The Attendance Thread

mack said:
Here's something that perplexes me. Wrestlemania packs out venues wherever they show up. My son is watching right now. 85,000 fans have showed up? How does that happen? A staged, phony event can sell out every single seat, but NASCAR can't sell 1/5th of Bristol? What's the answer? I mean, dadgum, the racing is great. Every event this year has been very worthwhile, with the exception of Fontana. So how can anyone explain why something like wrestling can outdraw NASCAR. Could it be better entertainment? More personalities? As phony as they may be. It doesn't make sense.
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Wrestlemania is the "in thing" people follow it and go to it because that is what everybody is doing. Years ago NASCAR had the same appeal. People did not go to the race because they were race fans, but went because their friends were going and it was the "in thing" to do. Those fans have now moved on and we are back to our core fans.
 
Bristol just charges wayyyy too much for seats. I paid $90 37 rows up on the backstretch for this August and that was at the "early buy" rate. Right now if you were to buy roughly 70-80% of Bristol tickets JUST for the Cup race are over $100. There's select seats on the backstretch and up in the "oxygen tank" section AKA Wallace Tower that go for less than $100 but that's 20-30% of the track capacity...and that's a high estimate on my part.
 
DIDIT said:
Wrestlemania is the "in thing" people follow it and go to it because that is what everybody is doing. Years ago NASCAR had the same appeal. People did not go to the race because they were race fans, but went because their friends were going and it was the "in thing" to do. Those fans have now moved on and we are back to our core fans.
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I agree as all but the core fans have left and the big challenge is how to add to the current core.
 
The spring race has been rained out and re scheduled 3 times in 4 or 5 years I believe and rain was in the forecast for Sunday. Seating at 146 thousand, even at 25 to 30% occupancy although it doesn't look good, and yeah it ain't what she used to be blah blah, it isn't like the sky has fallen IMO.
 
Our tickets for Las Vegas cost us $260 US ($300+ Canadian), each. We had a good time because it was Vegas, but I can only afford that once a year at most, once you figure in travel and accommodations. Lots of empty seats there too.
 
Speedbowl14 said:
Bristol just charges wayyyy too much for seats. I paid $90 37 rows up on the backstretch for this August and that was at the "early buy" rate. Right now if you were to buy roughly 70-80% of Bristol tickets JUST for the Cup race are over $100. There's select seats on the backstretch and up in the "oxygen tank" section AKA Wallace Tower that go for less than $100 but that's 20-30% of the track capacity...and that's a high estimate on my part.
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IMO Nascar ticket prices are pretty good in relation to a lot of stick and ball.
 
Snappy D said:
I just have to ask how did we get here in regards to Bristol and how do we fix it? We have to learn what is broken before we can fix it
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Nascar not wanting to admit that Brian took them way off the track with his idea of the COT ( which is now gone) Next the original chase turned into a fiasco to include 16 cars.
IMO the worse idea was how they turned a season of racing into a mini series to get a winner.
The guy who wins Daytona doesn't have to do much for the next 25 races and he is in the championship hunt. That is all wrong and it really detracts from the quality of racing.
 
Ol Smokie said:
Our tickets for Las Vegas cost us $260 US ($300+ Canadian), each. We had a good time because it was Vegas, but I can only afford that once a year at most, once you figure in travel and accommodations. Lots of empty seats there too.
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Drove to Atlanta and can confirm, it makes no sense for hotels to charge as much money as they do.

Best way for lodging now, use Airbnb. Its considerably cheaper than ****** hotels. Airbnb gives folks the opprotunity for fans to be able to have a roof at a cheaper price. It can be an extra room of a house or maybe even a studio condominium. I can spend about 140 for the full weekend at Daytona in July.
 
Snappy D said:
I just have to ask how did we get here in regards to Bristol and how do we fix it? We have to learn what is broken before we can fix it
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I agree and that is something Nascar and the tracks have failed to do. Everyone and their brother have ideas though.
 
Kiante said:
Drove to Atlanta and can confirm, it makes no sense for hotels to charge as much money as they do.

Best way for lodging now, use Airbnb. Its considerably cheaper than ******* hotels. Airbnb gives folks the opprotunity for fans to be able to have a roof at a cheaper price. It can be an extra room of a house or maybe even a studio condominium. I can spend about 140 for the full weekend at Daytona in July.
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I'm glad that we always drag our lodging along behind us. :booya:
 
StandOnIt said:
The spring race has been rained out and re scheduled 3 times in 4 or 5 years I believe and rain was in the forecast for Sunday. Seating at 146 thousand, even at 25 to 30% occupancy although it doesn't look good, and yeah it ain't what she used to be blah blah, it isn't like the sky has fallen IMO.
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Weather has nothing to do with it as there have been at least 4 races this year with similar attendance. Martinsville had great weather and they got low to mid 30’s.
 
