Shocking financials...

DSquad48 said:
What does a packed grandstand do for me besides make me feel claustrophobic? ;)
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Good attendance, good viewership from home and good overall interest indicate something that is healthy which is good for the folks that like what they are seeing.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
Good attendance, good viewership from home and good overall interest indicate something that is healthy which is good for the folks that like what they are seeing.
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Indycar averages like 200k viewers per race and they seem to be doing just fine. You may disagree.

NASCAR is still the top-tier of stock car racing, and the most popular form of auto racing in the US. People will always be around to race. And I will be around to view.

Obviously I would prefer it to be popular as it's nice to have some security. My comment was tongue in cheek. But at the end of the day, I will watch regardless.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
The problem is that the fan base is not returning to normal as there are very, very few young people that watch Nascar. IDK if the fan fairy is going to magically crap out a bunch of young people in the next few years but it needs to happen as the current Nascar fan is dying off.
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Nascar only seemed to be popular. Other than Dega and Tona most tracks were 1 mile or less and fans filled the seats to watch exciting racing. In their greed NASCAR built bigger tracks so they could have more seating and space to fleece the fans. All it produced was boring racing and huge expenses. Nascar racing will right itself and find it's place again in the world of entertainment. In doing so they will revert to cheaper cars, reasonable wages for the workers and new owners that want to win. Some day there will be a place for a new Alan Kulwicki or Carl Long.
 
I honestly don't think the sport in dire straits but the decision makers need to get on the same page. If they try to get the sport back on a more traditional path with out forcing the issue it will be fine. There's no reason these tracks should have lost the % of fans they did. A track like Michigan should have NO problem selling 70-80k seats twice a year. Attending a race is still a very enjoyable experience. It's not overly expensive. I'm far from rich but can afford a $60-$80 (good seats in this price range) ticket. In general, going to a race is the same as it was 20 years ago. There's just less people, the tracks look visibly safer and the cars look even more identical. Ultimately, nothing has really changed that much. There's no reason tracks like Pocono and Dover can't gain back 15-20k fans (not an unrealistic figure) over the next 2-4 years if the sport gets back to its roots a little more.
 
KodiakRusty89 said:
I honestly don't think the sport in dire straits but the decision makers need to get on the same page. If they try to get the sport back on a more traditional path with out forcing the issue it will be fine. There's no reason these tracks should have lost the % of fans they did. A track like Michigan should have NO problem selling 70-80k seats twice a year. Attending a race is still a very enjoyable experience. It's not overly expensive. I'm far from rich but can afford a $60-$80 (good seats in this price range) ticket. In general, going to a race is the same as it was 20 years ago. There's just less people, the tracks look visibly safer and the cars look even more identical. Ultimately, nothing has really changed that much. There's no reason tracks like Pocono and Dover can't gain back 15-20k fans (not an unrealistic figure) over the next 2-4 years if the sport gets back to its roots a little more.
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I agree that Nascar is not in dire straights but they do have a lot of work in front of them and do need to find solutions to nagging problems. Although Monster has not moved the needle yet they came into this season late in game so it remains to be seen if they can infuse some youthful fans into the series. Hopefully they can do some cross marketing and at least get some young people to look in.
 
kymartin6 said:
I agree with everything you just said...... Nascar will be here....... just not in the capacity it once was..... I don't think it will ever be back to what it was in the 90's....... that was a wonderful 10 year span..... I will continue to follow it also...... I just don't have the zeal for it that I had for decades...... Right now.... I haven't watched a race for I don't know when.... I listen to MRN or PRN when it's handy... I now don't have to worry about planning my Sunday around being at home.... the wife and I can go do things that wasn't possible before..... (We have been married 39 years and most of those years.... going anywhere on Sunday was absolutely unacceptable)...... I hate seeing the sport die myself..... It IS depressing...... but...... it really had nothing to do with the fans....... it was all management..... which is usually the cause of most businesses downfalls.........

Greed is sometimes what turns a business from being profitable to going in the red......
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To be fair in 4 decades you have prolly changed a bit too. Maybe your 30's or 40's were a great decade. ;):D
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
I agree that Nascar is not in dire straights but they do have a lot of work in front of them and do need to find solutions to nagging problems. Although Monster has not moved the needle yet they came into this season late in game so it remains to be seen if they can infuse some youthful fans into the series. Hopefully they can do some cross marketing and at least get some young people to look in.
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The hardest part in this day in age is getting the NASCAR people, the TV people and the sponsors all on the same page. 20+ years ago the folks in Daytona and the track owners were the main decision makers. The tracks dictated their own TV deals. Winston did nothing more than offer excellent support and run the Winston Million and then the No Bull competition. They also handed out free smokes at each race.

