BREAKING: Majority owners explore sale of NASCAR

TexasRaceLady said:
It's not that us "old folks" don't like change. Personally, just don't spring it on me without a little warning. LOL
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Hahaha!! It's not even an insult! It just is what it is. As an advertising & marketing guy for 25+ years I've seen enough studies to know that most older folks just don't like change, or trying new things, or switching brands blah blah blah. And as a quickly approaching 50 year old middle-ager myself, I definitely see me trending in that direction. I'm comfortable with what I'm comfortable with. Nothing wrong with that...who doesn't love being comfortable. Again...it is what it is.

Plus...it's not like young people "like" change, not many people do. Younger folks just don't have the years invested into something that us (yeah, I included myself) "older" folks do.
 
JDL said:
10 year, 8 billion TV deal of which NASCAR gets 10%. I'd start with algebra before I would recommend an economics course.
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That contract and many others are listed on the balance sheet as ASSETS.

Basic accounting.
 
Matthew2470 said:
What Kevin said in that quote is simply not always true. Some buy businesses solely to pillage them and discard the bones.
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Yep. I've seen that. And sometimes they don't mean to make it worse but do anyway due to lack of experience.
 
Reuters reported today that the minority owner of the Steelers, David Tepper, is in the lead to be the new owner of the Carolina Panthers. Looks like the rumor about the France Family selling NASCAR to buy the team was just that, a rumor.
 
Team Penske said:
Assets are assets and it doesn't matter if it something solid
or contractual. It is still a negotiable value in the holders favor.
AND you can put it in the bank.
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Wrong. A paper asset like a tv contract can disappear overnight if the networks stop paying for a breach. A physical asset like a track will not
 
Or if Earth was struck by a Manhattan-sized asteroid traveling at 17,000 mph.

Potential buyers will understand the value of the contract assets.
 
JDL said:
Wrong. A paper asset like a tv contract can disappear overnight if the networks stop paying for a breach. A physical asset like a track will not
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Just try dropping a contract like a couple sponsors did only to have to pay or settle out of court.
Many physical assets are already listed somewhere as a guarantee of payment and so the listed owner may not even be able to raise more money against the property.
Do you think Daytona spent 350 million "in cash?" No they leverage the property and pay back use current profits.
THAT is business.
 
Don't know how I feel about this.

I'm hopeful that if NASCAR gets sold, we can celebrate a new owner undoing disastrous gimmicks (like playoffs) and restoring this sport to its former glory.

However, we could get a new owner who doesn't give a crap and completely ruins everything.
 
PeopleAreStrange said:
Don't know how I feel about this.

I'm hopeful that if NASCAR gets sold, we can celebrate a new owner undoing disastrous gimmicks (like playoffs) and restoring this sport to its former glory.

However, we could get a new owner who doesn't give a crap and completely ruins everything.
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I doubt any person or group will invest 3-5 Billion dollars and they don't give a damn.
 
PeopleAreStrange said:
Don't know how I feel about this.

I'm hopeful that if NASCAR gets sold, we can celebrate a new owner undoing disastrous gimmicks (like playoffs) and restoring this sport to its former glory.

However, we could get a new owner who doesn't give a crap and completely ruins everything.
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So it would continue just as it is. JK.
 
A sale of NASCAR was once unthinkable. Now it may be overdue.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.487317de9126

“I think [NASCAR CEO] Brian [France] would have come out with a big denial if it was not true, and he hasn’t denied it,” noted Felix Sabates, a longtime NASCAR team owner based in Charlotte.
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As stock-car racing’s sanctioning body, NASCAR has few expenses, little overhead and, essentially, a license to print money. It collects fees from every entity it touches — chief among them, television (its current TV deal with Fox and NBC, which expires in 2024, is worth $6.8 billion). That revenue is shared with track owners and drivers. NASCAR also collects money from official sponsors and corporate partners that pay to associate with the brand. Track owners pay fees to host races. Team owners pay fees to enter events (reportedly $2,300 per car, per race). Drivers and crew members must buy annual licenses. And fans pony up for official NASCAR merchandise and souvenirs.
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FLRacingFan said:
Key word being "typically".

Who might be interested in and has the funds for buying NASCAR just to destroy it?
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In reality if your just buying the sanctioning body and not the tracks there is nothing to sell. All it does is bring in money. A new owner could cut some expenses like Brian's salary and get rid of the top staff like Helton and Darby and a few others. They could also close up the R&D center and just have special mechanics check the top 5 cars right at the track like the old days.
Much of the BS with fines etc is just to fill the coffers for Nascar's charity with out costing Nascar a penny.
 
Team Penske said:
In reality if your just buying the sanctioning body and not the tracks there is nothing to sell. All it does is bring in money. A new owner could cut some expenses like Brian's salary and get rid of the top staff like Helton and Darby and a few others. They could also close up the R&D center and just have special mechanics check the top 5 cars right at the track like the old days.
Much of the BS with fines etc is just to fill the coffers for Nascar's charity with out costing Nascar a penny.
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Cutting salary & employees from the top and closing R&D?
 
