Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/chiappelli-sprints-need-live-tv/

I'm with Jim. If I know the results already. I'm not watching. Not worth it with all the things you can find out as it's happening or immediately after. It's the same with football. If I go on the internet and find out Peyton Manning threw a 30 yrd T.D. to win the game. I'm not going back to TiVo to watch. I'll watch sportscenter for a highlight if I'm that interested in it. Which for a sponsor.... is a pain in the butt knowing that most people are thinking the same thing or skipping through commercials. I watched the PPV chilli bowl the one year with a group of friends... It was a good time and it was happening right then. All the suspense is right then and now. Not as fun watching or important to find out how things happened when you know the outcome. Since the live event has went away I come on here and look at the results and haven't watched the tape delayed show of the last two chilli bowls. I think that is why live is so important. I know I can't be the only one that thinks and sees it this way.

That is a good read and I do agree. While there are compaints of "waiting for tv to get through commercials before we can race and I just have to sit there," it happens in regular sporting events as well.

I thought what VS did a couple of years ago when they had an hour long show with the WoO, showing complete heats, dashes and features was perfect. Taped delayed? Yes but I got to see the whole show and record them for my keeping. But today it seems "We have tv broadcast" and a month later you get a 30 minute condensed program with highlights and interviews with not much actual racing. I am talking about the Lucas Oil late model series and their shows on tv.

While sprint car racing on LIVE tv may have its drawbacks, I too feel it is a must because as those drivers mentioned, that is what sponsors want and to keep them, that is what must happen. NASCAR as we know it is falling on hard times and if sprint car racing can pick up some of those sponsors, at nowhere near the cost to do NASCAR, it should prove beneficial to sprint car racing and the teams. For one million dollars a company spends on advertising with NASCAR, probably $100,000 could get you the same exposure and the sprint car racing fan base and sponsor support is genuine and real.

Again that was a good read and it makes one wonder what is on the horizon for sprint car racing, live TV and/or live internet broadcasts - such as what racecastlive was able to bring.

David Smith Jr.
www.oklahomatidbits.com

I'm all for "Live broadcasting" of sprint events. But; as was stated in the article "Another argument against live TV is that if fans know they can watch a race on television, they will not show up in-person, thus hurting ticket sales." And that argument is valid.

Sure, you have the die-hards who will pretty much attend the Nationals no matter what, but the die-hards are getting older and there's fewer of them each year. Why do you think the attendance is dropping yearly? What's needed is to get new people interested, the 'non-traditional' fan who don't even know that they love the sport.

Will live TV do that? Doubtful. As racexr said the younger generation doesn't know anything exists outside of what they see on the internet. Facebook, Youtube, etc. are where they spend their time; not watching TV. Unless someone drags their happy hiney out to a track, they'll never EVER be exposed to sprint car racing.

Live TV is great for us 'more mature' fans because that way we can sit at home, out of the sun, wearing nothing but our underwear and see it all. Yes, I'd rather go to the race, but the only way that I get to see the Nationals is on TV since I work every Saturday that it doesn't rain. I catch it on DVR the next day, even though I know who won I still want to SEE it.

But we aren't the target audience, the younger people and those who've never been to a sprint car race are. We need to stop thinking about what's good for us and more about what's good for the sport. And putting sprint car racing on TV is going to hurt the venue the race is being held at, plain and simple. Sure, it will allow people from around the country to see a race from Tulare, Eagle, Eldora or whereever, but how does that put money into the promoter's pocket?? It's hard enough to keep a dirt track going without enticing more people to not show up.

Maybe the networks will fork over say $100,000 to the track that they're broadcasting from to cover the owner's/promoter's losses.

YEAH!!! Like THAT's gonna happen.

If you want to grow the sport, take 2 people to the track each weekend that have never been. Then have them take 2 people, and so on and so on. Then you'll be growing the sport.

I am lucky enough to work at one of the best tracks 
anywhere.

