Good of guess as any. Mine is along the same lines. Force Nascar to give away who they want in their racing series. Ironic that sports leagues have control of whom they let into their leagues.
23XI statement on not signing Charter agreement
- Thread starter Blaze
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I agree with SOI and Charlie 100%, I think Judge Bell has tried his best to show both sides that there isn't going to be a winner regardless of the verdict from a trial. Both sides will lose things that they have now. They really need to settle before December 1st, that way both sides can save face.
Pull the other leg, it's greased. SRX wasn't viable with a CBS contract and star power. The next most recent attempt I recall was SMI trying to start TRAC back in the late '90s or early '00s; it never got past prototype testing.
SRX lost half of their viewers when they switched to ESPN
They certainly lost me; I never knew they'd switched.
Was that their choice or did CBS drop them, possibly because they were already not pulling in enough viewers to merit being carried?
wi_racefan
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So what do you do when you're in year 5 of a 7 year contract and now you have a legitimate contender?
I bet 5 years ago the world of outlaws anticipated having a legitimate contender, yet here we are.
virtualbalboa
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No one has posed the notion of a competing stock car series since SMI themselves did it. If you want to look for a reason why NASCAR would want SMI to agree to those terms, there you go.
virtualbalboa
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SRX was paying for time: the least viable and sustainable solution for a NASCAR competitor. Not to mention I'd argue they weren't ever competing with NASCAR to begin with and I think they'd have said the same.
That contract is with the networks, not the tracks. There's plenty of track time for another series without displacing NASCAR. Tell me the circumstances under which you see.anyone attempting to start a stock car series before 2030.
I know next to nothing abour dirt / sprint car series so I don't know the significance of your comment.
Many things. Viewership drop to ESPN, financial sponsorship was weak, Evernham left. The tracks did well, many sellouts but not enough money was being made.
Blaze
The Midnight Rider
I personally wish another stock car organization that could compete wish NASCAR would start up. Completion is a good thing, as it forces one side to make changes to improve stuff that's turning fans away.
Once again to use WWE as am example. Back in the early 90s, WWF was doing horrible, fans weren't watching. WCW the other top company at the top come 1996, has a huge storyline and starts completely kicking WWE's ass in the ratings. What does WWE do? It adapts, it changes how it does story telling, and the Monday Night Wars becomes a thing of legend....eventually WCW folds because of mergers (as well as some questionable booking by people who took over with no idea how to book a show) and when WWE was the only real show in town again, it slowly declined. Had a little bit of fight from an upstart in 2002 called TNA, but that eventually started to do poorly. By the mid to late 2010s, WWE was horrible, but if you wanted to watch professional wrestling, it's all you had to watch....until Tony Khan came along with The Elite and started AEW. It got onto TBS, much like WCW was back in the day, and it being a legitimate competition, forced WWE to change up the stuff fans was complaining about, because now fans actually had other viable options. Wrestlers are making more money now because you have someone who can compete with the money WWE has. WWE wants AEW gone, because it's bad for them in their eyes to have competition.
NASCAR doesn't want that competition, because then they know they have to listen to the fans, teams, drivers, etc more often. So they have these tracks agree to not host anything else with stock cars, so nothing can rise up and give them a challenge.
Now this isn't me saying the tracks should be forced to host any other hypothetical stock car racing series. Its me saying NASCAR should not be allowed to prevent it. If another series comes along, then if it scares NASCAR, make changes, improve the stuff fans want to see improved. That's the way you make sure you stay on top, and do it in a fair legal way.
Once again to use WWE as am example. Back in the early 90s, WWF was doing horrible, fans weren't watching. WCW the other top company at the top come 1996, has a huge storyline and starts completely kicking WWE's ass in the ratings. What does WWE do? It adapts, it changes how it does story telling, and the Monday Night Wars becomes a thing of legend....eventually WCW folds because of mergers (as well as some questionable booking by people who took over with no idea how to book a show) and when WWE was the only real show in town again, it slowly declined. Had a little bit of fight from an upstart in 2002 called TNA, but that eventually started to do poorly. By the mid to late 2010s, WWE was horrible, but if you wanted to watch professional wrestling, it's all you had to watch....until Tony Khan came along with The Elite and started AEW. It got onto TBS, much like WCW was back in the day, and it being a legitimate competition, forced WWE to change up the stuff fans was complaining about, because now fans actually had other viable options. Wrestlers are making more money now because you have someone who can compete with the money WWE has. WWE wants AEW gone, because it's bad for them in their eyes to have competition.
