Dreamcast18
02-17-2008, 03:10 AM
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida — All 168,000 grandstand seats at Daytona International Speedway were sold out for the Daytona 500, and tens of thousands more will pour into the enormous infield within the 2.5-mile oval for the 50th anniversary of the Daytona 500 on Sunday, February 17. Yet as satisfied as NASCAR deserves to be about this recognition of the success that stock car racing is enjoying, it still has good reason to be concerned about the future.
Last year, fewer than half of the 36 races in the Cup schedule were sellouts. California Speedway, which NASCAR has targeted as the centerpiece of its plan for nationwide acceptance of stock-car racing as mainstream entertainment, continues to have difficulty filling its 92,000 grandstand seats for its two Cup races. And even the Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway — which has become the sport's most popular race since 1994 — has had a couple of off years in a row.
The shrinkage extends to NASCAR's television ratings. Ever since NASCAR signed an eight-year deal with four networks in 2005 for $4.48 billion, media analysts have been watching NASCAR's viewership ratings with increasing skepticism. Last year's ratings were down about 9 percent compared to 2006, and down 21 percent from 2005.
The slide has Humpy Wheeler, the long-time executive at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina, very concerned about NASCAR's future. He has long expressed his dismay at escalating seat prices for fans (usually packaged as financially onerous "seat licenses"), as well as travel and accommodation costs. During NASCAR's annual tour of various stock-car enterprises in the Southeast for the media, Wheeler said, "Ticket sales are flat or they are below and (television) ratings are down and it's not because we have 300 channels. It's because we need to get back to our roots. We need to make this Car of Today work, and whatever NASCAR's got to do to get us back to racing and where we're putting black donuts on the sides of cars and not making felony offenses out of them. That's what we need to do."
Yet NASCAR can take solace in the fact that this is the kind of analysis that's accorded successful mainstream sports, which suggests it has attained its goal. The sport has achieved success because it embraced commercial values, and so it has set itself to follow the trends in both entertainment and the general economy. And so it's subject to the general decline in overall television ratings and resistance to the increasing fan costs just like any other sport.
The one thing that everyone agrees upon — both NASCAR and the inevitable second-guessers — is the need to ensure that the racing is good. NASCAR might be entertaining, but it's unique because it's a real sport, not just entertainment.
What this means to you: The demographics of NASCAR's fan base means less spending during a troubled economy, and it's also foolish to expect a continued double-digit growth in the sport in any case. After all, even single-digit growth is pretty good these days
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=124818
Last year, fewer than half of the 36 races in the Cup schedule were sellouts. California Speedway, which NASCAR has targeted as the centerpiece of its plan for nationwide acceptance of stock-car racing as mainstream entertainment, continues to have difficulty filling its 92,000 grandstand seats for its two Cup races. And even the Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway — which has become the sport's most popular race since 1994 — has had a couple of off years in a row.
The shrinkage extends to NASCAR's television ratings. Ever since NASCAR signed an eight-year deal with four networks in 2005 for $4.48 billion, media analysts have been watching NASCAR's viewership ratings with increasing skepticism. Last year's ratings were down about 9 percent compared to 2006, and down 21 percent from 2005.
The slide has Humpy Wheeler, the long-time executive at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina, very concerned about NASCAR's future. He has long expressed his dismay at escalating seat prices for fans (usually packaged as financially onerous "seat licenses"), as well as travel and accommodation costs. During NASCAR's annual tour of various stock-car enterprises in the Southeast for the media, Wheeler said, "Ticket sales are flat or they are below and (television) ratings are down and it's not because we have 300 channels. It's because we need to get back to our roots. We need to make this Car of Today work, and whatever NASCAR's got to do to get us back to racing and where we're putting black donuts on the sides of cars and not making felony offenses out of them. That's what we need to do."
Yet NASCAR can take solace in the fact that this is the kind of analysis that's accorded successful mainstream sports, which suggests it has attained its goal. The sport has achieved success because it embraced commercial values, and so it has set itself to follow the trends in both entertainment and the general economy. And so it's subject to the general decline in overall television ratings and resistance to the increasing fan costs just like any other sport.
The one thing that everyone agrees upon — both NASCAR and the inevitable second-guessers — is the need to ensure that the racing is good. NASCAR might be entertaining, but it's unique because it's a real sport, not just entertainment.
What this means to you: The demographics of NASCAR's fan base means less spending during a troubled economy, and it's also foolish to expect a continued double-digit growth in the sport in any case. After all, even single-digit growth is pretty good these days
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=124818