My idea is that NASCAR has reached its highest level of popularity and sponsors are not as previlant as they use to be. I heard over one million for sponsors. Well for $100,000 you could get those sponsors over to sprint car racing (or late model racing) to purchase tv ads and I feel would be more in line with their budget. NASCAR only has selected tracks around the country while sprint car (and late model) racing is coast to coast every Friday, Saturday or Sunday night. Those advertisers need to realize while there are more people that attend the races and probably that watch on the television, the dirt track community is live and well and more apt to support those companies that support our style of racing.

Somebody with hard fact numbers could present this to them. NASCAR wasn't always this popular and look how it grew.

And Eagle you are so right, people need to bring a newbie with them but it also would help if couples with children frequent the races so the generations of families who attend our style of racing will continue to be there.

Again, I just think that if somebody took the time and gave the facts (numbers) to potential sponsors that we could get some of those from NASCAR down to dirt track racing at a fraction of costs to them. I would love to see a Godaddy girl at a dirt track near me any day of the week.

David Smith Jr.
www.oklahomatidbits.com

I think it is pivotal to the sport that certain races be shown live, such as the Kings Royal, The Gold Cup, The Silver Cup, The Summer Nationals, The Knoxville Nationals and The World Finals. These are big events in 410 winged sprint car racing, and there are many viewers that can not attend these events across the country. If they tape delay these races many fans will not watch because they already know the outcome, and sprint racing needs to have the highest ratings possible to attract sponsors.

The most shocking thing to be about this article is that The 50th Knoxville Nationals will be tape delayed. I think this is ludicrous! This is the biggest 410 sprint car race in the history of the sport and it will no be shown live. It's time the WoO and Knoxville have a shake up because they have both become very stagnate and set in their ways.

Knoxville (to my understanding) counts on the Nationals to carry the track for the year. They've been seeing a steady decline in attendees, and moreso since they started televising the finale.

They most likely see live TV as one of the largest contributing factors to their loss of fans. If they don't make enough money to stay afloat, there won't BE a Nationals...live or tape delayed.

I am lucky enough to work at one of the best tracks 
anywhere.

Want to know why Knoxville isn't being shown live? It's pretty simple really. People were traveling to K'ville and watching Wednesday and Thursday live in the grandstand, driving back home on Friday and then watching Saturday night in front of the TV.

IMO, doing away with the Live TV is good for Knoxville, (don't know about the WoO yet, as they only have 2-3 live shows per year, and with the exception of Williams Grove, have the standard Outlaw payout so the promoter doesn't have to sell out to make a ton of $$$ ($30 x 14,000 @ Lowe's = $420,000 in ticket revenue for $54,000 purse, that's a good ratio.

Knoxville, $44 Saturday night ticket (average since they have 3 tier ticket pricing) x 25,000 (if sold out) = $1,100,000 with Saturday purse of $670,250 (not near the ratio of profit (and that's if they sell out).

Due to purse structure, Knoxville has less margin, reduce the # of butts in teh seats to 15,000 and the ticket revenue = $660,000 vs the purse of $670,250 (the track is actually taking a loss in this scenario before the electric bill, water bill, security, employees, etc.). Better sell a ton of beer and concessions and hope to make up the $$.

Lowe's can have 7000 in attendance (50% capacity) x $30 ticket and they still gross $210,000, with the same $54000 purse structure.

Basically, Lowe's has more room for attendance to drop before financially they think TV is hurting them. IMO, Knoxville reacted too late, Live TV should have been gone 5-6 years ago as the last time there was a real "demand for tickets" was in 2000 or so before they added on the skyboxes on teh frontstretch. Once they quit selling out Saturday night in advance, they should have went to tape delay.

Just my $.02

Please don't take this the wrong way, but if your more concerned about Live TV for the big events like the Kings Royal, The Gold Cup, The Silver Cup, the Summer Nationals and the Knoxville Nationals than you are about the lack of people in the grandstand I have this question for you.

Do you attend any of these events? If not, you are part of the problem, not the solution. For the tracks, sanctioning bodies, and the network (or networks) to think that these events should be televised, they need to sell out and have a demand for tickets, not a demand for Live TV with views of empty seats...

