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I emailed Nascar back around 2006 and told them they were headed down the wrong path and were going to ruin the sport. I told them they were going to kill attendance and lose TV viewership. I received a corporate form response thanking me for my thoughts blah, blah, blah. I could give them advice and turn them back around but they wouldn't take it and now I am just plain mad and they would have to pay me for my services so that will never happen. If they don't get someone in there soon to correct the course, they are going to go the way of other auto racing formats and become completely irrelevant.
What did you expect their response to be. SGOTI emails them and tells them how to fix the sport when they were making billions? Seriously?
What did you expect their response to be. SGOTI emails them and tells them how to fix the sport when they were making billions? Seriously?
I didn't really expect a positive response. However, now I can say I told them so. lol
Now that they have ran off a significant portion of their original, long time, die hard fan base, they are really seeing the declines. Give them a few more years when it gets even more difficult to attract sponsors and race teams start collapsing and they have trouble even fielding enough cars for some of the events. I believe they are already at that point now and still haven't made any corrections. They may not care what some random guy emailed them a few years ago but at some point they will care what we collectively do not like and what we want.
I didn't really expect a positive response. However, now I can say I told them so. lol
Now that they have ran off a significant portion of their original, long time, die hard fan base, they are really seeing the declines. Give them a few more years when it gets even more difficult to attract sponsors and race teams start collapsing and they have trouble even fielding enough cars for some of the events. I believe they are already at that point now and still haven't made any corrections. They may not care what some random guy emailed them a few years ago but at some point they will care what we collectively do not like and what we want.
Well, they already can't fill the fields, which is why the field size has shrunk over the past few years.
But, we've covered this in the various yearly topics here. They still have plenty of room to contract. Both field size and race dates.
If they contracted down to running 20 events a year.. That will drive viewership and attendance up, because you're creating a lack of supply.
If they contract down to a 30 car field.. Hopefully, at that point, you have 30 cars capable of winning every week.
So.. there's advantages to the forced contraction. Visually, that looks bad, but overall would probably be a good thing.
It also opens up possibilities.. Of running places that they don't run now. Iowa would be a great place for a Cup race, but they're not going to expand to be one of 36. They might if the situation changed.
Well, they already can't fill the fields, which is why the field size has shrunk over the past few years.
But, we've covered this in the various yearly topics here. They still have plenty of room to contract. Both field size and race dates.
If they contracted down to running 20 events a year.. That will drive viewership and attendance up, because you're creating a lack of supply.
If they contract down to a 30 car field.. Hopefully, at that point, you have 30 cars capable of winning every week.
So.. there's advantages to the forced contraction. Visually, that looks bad, but overall would probably be a good thing.
It also opens up possibilities.. Of running places that they don't run now. Iowa would be a great place for a Cup race, but they're not going to expand to be one of 36. They might if the situation changed.
Dropping number of races isn't going to solve the problem. The problem is the product itself and they need to fix that rather than doing the stupid corporate downsizing sort of thing. It is sort of like Sears or Kmart has closed stores and downsized to "become more efficient and competitive in the marketplace." It doesn't matter how much you downsize and close locations near each other if you still suck at what you do.
I don't know that less cars on the track is a good thing either. Twenty definitely is not enough. A blown engine or two, tire or two blow out and knock a fender off here and there and then a wreck or two and you would find yourself watching 6 or 8 cars actually competitively in the race and 8 or 10 riding in circles making laps. That sounds more boring than the piece of crap races they are putting on now.
The actual solution to their problems and the route to bring back attendance and viewership is pretty simple really but I'm not going to tell them how to do it now. At least not without being hired as a paid consultant and getting a cut of the returns. They can finish running it in the ground for all I care as I have lost all interest in the sport or at least until they change in the right direction.
the actual solution to their problems and the route to bring back attendance and viewership is pretty simple really but i'm not going to tell them how to do it now. At least not without being hired as a paid consultant and getting a cut of the returns. They can finish running it in the ground for all i care as i have lost all interest in the sport or at least until they change in the right direction.
We have been beating this drum pretty loudly the last few years at different times. I don't have any answers..........other than our generation is getting older and finding other things to do or watch.
While not the same, Harley Davidson was much like NASCAR. It saw a pretty dramatic rise in sales and forced it's dealers to modernize and build huge showrooms.
Sales were great just like NASCARS attendance was, then the elephant in the room, the greying of the Baby Boomers seemed to be the reason that Harley Davidson and NASCAR hit a peak and it could not figure out for the life of them how to rejuvenate a decaying sport or a motorcycle line that todays youth don't have an interest in.
Maybe a poor analogy but both business models relied to much on a certain demographic.
NASCAR needs to swallow its pride and pay an independent focus group outside NASCAR to figure out the best course of action.
With todays social media, the data to mine is out there.
part of the problem in nascar is the spec bodies. there is no competition among the manufacturers anymore to see who can create the best nascar body. lets go back to real stock bodies again, even the silhouette bodies of the mid 80s would work.
a second big problem is the limited number of manufacturers competing in the series. back in the 70s and 80s, all of GMs divisions, except cadillac, who built cars large enough to compete were represented. ford and mercury also were represented until the 80s, and dodge and plymouth were also in the mix. today it is ford, chevy and toyota. we need more than just those three. get mercedes, nissan, honda, kia, and any other manufacturer that sells cars of the proper size in this country involved as well.
and lets stop using the big old push rod V8 engines of yesteryear, and go with more modern V6 based engines, and five speed transmissions.
and lets take away the aerodynamics as a major factor in handling. make the drivers actually drive the cars again through the corners at speed, even at daytona and talledega and michigan. give them smaller spoilers front and rear, say 2 1/2" at the rear and 2" in front.
and if you want to slow the cars down at the biggest tracks, then use a gear rule instead of restrictor plates. make the teams use something like a 5.14 rear gear to limit the tops speeds of the cars.
I think as far fetched as it seems, that unless NASCAR turns itself back into a bumper car, crash them up type of race you are not going to be able hold these younger generations attention.
They can sit and watch a drift competition all day and be perfectly happy, not watching cars go around and around to them.
As far as automakers go the big seller now is luxury trucks and SUV's. I don't think you are going to get to many in the auto industry jumping in.
In the sixties and early seventies what you saw racing you could pretty much walk into a dealership and order. There was the mystique.
The wound is open and bleeding, it is up to NASCAR to stem the loss of blood, and if they keep waiting there is going to be no blood left to lose.
I firmly believe there aren't enough interested younger folks entering the sport as fans. If that happens NASCAR is going to continue the decay!
We didn't get to scoop our own news! Thanks for 22+ great years. Today is the final day for http://Jayski.com . We appreciate all your support. It's been an honor to work for ESPN. We aren't sure what's next for us (Jay, Scott -@SLPAGE and, Amanda) but stay tuned.
Now where do we go for up to the moment NASCAR Info? Racer was on it last week, but will they continue?
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