ChexOrWrex said:
Cutting salary & employees from the top and closing R&D?
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Yes... what a novel idea. :D
However I think there are to many people riding office chairs and in reality they are not needed.
A small good management team should be able to run the series simply by burning the rule book
and keeping the rules consistent. A lot of the time on these inspections can be eliminated simple by checking the cars after a race and if you don't pass the inspection you get no pay or points.
It isn't rocket science.
#9 car was found with the same violation two times. Third time your out for 10 races. Guarantee they will correct the problem.
 
Team Penske said:
If a ear window brace is not to spec you will know. If the car is totaled it won't really matter will it.
Not very often a badly damaged car makes the top 10.
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It's not unusually for a Bristol or M'ville top 10 finisher to be missing some sheet metal entirely.
 
The Washington Post said:
As stock-car racing’s sanctioning body, NASCAR has few expenses, little overhead and, essentially, a license to print money. It collects fees from every entity it touches — chief among them, television (its current TV deal with Fox and NBC, which expires in 2024, is worth $6.8 billion). That revenue is shared with track owners and drivers. NASCAR also collects money from official sponsors and corporate partners that pay to associate with the brand. Track owners pay fees to host races. Team owners pay fees to enter events (reportedly $2,300 per car, per race). Drivers and crew members must buy annual licenses. And fans pony up for official NASCAR merchandise and souvenirs.
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Well, they forgot to mention that Nascar has to buy the gas to run the Air Titans..:oops:

Just kidding. They probably run 'em on free Sunoco Race Fuel.

Being Nascar obviously means having a great business model... low capital invested, low risk, high profits. As long as the races are happening, being Nascar is a license to print money. That is why Nascar is such a valuable asset. Contrast that to the plight of the team owners with their current sponsor-dependent business model... substantial capital required, very high risk, and if everything goes well, small profits are earned. Is it any wonder the owners and their industry association (the RTA) are looking around at the money trails and asking..:idunno:

I believe the greatest risk facing Nascar is the uncertain future supply of wealthy and passionate team owners to put on a high quality sporting event every week, given the onerous business model that they have. Nascar's current stockholder (France family) and its future ones will need to solve that riddle in order to keep the printing presses running, I believe.
 
LewTheShoe said:
Well, they forgot to mention that Nascar has to buy the gas to run the Air Titans..:oops:

I believe the greatest risk facing Nascar is the uncertain future supply of wealthy and passionate team owners to put on a high quality sporting event every week, given the onerous business model that they have. Nascar's current stockholder (France family) and its future ones will need to solve that riddle in order to keep the printing presses running, I believe.
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Nascar was built in a region and at the time some owner/drivers towed or drove the car to the track. Maybe, in my opinion, if the sport was scaled back to where people like Allan K. could still try the sport the fan interest would return. Maybe if the sport was a little more about racing, more people would take an interest.
 
Team Penske said:
Most people started watching racing at local tracks. They ran heats and then the main.
So what is so bad about stage racing? It is the same thing really and the biggest advantage is that the drivers can no longer coast for the first 3/4 of the race. Lust look how well the dominating #48 team is doing under this format.
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The percentage of NASCAR fans who have ever been to a local track is A LOT lower than you think.
 
Johali said:
You stated that as fact so show us the documentation.
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But simple math would bear this out, compare short track attendance to NASCAR's TV and attendance numbers. As with any sport, most people only engage with the highest level and don't care about lower levels. It's the same reason that Cup races have higher attendance than Xfinity which has higher attendance than Trucks which has higher attendance than K&N....etc.

Of all the NASCAR fans I know, only maybe one has ever set foot in a local short track. You care enough about racing to sign up for a racing forum but your average fan isn't that engaged.

Ken Schrader and Kenny Wallace discuss short track attendance issues here https://www.google.com/amp/s/racing...rader-local-weekly-dirt-track-attendance/amp/
 
The Nature Boy said:
But simple math would bear this out, compare short track attendance to NASCAR's TV and attendance numbers. As with any sport, most people only engage with the highest level and don't care about lower levels. It's the same reason that Cup races have higher attendance than Xfinity which has higher attendance than Trucks which has higher attendance than K&N....etc.

Of all the NASCAR fans I know, only maybe one has ever set foot in a local short track. You care enough about racing to sign up for a racing forum but your average fan isn't that engaged.

Ken Schrader and Kenny Wallace discuss short track attendance issues here https://www.google.com/amp/s/racing...rader-local-weekly-dirt-track-attendance/amp/
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Totally disagree with this, there are many here that go to weekly short track races.
 