I love Seinfeld so imo the best thing Monster and the rest of the people can do is nothing or very little. Just let things play out naturally instead of forcing the issue. The only thing I'd like Monster to do is go back to a more tradition championship format and maybe instill some sort of Triple Crown bonus. The biggest nemesis to this sport since 2001 has been TV.
 
KodiakRusty89 said:
The hardest part in this day in age is getting the NASCAR people, the TV people and the sponsors all on the same page. 20+ years ago the folks in Daytona and the track owners were the main decision makers. The tracks dictated their own TV deals. Winston did nothing more than offer excellent support and run the Winston Million and then the No Bull competition. They also handed out free smokes at each race.

I love Seinfeld so imo the best thing Monster and the rest of the people can do is nothing or very little. Just let things play out naturally instead of forcing the issue. The only thing I'd like Monster to do is go back to a more tradition championship format and maybe instill some sort of Triple Crown bonus. The biggest nemesis to this sport since 2001 has been TV.
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The TV aspect does play a big part, IMO. The broadcasts are boring. Nobody wants to sit around and watch a close up shot of the leader for half of the race.

Dover last week was my first in-person race and it was 1000x better than viewing on TV, imo. I brought my girlfriend with me and even she was interested and found it exciting while she rarely will sit down and watch a "boring race" with me on TV.
 
DSquad48 said:
The TV aspect does play a big part, IMO. The broadcasts are boring. Nobody wants to sit around and watch a close up shot of the leader for half of the race.

Dover last week was my first in-person race and it was 1000x better than viewing on TV, imo. I brought my girlfriend with me and even she was interested and found it exciting while she rarely will sit down and watch a "boring race" with me on TV.
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The nice thing about being at the track is that you have constant perspective and can follow different battles all day long. A lot of times I paid little attention to what was happening upfront because there was a lot more action elsewhere. Being at the track is an experience everyone should get to enjoy.
 
Kiante said:
Busy looking at NASCAR.

Look at F1, teams are struggling to gather sponsors and involvement now in days. That was the whole point of the change in ownership. Remember, there was a time where EVERY team had a good amount of sponsors. Now, Sauber and Renault have damn near blank cars, Sauber especially.

IndyCar has always been a roller coaster, but its been trending upwards with the improved racing.

Sponsorship is not easy to come by with the costs of racing.
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And while there probably would've been a declining interest in motorsports anyways all of them have to assume some level of responsibility for it. F1, IndyCar, NASCAR, American and worldwide sports cars, etc. - you can look at each and find moments where they self-inflicted and accelerated things. And that is probably what sucks the most looking back on things.
 
BobbyFord said:
For me it's The Chase, caution clock, fake cautions for the purpose of bunching up the field, playoff format, free passes for drivers that miss races, restrictor plates, caution line, constant meddling and rule changes, preferential treatment, etc. It goes on and on.
This sport has become a cross between a soap opera and a sitcom.
Fortunately I remember when it was all about racing.
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The drivers and teams are still doing the same thing they've always done. I know of atleast one excellent race you've missed out on in person. I definitely understand the frustration and can't hold it against anyone who feels that way.
 
FLRacingFan said:
And while there probably would've been a declining interest in motorsports anyways all of them have to assume some level of responsibility for it. F1, IndyCar, NASCAR, American and worldwide sports cars, etc. - you can look at each and find moments where they self-inflicted and accelerated things. And that is probably what sucks the most looking back on things.
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Absolutely. Serial mis-management.
 
As we approach the witching hour out here on the fruits and nuts left coast, it saddens me to report the day's thread tally.

32

Tomorrow's another day.
 

Is it any wonder I'm null and void

Is it any wonder I've got too much
Time on my hands
It's ticking away with my sanity
I've got too much time on my hands
It's hard to believe such a calamity
I've got too much time on my hands
And it's ticking away, ticking away from me
 
A major part in the decline of fans at the race track is hugely ignored or not known to the average fan. Up until the mid 2000's corporate entities would buy entire sections of grandstand seats and bring in their best customers for a "free" weekend of racing with the tent full of food and a chance to hobnob with the drivers and car owners. The corporate executives would likewise have their own skybox. Well, as the economy declined they kept the skyboxes and dropped the grandstand seats in droves...not just one or two corporations, but several corporations at a time. This left huge blocks of unsold seats.

I witnessed it myself at Bristol. It used to be that someone had to die (literally) to get a ticket from the track itself. Their was a waiting list for years to get on their mailing list. It was like overnight that they started advertising Bristol tickets on the radio and TV, practically begging people to buy a seat. They played it off at first as, "you can finally see a race at Bristol", but it was obvious to those like myself that had worked on vendor row.