NASCAR doesn't want that competition, because then they know they have to listen to the fans, teams, drivers, etc more often. So they have these tracks agree to not host anything else with stock cars, so nothing can rise up and give them a challenge.
Now this isn't me saying the tracks should be forced to host any other hypothetical stock car racing series. Its me saying NASCAR should not be allowed to prevent it. If another series comes along, then if it scares NASCAR, make changes, improve the stuff fans want to see improved. That's the way you make sure you stay on top, and do it in a fair legal way.
WWE or W whatever. All you need are a few roided up actors and a ring a room full of monkeys and you are in business. Hardly the investment required for auto racing.
Blaze
The Midnight Rider
Shows just how little you know about it, and shows you completely miss the point as well. Same with your little buddy @Conover
Either of you tell me why it would be a bad thing for NASCAR to have a little bit of competition. Why do you think they are scared of it? And don't say they aren't, because if they weren't scared, they wouldn't care if someone else used these tracks. Competition is healthy, it drives everyone to be better. Do we as fans not want NASCAR to be better? Let's see if Either of you, or maybe both have an answer. You wanna say I just want to argue, but I want to discuss, I want to know why you think competition would be a bad idea?
Okay, substitute NFL and AFL. The existing league responded to the upstarts in a way that benefitted the fans.
I have no idea what you are talking about. The argument that the racing world would be a much better place if there are two competing stock car businesses? You have seen the numbers, I just posted them yesterday, it had the number of times that Nascar, Indycar, F-1, NHRA and I believe Xfinity and ARCA had over a million viewers. You have lived thru the split of Indycar, seen what happened to them. This isn't football, the huddled masses aren't yearning for more auto racing on the television.
virtualbalboa
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The WoO have had two separate competitors in the past and another one coming up was always a possibility as Flo grew. And of course there have always been other series with a more regional bent (the All Stars basically raced everything west of the Mountain Time Zone).
As a general theory, new competition can improve an existing organization.
In this specific instance, I don't think there's any way a new racing series of any form or format could compete with NASCAR in the US market, even if NASCAR removed the questionable clauses from its contracts. When the AFL started, the NFL wasn't the mega-entertainment giant it is today. (Although it is that today partly because of the competition from the upstart AFL.) Several attempts at spring football leagues dropped in the dumpster over the last two decades.
In my worthless opinion, =IF= NASCAR has concerns regarding competition in the US, it's not from a startup series. It's not from open wheel either. I don't know enough about dirt / sprint cars to pass judgement. But Cup better watch its little sister IMSA. Multiple tracks set new attendance records this year. The number of participating manufacturers has been on the rise, with more coming over the next few years. The cars in the GT classes are identifiable with their street counterparts, both from the outside and under the body, closer to what 'stock' used to mean. The Prototype classes are more technologically advanced than NASCAR's vehicles; arguable second only to F1 in both technologies and speed. Timed races and the ability to run in the rain fit better into TV schedules, with no overtimes or delays. Fortunately for Cup, NASCAR owns IMSA, so it will probably keep the sports cars from becoming a threat to its flagship product, and the endurance races don't fit with modern audiences' short attention spans.
If IMSA was throwing a football around I would say you have a point. There is always more room for that. Blow the gladiator horns and wake up armchair quarterbacks. My point (back on topic) is that there isn't enough interest to have a competing "premiere stock car racing series". The fans are getting more H.P., better tire compounds, less points gimmicks this year...hopefully. Penske and Hendrick are testifying if Nascar calls them up.
virtualbalboa
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Give me a real top tier stock car series with no points gimmicks and I'm watching it. That's a major point of differentiation from NASCAR. Sure wish there was someone else the last 20 years to give it to me that's bigger than the CRA or CARS Tour.