The Nature Boy said:
But simple math would bear this out, compare short track attendance to NASCAR's TV and attendance numbers. As with any sport, most people only engage with the highest level and don't care about lower levels. It's the same reason that Cup races have higher attendance than Xfinity which has higher attendance than Trucks which has higher attendance than K&N....etc.

Of all the NASCAR fans I know, only maybe one has ever set foot in a local short track. You care enough about racing to sign up for a racing forum but your average fan isn't that engaged.

Ken Schrader and Kenny Wallace discuss short track attendance issues here https://www.google.com/amp/s/racing...rader-local-weekly-dirt-track-attendance/amp/
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Again an opinion.
The Nature Boy said:
The percentage of NASCAR fans who have ever been to a local track is A LOT lower than you think.
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The bold is what throws this deduction off. How do you "know" that they didn't attend at least "one" 5, 10, 30 years ago?
 
Don't let this get into a full-blown dumpster fire and start throwing crap at each other.

I spent every Saturday night from April thru October (5 years worth) at a dirt track back in the 70s. Just can't go now for several reasons --- foremost reason, there isn't one close enough. The nearest is about 2 hours away, on the otherside of Austin. If I were a bit younger and had someone to go with, I'd probably make the trip.
 
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Johali said:
Again an opinion.

The bold is what throws this deduction off. How do you "know" that they didn't attend at least "one" 5, 10, 30 years ago?
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There is a HUGE difference between NASCAR fans and racing fans. There are A LOT of people who will only watch NASCAR and will only watch a race if Kyle Busch or Joey Logano or whoever are in it. A lot of people who started watching in the 90s and 2000s, many probably think they're too good to go to their local short track.
 
The Nature Boy said:
But simple math would bear this out, compare short track attendance to NASCAR's TV and attendance numbers. As with any sport, most people only engage with the highest level and don't care about lower levels. It's the same reason that Cup races have higher attendance than Xfinity which has higher attendance than Trucks which has higher attendance than K&N....etc.

Of all the NASCAR fans I know, only maybe one has ever set foot in a local short track. You care enough about racing to sign up for a racing forum but your average fan isn't that engaged.

Ken Schrader and Kenny Wallace discuss short track attendance issues here https://www.google.com/amp/s/racing...rader-local-weekly-dirt-track-attendance/amp/
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Can't get to a local track if you don't have one.

I live in Columbus, the 15th largest city in the country. We had a local short track just south of downtown that packed the stands every weekend for 50 years. The track owners wanted to retire so they put the track up for sale, and unfortunately the city bought the track, tore it up, and replaced it with a freakin lacrosse complex. Now the nearest short track is over an hour away. Jeff Gordon tried to build a track at the site of our old minor league baseball stadium, which has been vacant and half town down for the past decade, but the city shot it down (worried about too much noise....LOL whatever).

My point? The demand is there, but there's no supply. I'm sure central Ohio is not alone in this.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
There is a HUGE difference between NASCAR fans and racing fans. There are A LOT of people who will only watch NASCAR and will only watch a race if Kyle Busch or Joey Logano or whoever are in it. A lot of people who started watching in the 90s and 2000s, many probably think they're too good to go to their local short track.
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Exactly.

And you see this in other sports too, especially baseball or hockey. I go to minor league baseball regularly and the attendance is terrible.
 
How important is it where they came from? They got here. Many stayed while many left. I can't help but wonder more about the people that are leaving. Maybe a change in the present way of thinking, by whoever takes over this sport, will be a step in the right direction? This sport hasn't know what direction to go in since the beginning of 2004.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
How important is it where they came from?
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Where they come from sets their expectations. People who are invited to a Cup race with not previous motorsports exposure are going to have different expectations from those who regularly attend their local tracks, or from people who people who regularly watch open wheel on TV, or from sports car participants, or from drag racing fans.

For example, those previously exposed to Formula E expect to spent all their time in the suites and courtesy tents without ever actually seeing cars or the track. :D

More accurately, I've taken friends to Charlotte for their first race of any kind, and they gape at the size of the facility. (Gods only know what they'd make of 'Dega.)
 
FLRacingFan said:
A sale of NASCAR was once unthinkable. Now it may be overdue.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.487317de9126
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This is the best article I've read on the subject of NASCAR's decline. She touched on various issues which contributed to the decline as well as a few that are out of NASCAR's control.

There's also some great quotes in this article but this paragraph is gold. NASCAR has inexplicably been trying to get away from their redneck/Southern image for over a decade now and it has cost them dearly:
“They were hoping to introduce NASCAR into new markets without this Southern stigma, and I think that was a mistake,” says Poston, who’s now president of Tuckahoe Strategies, a Washington-based communications firm. “Think about Harley-Davidson and Jack Daniel’s; they’ve been successful everywhere they go because they never gave up on their outlaw branding. Jack Daniel’s never apologized for being from Tennessee; they owned it. That’s what made them interesting to new markets.”
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