Kiante said:
30 to 40k is the average now in days.
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Bristol had 70k at the spring race in 2016 and that was considered bad at the time. I think that is why there is so much talk about yesterday’s low crowd.

I agree that 30-40k is normal now days but I think we will have a new normal next year and the year after if the trend continues.
 
Kiante said:
30 to 40k is the average now in days.
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I don't know if Nascar thought this would happen, but they created a group of seat counter fans that tune in to look at the bleachers.:D the figure many are saying was around 38 thousand, so that falls in with the average attendance of tracks this year excluding Daytona so far.
 
StandOnIt said:
I don't know if Nascar thought this would happen, but they created a group of seat counter fans that tune in to look at the bleachers.:D the figure many are saying was around 38 thousand, so that falls in with the average attendance of tracks this year excluding Daytona so far.
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I think it was 38k with beer goggles on. The drop in fans attending the Bristol spring race is shocking.
 
Johali said:
I'm glad that we always drag our lodging along behind us. :booya:
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But at what cost? I could not haul a trailer from here to Daytona without having it at least covering the cost of 3 rooms. Back in the early 90's we could rent a trailer in a trailer park for $500 a week
and have 3 couple share the cost. We would stay 3 weeks at $3000. a trip and watch a full week of racing, eating steaks every night and all you can drink. :headbang:
 
StandOnIt said:
shocking and beer goggles. funny.
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What wasn’t funny was the attendance yesterday. Five years ago the race had over 100k in attendance. Five years ago 7.5 million watch the race from home. What happened in 5 years to cause such precipitous drops?
 
IanMcVittie said:
I think it was 38k with beer goggles on. The drop in fans attending the Bristol spring race is shocking.
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your getting to be a real dedicated seat counter for the board here. What's up with the beer google counting? challenging yourself? :D
 
StandOnIt said:
your getting to be a real dedicated seat counter for the board here. What's up with the beer google counting? challenging yourself? :D
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I just think that dropping from over 100k 5 years ago and 70k 3 years ago and half of that yesterday is absolutely shocking don’t you? That sort of loss in that short a time period is unprecedented. It sure ain’t pretty is it?
 
Team Penske said:
Nascar not wanting to admit that Brian took them way off the track with his idea of the COT ( which is now gone) Next the original chase turned into a fiasco to include 16 cars.
IMO the worse idea was how they turned a season of racing into a mini series to get a winner.
The guy who wins Daytona doesn't have to do much for the next 25 races and he is in the championship hunt. That is all wrong and it really detracts from the quality of racing.
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Shhhh, the NASCAR excuse club will be in to tell you that the racing is more exciting/competitive/whatever now than it ever was in the history of the sport. Funny how the ratings and attendance seem to indicate that fans have been searching for something and it ain’t what has been on the track. Course, they might bring up that the weather was bad at Bristol for the last three years and that made the other 100,000 fans that used to go to the race stay at home. :)
 
Towmater said:
Shhhh, the NASCAR excuse club will be in to tell you that the racing is more exciting/competitive/whatever now than it ever was in the history of the sport. Funny how the ratings and attendance seem to indicate that fans have been searching for something and it ain’t what has been on the track. Course, they might bring up that the weather was bad at Bristol for the last three years and that made the other 100,000 fans that used to go to the race stay at home. :)
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I believe a person could predict the weather or just about anything else using ratings and attendance.
 
Team Penske said:
Nascar not wanting to admit that Brian took them way off the track with his idea of the COT ( which is now gone) Next the original chase turned into a fiasco to include 16 cars.
IMO the worse idea was how they turned a season of racing into a mini series to get a winner.
The guy who wins Daytona doesn't have to do much for the next 25 races and he is in the championship hunt. That is all wrong and it really detracts from the quality of racing.
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I'm not sure why you received an incoherent response about Bristol attendance to your post about effects of the playoffs format.

I agree that the playoffs and continual mad tinkering with it were mistakes that drove some fans away and didn't lure many new ones.
 
furredracer88 said:
Soooo why was the attendance at Bristol so low? Was it the weather?
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It is all about perceived value and Nascar does not offer enough of it in order to draw big crowds at the track for most races. Same thing for viewers at home.

In my case Scotty could appear before me and offer to beam me to any track free of charge and I would decline as it doesn’t offer me any value.
 