Blaze
The Midnight Rider
The reason being is like I explained. It forces both to be as great as possible. You can't just get by as being the only game in town, an all or nothing.
The fact is man, competition is always a good and healthy thing for anything. I mean hey if NASCAR had a legit competitor for the last let's say 21 years or so, the Chase/Playoffs would've been changed sooner, if the other racing organization was over there doing full season points and taking away viewership. NASCAR would've had to adapt and change up what it was doing, so not to fall to number 2.
Now maybe yes nothing would be able to compete, but NASCAR shows it's scared by trying to prevent it. If they had no worries, they wouldn't care.
Nobody is arguing that point. Wave a magic wand on a concept, it isn't happening. The case is about Nascar with Nascar being a monopoly and is it an illegal one.
Blaze
The Midnight Rider
It ties into that my guy. Just because you don't like it, doesn't change anything.
NASCAR doing everything it can to prevent any other stock car organization from rising up, is the issue here, and definley could make it fall under that illegal monopoly.
virtualbalboa
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Everything *east*. Not that anyone cared. LOL.
In any case no one is going to start an upstart stock car series. That said, I can absolutely see someone trying to do a PRO Superstar Shootout type event, which TBH I don't know why anyone should care about that or think it's a bad thing. If some of these teams and their commercial partners want them to do some exhibition races on the side with Nextgen cars, sure, whatever, who cares?
Blaze
The Midnight Rider
Now one thing I do think is, they should design their own cars. If I see a different racing series, I want the cars to be different.
Isn't that something lol.
virtualbalboa
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Did it bother you when there were cars that would just change engines to go between ARCA and NASCAR? I dunno, doesn't matter much to me if someone chooses to race the Nextgen in a non-NASCAR sanctioned race for whatever reason. I feel the same about anything else in racing. I'd pay to watch old LMP1s G-LOC drivers at Bristol Motor Speedway if that was something I could do. There's actually nothing better than inappropriate to the circuit race cars.
LewTheShoe
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NASCAR claims that the Next Gen cars are proprietary Nascar intellectual property, and they have sufficient market power to insert a clause to that effect in the charter agreement. As a practical matter, I think the main effect of it is to prevent the teams (via the RTA) from staging one or more non-Nascar exhibition races that don't conflict with Nascar points races. This has been discussed as a possible RTA initiative to generate some incremental revenue for the teams.
Is this an anti-competitive tactic by Nascar? That's up to the jury to decide.
I don’t think you understand @Blaze….just like your favorite sport “rasslin’”, there is NOTHING PREVENTING SUPER WEALTHY PEOPLE FROM FORMING THEIR OWN COMPETING STOCK CAR RACING SERIES! Unlike the bad actors trying to make rasslin look real, even though everyone hollarin’ and cheering knows it’s a farce, it takes a TON of money to develop, stage and support a top line racing series. The plantiff’s are leaning on things like NASCAR owning a lot of tracks, or merging with ARCA, to try and claim a monospony. But a jury will hear a lot of background on how this racing league was built, and evolved in concert with the teams and drivers.
And I have no problem with some group forming a new racing league built around “stock” cars. There are plenty of tracks available to race at, especially as a starting point for a new league. Perhaps they’d have divisions formed around the cars people actually drive now, like an SUV division. I’d suggest the premium division get multiple manufacturers using their “performance” car, and require the natural aerodynamics and design be incorporated completely in each race car…AND require only that manufacturer’s engines be used (modified of course per the specifications). If a Ford Mustang has an aero advantage over a Toyota Supra, or vice versa, so be it.
I’d love that. But to DO THAT, imagine how much goes into DOING it? MONEY, time, resources, marketing, coordination, negotiation, tv rights, tracks and track safety, etc etc etc. SRX is a very good example of how much effort and investment it took for a micro series to perform just over a limited summer series, and they had network TV! Ratings were so so early, then faded. Wasn’t sustainable. THAT IS COMPETITION, and it didn’t grow, didn’t thrive.
