It is clear that Monster Jam is in Europe to stay after the most successful year ever of events on that continent wrapped up with four awesome shows in Helsinki, Finland's Hartwall Arena this past weekend.
For everyone who was a part of that final stop on this year's Monster Jam World Tour it is great to be getting back home after such a wondeful experience, and our timing is perfect, because we will all be home in time to watch the Monster Jam marathon on Speed TV,
22 hours of Monster Jam 2007 action this coming Sunday.

This year's Monster Jam action in Europe was the best ever and set record after record, including attendance records that are sure to be broken in future years as more large stadiums are added to the Euro lineup. This year the addition of two huge venues, Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, both proved to be smashing successes, and the people responsible for creating future World Tour schedules are planning to add more of those types of big Monster Jam playgrounds as soon as 2008. The two events in Gothenburg established a new one-day attendance record, then the October visit to the UK saw the Cardiff Monster Jam set a new single event attendance mark for Europe. To top off the setting of the new attendance records in '07 it was the first stadium to ever host Monster Jam in Europe, the Gelredome in Arnhem, Holland, that expanded to three events and created a new weekend attendance standard.
Clearly Monster Jam is exploding all over Europe.

I'm not privy to any inside information here, but it is obvious that the sport will continue to expand in Europe. The six cities on the 2007 circuit form a great base to add on to, and I am aware that there are many more sites, especially where large soccer stadiums exist, that could be great additions in the next few years. Those plans to grow the Monster Jam World Tour are constantly on going and I know everyone in the industry can't wait to see what the future of Monster Jam overseas holds.

The fans were incredible at each European stop and so was the action. The drivers and crews rose to the occasion event after event to make the on track Euro Monster Jams the best ever. Next week in this space I'm going to take an in depth look at the Monster Jam Europe results from a statistical perspective.

So all of our European participants are getting back to the states just in time for a couple of exciting media based elements of Monster Jam. Everyone on the Monster Jam World Tour was fired up about trying out the new Monster Jam video game which has been getting phenomenal reviews. Monster Jam drivers, crew members, tech officials, and behind the scenes staff are all planning to head to their favorite retailer asap to get their copy and check out the new game. The other media excitement is all about the Monster Jam TV program, with the 22 hour marathon on Speed coming up Sunday.

One of the neatest things about the holiday weekend TV spectacular is that the final six hours of the marathon will be the programs selected by Monster Jam fans as their favorites of the year that have been aired so far. I'm going to be very interested in seeing which 2007 shows end up making the "fans favorites" list. Highly anticpated television coverage of the events in St. Louis and Jacksonville won't debut until later, but week to week the action this year that has already aired was the greatest ever, so fans are going to have a tough choice in picking their favorites. I'd have to guess that the World Finals racing and freestyle shows from Las Vegas will be in the top six, and I think that the show from Gothenburg, Sweden, might end up in the elite half dozen programs as well. From there though, it has got to be wide open with so many awesome shows to choose from.

The great thing is that no matter which six shows make it onto Speed's "fans favorites" list we are assured that Sunday night, when those episodes air, it will be one of the most exciting nights of television of the entire year. SO HAVE A HAPPY MONSTER JAM THANKSGIVING!