausanne to the streets of Des Moines—the broadcast rights shift depending on where you're sitting and how much of the "produced" version you actually want to see.
It's basically a gravity-powered fever dream.
People spend months building these things. They pour thousands of dollars into brake systems that usually fail within the first ten seconds. If you’re looking for the raw, unedited madness, your first stop should always be Red Bull TV. It’s their house, their rules. Red Bull TV is a free global streaming service that works on pretty much everything—Roku, Apple TV, your phone, and even some smart fridges if you're into that.
The Best Digital Seats for the Soapbox Race
Red Bull TV is the gold standard here. Unlike a lot of sports where you're fighting through three different paywalls just to see a kickoff, Red Bull keeps this stuff accessible. They host full event replays that usually run about two hours. These are great because you get the professional commentary—often featuring people who actually know a bit about engineering or action sports—mixed with the slow-motion replays of the inevitable crashes.
If you don't have two hours to spare, their YouTube channel is the place to go.
They are masters of the "Best Of" compilation. You'll find "Top 10 Crashes" or "Creative Genius" reels that condense an entire day of racing into eight minutes of pure adrenaline. However, there's a catch. YouTube usually gets the highlights, while the full, live broadcast is exclusive to the Red Bull TV app or website. If a race is happening live right now, the app is your best bet for the uninterrupted feed.
Sometimes, local broadcasters pick it up too. In the UK, Dave (the channel, not a guy named Dave) has historically aired condensed versions of the London events. In the US, you might occasionally see segments on FS1 or as part of an extreme sports block on larger networks, but those are rarely live. They're curated. They're cleaned up. Honestly? They lose a bit of the grit that makes the event fun.
Why You Should Avoid the "Produced" TV Edits
When a major network buys the rights to show a soapbox race, they often treat it like a traditional reality show. They spend twenty minutes on the "backstory" of a team from a small town. They talk about the grandmother who helped paint the car.
Look, that's fine, but most of us are here for the hay bales.
The raw stream on the Red Bull platforms focuses more on the actual technical failures and the absurdity of the track design. You see the stuff that gets cut for time on cable TV—the long delays while they sweep up debris, the awkward interviews with dazed drivers who just took a wooden pirate ship to the face, and the local crowd energy.
The Social Media Cheat Code
If you want the "right now" experience, TikTok and Instagram are weirdly the best places to see the stuff the cameras miss. Because these events draw tens of thousands of spectators, there are hundreds of angles of every single crash. Search the hashtag #RedBullSoapboxRace while an event is happening. You’ll see the "fan cams." These are often better than the official broadcast because you get the scale of the jumps and the terrifying sound of a plywood car rattling itself to pieces on cobblestones.
Social media is also where you find the technical deep dives. Some teams document their entire build process. If you've ever wondered how a team manages to make a giant slice of pizza aerodynamic, those creators are usually posting on their own channels, not Red Bull's.
Finding the Global Schedule
You can't watch it if you don't know when it's on. The schedule is notoriously fluid. Red Bull doesn't do a "season" in the way the NFL or F1 does. They do a world tour. One month it's in Almaty, Kazakhstan; the next, it's in Tokyo.
- Check the official Red Bull Events page at least once a month.
- Sign up for their newsletter (it's actually not that spammy).
- Follow the specific city pages if you hear a rumor that a race is coming to your region.
Local organizers often have their own mini-sites. For instance, the Red Bull Soapbox Race London or the events in Aarhus often have specific social handles that provide "behind the curtain" content weeks before the main cameras start rolling.
Watching in Different Regions
Depending on your country, licensing deals can get weird. In some parts of Europe, sports networks like Eurosport might have a window of exclusivity. If you open the Red Bull TV app and see a "Not available in your region" message, it’s usually because a local TV station bought the rights. This is pretty rare for soapbox racing compared to something like Cliff Diving or Hard Enduro, but it happens. A VPN can usually solve that, but most of the time, the Red Bull app remains the global home for the event.
What to Look for During the Broadcast
When you're figured out where to watch Red Bull Soapbox, don't just stare at the cars. The scoring is what makes it a "sport" and not just a demolition derby. It’s judged on three specific things:
- Speed: Obviously. The faster you go, the better your score.
- Creativity: This is subjective. It's about the craft, the theme, and how ridiculous the vehicle looks.
- Showmanship: This happens at the starting line. Every team has 30 seconds to perform a skit.
A lot of people mute the TV during the skits. Don't do that. Some of the highest-scoring teams are the ones who barely make it halfway down the track but absolutely kill it with a choreographed dance routine before they push off. It’s that weird mix of performance art and mechanical engineering that keeps people coming back.
Technical Breakdown: How They Film It
It's actually a nightmare to film. Unlike a race track with fixed cameras, a soapbox course is usually a winding city street with limited space. They use a lot of GoPro tech. Almost every car has an onboard camera, which gives you that terrifying driver's-eye view when the steering rack snaps. They also use "follow cams"—often a gimbal-mounted camera on an electric bike or a small ATV—that chases the soapbox down the hill.
📖 Related: Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl LIX Victory: What Really Happened
This is why the live stream is so much better than the highlights. You get to see the sheer logistics of trying to track a vehicle that has no engine and very questionable stability.
The Evolution of the Broadcast
Back in the early 2000s, these broadcasts were pretty low-budget. They looked like public access TV. Today, the production value is insane. We're talking 4K resolution, drone shots, and high-speed "Phantom" cameras that capture every splinter of wood flying off a crashing car in 1000 frames per second. Red Bull has essentially turned "idiots in boxes" into a premium broadcast product.
Actionable Steps to Get Started
If you’re ready to dive into the world of gravity-defying lunacy, stop searching for sketchy pirate streams. They don't exist because the official source is already free.
Download the Red Bull TV app. It is the most consistent way to access the archives. You can search for "Soapbox" and find events dating back over a decade. It’s fun to see how the designs have evolved from literal crates to complex carbon-fiber shells.
Check the YouTube "Live" tab. When an event is scheduled, Red Bull often sets up a placeholder link on YouTube. You can hit the "Notify Me" bell so your phone screams at you the second the first car leaves the ramp.
Follow the "Team" accounts. Once you find a car you like in the highlights, look them up on TikTok or Instagram. The real "inside baseball" of soapbox racing happens in the garages of the teams themselves. You'll learn more about weight distribution and wheel bearing friction from a guy in a shed than you will from the official announcers.
Watch the "Fail" compilations first. If you’re new to this, don't start with a full race. Start with the crashes. It sets the stakes. Once you realize how much can go wrong, watching a full run from top to bottom becomes genuinely tense. You'll find yourself cheering for a team dressed as a giant breakfast fry-up just because you want their egg-yolk wheels to survive the "Big Bertha" jump.
Basically, just get the app and start with the 2024 London or 2022 Des Moines replays. They’re classic examples of the sport at its peak.