Team Penske said:
Nascar not wanting to admit that Brian took them way off the track with his idea of the COT ( which is now gone) Next the original chase turned into a fiasco to include 16 cars.
IMO the worse idea was how they turned a season of racing into a mini series to get a winner.
The guy who wins Daytona doesn't have to do much for the next 25 races and he is in the championship hunt. That is all wrong and it really detracts from the quality of racing.
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This. In the old system every race was a playoff race, now it just isn’t my cup of tea. I seriously wonder what would happen if they scrapped this system and went back to a version of the Winston Cup points weighted more towards wins as well as bonus points for most laps led, fastest lap of the race and points for pole position. Would fans come back? Did most old school fans die off from 03 till now? The Chase and Playoffs while designed to bring in new fans, hasn’t worked. It drove off the old ones and didn’t bring in enough new fans. It’s a question worth asking IMO
 
Snappy D said:
This. In the old system every race was a playoff race, now it just isn’t my cup of tea. I seriously wonder what would happen if they scrapped this system and went back to a version of the Winston Cup points weighted more towards wins as well as bonus points for most laps led, fastest lap of the race and points for pole position. Would fans come back? Did most old school fans die off from 03 till now? The Chase and Playoffs while designed to bring in new fans, hasn’t worked. It drove off the old ones and didn’t bring in enough new fans. It’s a question worth asking IMO
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Yes it is. However sometimes you can not right the wrongs of your actions. For example once Nascar has chased off a fan and they have made changes to their life to include other forms of entertainment whether personal or family, your not going to get them back.
Nascar needs to rebuild the brand from the beginning and putting multiple band-aids on every year will NOT draw new fans. They never leave things alone long enough to see what works.

I think they have to start over and build a new series (maybe with the 2021 season and cars)
BUT do their do diligent before rolling it out. Take the things the fans want and build around that and forget their present method of cramming down peoples throats what they want.
 
I didn't get a chance to watch the race this past weekend but I did read an article on the attendance. In the article was a pic of the seating layout showing people only on the front and back stretches for the Cup race, I think. I looked at that picture thinking, wow there was a time that I was on a waiting list for years to get my season tickets to that track. Crazy how times have changed. Sad how times have changed.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
I didn't get a chance to watch the race this past weekend but I did read an article on the attendance. In the article was a pic of the seating layout showing people only on the front and back stretches for the Cup race, I think. I looked at that picture thinking, wow there was a time that I was on a waiting list for years to get my season tickets to that track. Crazy how times have changed. Sad how times have changed.
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It was a very entertaining race too which makes it even more of a shame.
 
Team Penske said:
Yes it is. However sometimes you can not right the wrongs of your actions. For example once Nascar has chased off a fan and they have made changes to their life to include other forms of entertainment whether personal or family, your not going to get them back.
Nascar needs to rebuild the brand from the beginning and putting multiple band-aids on every year will NOT draw new fans. They never leave things alone long enough to see what works.

I think they have to start over and build a new series (maybe with the 2021 season and cars)
BUT do their do diligent before rolling it out. Take the things the fans want and build around that and forget their present method of cramming down peoples throats what they want.
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I know I am beating a dead horse, but I do not know any NASCAR fans that ran off because of the changes. We don't like some and we complain, but we are still fans. There are many people I know that no longer watch or attend races, but they were not what I consider a fan. If all of a sudden NASCAR was the in thing, they would be right back following... on occasion.
 
DIDIT said:
I know I am beating a dead horse, but I do not know any NASCAR fans that ran off because of the changes. We don't like some and we complain, but we are still fans. There are many people I know that no longer watch or attend races, but they were not what I consider a fan. If all of a sudden NASCAR was the in thing, they would be right back following... on occasion.
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Disco crowd, where are they now?
 
My dad was a die hard Jeff Burton fan. He never missed a race on TV from the mid 90s till Jeff retired. At the end of 2013, he was done watching every week and I've only gotten him to 2 races since then. We used to hit 2 or 3 a year together. Even though Burton is still on TV, it has no impact on him watching, however, he does occasionally watch truck races to see Harrison race. Imagine all the Dale Jr and Jeff Gordon fans who are the same way.
 
DIDIT said:
I know I am beating a dead horse, but I do not know any NASCAR fans that ran off because of the changes. We don't like some and we complain, but we are still fans. There are many people I know that no longer watch or attend races, but they were not what I consider a fan. If all of a sudden NASCAR was the in thing, they would be right back following... on occasion.
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I know quite a few that left because of the changes.
 
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