The tracks have never recovered from this.
 
bill94el said:
A major part in the decline of fans at the race track is hugely ignored or not known to the average fan. Up until the mid 2000's corporate entities would buy entire sections of grandstand seats and bring in their best customers for a "free" weekend of racing with the tent full of food and a chance to hobnob with the drivers and car owners. The corporate executives would likewise have their own skybox. Well, as the economy declined they kept the skyboxes and dropped the grandstand seats in droves...not just one or two corporations, but several corporations at a time. This left huge blocks of unsold seats.

I witnessed it myself at Bristol. It used to be that someone had to die (literally) to get a ticket from the track itself. Their was a waiting list for years to get on their mailing list. It was like overnight that they started advertising Bristol tickets on the radio and TV, practically begging people to buy a seat. They played it off at first as, "you can finally see a race at Bristol", but it was obvious to those like myself that had worked on vendor row.

The tracks have never recovered from this.
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Bruton Smith bears some of the blame for the falloff in Bristol as he monkeyed with a track that people enjoyed and turned it into something people didn't like. I attended the Bristol night race for 25 years and had a great time for most of them but toward the end it was really dull.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
Bruton Smith bears some of the blame for the falloff in Bristol as he monkeyed with a track that people enjoyed and turned it into something people didn't like. I attended the Bristol night race for 25 years and had a great time for most of them but toward the end it was really dull.
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Carrier certainly knew how to hype the race without all the fluff. I could hardly sleep the night before.
 
I wonder if big business and marketing can get past the numbers and understand what racing is really about.
 
Zerkfitting said:
I wonder if big business and marketing can get past the numbers and understand what racing is really about.
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Big business doesn't care what anything is about and when it comes to advertising they don't care if it is lawn bowling or auto racing so long as the desired audience is watching. Nascar, along with horse racing and golf has one of the worst audiences demographically.
 
Zerkfitting said:
I wonder if big business and marketing can get past the numbers and understand what racing is really about.
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It really doesn't matter. NASCAR will exist in some form or another when the TV contract runs out but it will be a shell of what it once was. It may even be more entertaining but they have to prepare for a 50-75% cut in revenue. At first, I was down in spirit going to the Dover races with half the fans NASCAR used to draw but it does make my life easier in terms of parking and track entry/exit. Bottom line: it's not my job to worry about that or to fix it. I love the racing action. That's what matters to me.
 
NJJammer said:
It really doesn't matter. NASCAR will exist in some form or another when the TV contract runs out but it will be a shell of what it once was. It may even be more entertaining but they have to prepare for a 50-75% cut in revenue. At first, I was down in spirit going to the Dover races with half the fans NASCAR used to draw but it does make my life easier in terms of parking and track entry/exit. Bottom line: it's not my job to worry about that or to fix it. I love the racing action. That's what matters to me.
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I just wish they'd dump all of the crap and just race the damn cars. The playoff format, the caution clocks, the stages are not allowing me to enjoy the racing. It pisses me off and I refuse to watch. I hope NASCAR tanks to the point that someone steps in and removes all of the cheap gimmicks.
 
BobbyFord said:
I just wish they'd dump all of the crap and just race the damn cars. The playoff format, the caution clocks, the stages are not allowing me to enjoy the racing. It pisses me off and I refuse to watch. I hope NASCAR tanks to the point that someone steps in and removes all of the cheap gimmicks.
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I have found out if I wait till the last stage to start watching,it's like a regular race.
 
BobbyFord said:
I just wish they'd dump all of the crap and just race the damn cars. The playoff format, the caution clocks, the stages are not allowing me to enjoy the racing. It pisses me off and I refuse to watch. I hope NASCAR tanks to the point that someone steps in and removes all of the cheap gimmicks.
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I'm repeating myself from a previous post, but the last healthy rule changes were pit road speed limit decades ago and HANS devices. Ever since then the changes have been borderline to very bad for drivers and fans alike. All combined, the rules changes since have transformed the entire NASCAR experience to a shell of what it once was. You went for the races and you took your family along for the excitement (sometimes ;)). Now its almost all geared towards a family experience and, oh btw there's a race. That's an exaggeration, but not far from the truth imo.
 
All these changes are chasing after a younger demographic which every major sport has a problem with.At the college football games I attend,the students section empties out at halftime.We were at a Major League Baseball game a few weeks ago,at 7th inning stretch people started leaving.I guess it's just different nowadays.
 
DSquad48 said:
Indycar averages like 200k viewers per race and they seem to be doing just fine. You may disagree.
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Irreparable damage was done to IndyCar. The past few years have been better and as good as things have been post-merger but it's still been held back in several ways due to the massive decrease in interest.
 