Imagine how much it would cost to go head to head with NASCAR, on the same day (Sundays mostly). Even with a TV deal, it would be super expensive, and at best only cut half of the audience away that’s out there now. What TV network wants to pay big money for half of current NASCAR ratings?
Consider the same scenario with Indy car; the SAME challenges are there (remember CART?)…wasn’t and wouldn’t be sustainable. Same for NHRA. Same for F1.
It’s easy to speak of competition in a broad sense, but a lot harder to be tackled in these unique sports/racing leagues. Doesn’t make NASCAR a monopoly or monospony.
Why I enjoy 'stock cars' on road courses.
Blaze
The Midnight Rider
It's more so because one of the problems I got with NASCAR, is sometimes this car doesn't put on the best races lol. If I want something new and different for that reason, then it would defeat the purpose to use said car.
But you see, in wrestling you don't have one company who owns all the big arenas, or make deals with said arenas to not hold another wrestling event the same year as them. WWE I do believe does the same month or within two months.
Like I already said, when it comes to race tracks, and majority of the ones that are suitable unless you want to do something like what SRX was, aren't property ready for a racing series.
All I am saying, NASCAR shouldn't be able to just stop then from renting a track they don't own for one thing. I've yet to hear a good case for why that should be allowed. Maybe make them sell off a few tracks, let them pick which ones, they own 11 from what I can gather. Have them sell off...3 or 4 of them. Whichever they want. Unless they want to keep ownership and just allow someone to race there, like they are allowed to race at Indy.
Who do you see buying those tracks? Is there a market for them? This isn't 2000, when owning a track was a license to print money.
Hikaru Kitsune
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I do like there being more than 5 road courses a year, but I want a deeper rotation of courses from year to year.
We don't need the Charlotte Roval every year. Give me Montreal. Give me Road America.
Blaze
The Midnight Rider
That's a fair point. That's probably going to be an issue with it. I got nothing for it sadly lol.
Maybe they can put whichever up for sale, and the three they pick, can be ones NASCAR would rent out to whoever without an issue. That way, even if no one buys they show they are willing to do business.
You went down the rabbit hole.
virtualbalboa
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Since I have smark credentials I'll just cite the following:
*Wrestling was run as a cartel in America until Vince McMahon Jr. entered the scene. Seriously. Go look up what a cartel is and compare it to the NWA Territory system. In fact, so true is what I'm typing that in 1956, the NWA had to agreed to terms with the US DOJ to prevent being broken up.
*After Mid Atlantic got bought by Turner Broadcasting, there was no chance of arguing a monopoly existed in the US for pro wrestling or that one entity dominated the industry.
*After ECW and WCW folded in 2001, the WWF had an effective monopoly over wrestling. Did anyone sue? No, in part because everyone who could sue was either at home with a Turner Entertainment contract or got hired by WWE and none could claim damages. You know what else? WWE traditionally didn't do things that were intended to prevent competition. They might lock up a venue for 30 days but they wouldn't lock it up in perpetuity. NJPW even ran MSG. Not much more evidence I can provide than that if you are in the know.
*WWF eventually got sued by Count Bauer and MLW for antitrust issues and settled for $20 million. Not proof of anything but worth noting.
*Wrestling was run as a cartel in America until Vince McMahon Jr. entered the scene. Seriously. Go look up what a cartel is and compare it to the NWA Territory system. In fact, so true is what I'm typing that in 1956, the NWA had to agreed to terms with the US DOJ to prevent being broken up.
*After Mid Atlantic got bought by Turner Broadcasting, there was no chance of arguing a monopoly existed in the US for pro wrestling or that one entity dominated the industry.
*After ECW and WCW folded in 2001, the WWF had an effective monopoly over wrestling. Did anyone sue? No, in part because everyone who could sue was either at home with a Turner Entertainment contract or got hired by WWE and none could claim damages. You know what else? WWE traditionally didn't do things that were intended to prevent competition. They might lock up a venue for 30 days but they wouldn't lock it up in perpetuity. NJPW even ran MSG. Not much more evidence I can provide than that if you are in the know.
*WWF eventually got sued by Count Bauer and MLW for antitrust issues and settled for $20 million. Not proof of anything but worth noting.