BobbyFord said:
I just wish they'd dump all of the crap and just race the damn cars. The playoff format, the caution clocks, the stages are not allowing me to enjoy the racing. It pisses me off and I refuse to watch. I hope NASCAR tanks to the point that someone steps in and removes all of the cheap gimmicks.
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I'll be the first person to admit that I actually believe that stages enhance the event, even though I was dead set against it. It still irks me that someone can out point the race winner though. That's my two cents.
 
NJJammer said:
I'll be the first person to admit that I actually believe that stages enhance the event, even though I was dead set against it. It still irks me that someone can out point the race winner though. That's my two cents.
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And I'll add that they don't need a caution between segments. Known timeouts limits the strategy options available to the teams - it puts them all pretty much on the same strategy .
 
FLRacingFan said:
Irreparable damage was done to IndyCar. The past few years have been better and as good as things have been post-merger but it's still been held back in several ways due to the massive decrease in interest.
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I don't believe that. That is the great thing about racing, their are many ways to cut operating costs and Indycar has done so and still have great racing. They have good racing bettered in part by less commercial presence blocking the racing on the tube. The ratings have been more than enough for it to continue. Fans can pretty much watch the whole race with their side by side during most of their commercials. I'm not a super huge open wheel fan mostly because they don't have a boys have at it anymore, but I watch when it doesn't conflict with Nascar and enjoy what they are doing.
 
StandOnIt said:
I don't believe that. That is the great thing about racing, their are many ways to cut operating costs and Indycar has done so and still have great racing. They have good racing bettered in part by less commercial presence blocking the racing on the tube. The ratings have been more than enough for it to continue. Fans can pretty much watch the whole race with their side by side during most of their commercials. I'm not a super huge open wheel fan mostly because they don't have a boys have at it anymore, but I watch when it doesn't conflict with Nascar and enjoy what they are doing.
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Open wheel viewership is still relatively small but it has been trending upward the last couple of year. I have not paid enough attention to it to understand what they did to get things going in the right direction but Nascar should see if any of what they did could help them as imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
 
StandOnIt said:
I don't believe that. That is the great thing about racing, their are many ways to cut operating costs and Indycar has done so and still have great racing. They have good racing bettered in part by less commercial presence blocking the racing on the tube. The ratings have been more than enough for it to continue. Fans can pretty much watch the whole race with their side by side during most of their commercials. I'm not a super huge open wheel fan mostly because they don't have a boys have at it anymore, but I watch when it doesn't conflict with Nascar and enjoy what they are doing.
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I agree with a lot of that but ultimately it's still been hindered in several ways. Sponsorship is a constant struggle, only two OEMs (and one chassis/aero) are involved, three teams comprise a large part of the field and owners from other series who have expressed interest haven't been able to make an entrance yet, a lot of good tracks and events were lost whether it be temporarily or permanently, the TV deal doesn't pay much...

It has survived and improved over the last few years, but thriving is a different story. And I say that as big fan who doesn't miss a race and goes to St. Pete every year.
 
that's your opinion and also a human tendency especially in the U.S. to see everything grow bigger and better or there is something wrong, we have been brainwashed since the cradle for that. Again I don't agree and that is perfectly ok. I see good racing, teams that have been racing in the series for years and years.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I agree with a lot of that but ultimately it's still been hindered in several ways. Sponsorship is a constant struggle, only two OEMs (and one chassis/aero) are involved, three teams comprise a large part of the field and owners from other series who have expressed interest haven't been able to make an entrance yet, a lot of good tracks and events were lost whether it be temporarily or permanently, the TV deal doesn't pay much...

It has survived and improved over the last few years, but thriving is a different story. And I say that as big fan who doesn't miss a race and goes to St. Pete every year.
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I agree with your sentiments as open wheel has made strides but in reality where else did they have to go? What I like about the growth is that it is small but steady and to me that means it can be sustainable. I haven't done the math but I assume if the ratings were not buoyed by the Indy 500 race viewership would be well under 1 million viewers and that is not very good.
 
StandOnIt said:
that's your opinion and also a human tendency especially in the U.S. to see everything grow bigger and better or there is something wrong, we have been brainwashed since the cradle for that. Again I don't agree and that is perfectly ok. I see good racing, teams that have been racing in the series for years and years.
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One thing to keep at the forefront is not so much how many people are watching but from what age group. I don't make up the rules so don't shoot the messenger but advertisers love the 18-34 demographic so any program rich in that age group is gold. TV programs are cancelled from network television sometimes not because they don't have enough viewers but because they don't have the right kind.
 
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