Just my $.02

i have heard the argument before about people leaving the nats to watch on tv sat. my question is just how mant people actually do that? i also say that if they have been there all week and leave on the final day, they are not that big of fans. also the track has got their money out of them already, so what is the difference. i don't think the fact that the nats may be on live on sat have really made that much difference in the past few years regarding attendence. economic reasons coupled with the fact that k-ville has gotten less fan friendly and more money hungry have been more to do with anything in my opinion. prices just keep going up and up and up for everything from hotels to tickets to merchandise etc. the cops are doing everything they can to find ways to fine the teams and the fans for infractions that they keep implementing rules and regulations for more and more. you put all that together and add in travel costs for gas or plane tickets and such and it has just become less fun to be there. especially when they already have the check made out to schatz! lol. i don't think that the fact that the race is on live is a deciding factor for most people to attend or not. you can always tivo or some how record the race even if you are there and watch it when you get home to see what you might not have seen and hear what the commentators might have said if that stuff is interesting to you. i find that when i am there and in the infield, i get one perspective and when i watch it later i get another. i end up with the best of both worlds. the argument of leaving the last day, after you have already spent the week there and paid to get there and everything is just ludacris. if you want to save some money then miss the first day. as far as your price to profit structure that you have listed, it is somewhere around $100,000 cost to a track for a one day woo show. now for a muliple day show i don't know if woks out to be less per day or not.

Good points being made by everyone. This is exactly the type of discussion we should see more of on forums.

Now for my 2 cents worth.

I grew up near Knoxville and started attending races there in the early '50's. After a long absence while my kids were growing up and playing multiple summer sports, I finally started going to the Nationals (and occasional weekly shows) about 12 years ago (It's a 300 mile drive for me now.)

I think for live action broadcasting, the web will be the venue of choice, particularly if the track can share in the revenues. I have not yet made the investment to pay for view, but I have listened to the Knoxville weekly broadcasts on occasion.

From what I understand, K' ville (and others) essentially contract to have the broadcast done, buy the time from Speed or Versus, and then sell some or all of the advertising time to (hopefully) recover costs and make some profit. If that is true, then rainout one year can take years to recover, while at the same time reducing track attendance. There is no incentive for a promoter to go for TV because there is a marginal payback, if any, over time. And lets face it, the promoter rules in this situation. He has to be able to make a few bucks, or he will not put on the show. Personally, I have taped the broadcast even though I was in attendance just so I can go back and relive some of the action, and get a different look at it. In that case, tape delay does not make any difference. Tape delay still puts the sponsors in front of an audience and significantly more than if there was no coverage. Some how, the industry needs to be able to incorporate viewing opportunities from webcasts when pitching sponsorship opportunities. Would racecastlive and dirtnation share viewership numbers with teams?

By the way, my former employer is a Nascar sponsor. The last I heard (about three years ago) was that our whole Nascar marketing program (including sponsorship, customer events, etc.) was north of ten million annually. I think they may have cut back a little since then, but it still has to be in that ball park.

I, personally, would LOVE to attend those events. However, I only made the Nationals on Saturday nights in the late 90's and then took vacation covering the NCRA/All Star tour. Finances don't allow me to make that trip nor trips to other big shows that far away from OKC. If it was in a four to five hour radius, hell yes I would be their to support it. However I am not so seeing it live would be good and when I am not home that is what recording is for. It is easy to say that "your part of the problem" not attending when your close to the venue.

David Smith Jr.
www.oklahomatidbits.com

Baseball teams were hesitant to allow live TV broadcasts of games in the 1940s because they were afraid of the same thing: fans would stay home rather than come out to see games. Obviously, that didn't turn out to kill baseball.

Live television provides an avenue to bring new fans into the sport. More people probably became exposed to sprint car racing in the 1980s because of the live racing on ESPN than going to any track in person. If you see it on TV and enjoy it, you're much more likely to decide to attend a race in person.

If an event it tape-delayed the next day, I think that's slightly less of a problem: I can avoid the Internet for a night if the Nationals are going to be shown at noon on Sunday. But a week delay basically sucks all the reason to watch out of the race for hardcore fans who will already know the outcome and why certain things happened.

National Sprint Car & Midget Examiner
http://tinyurl.com/r4opgk

If they are worried about the attendence at the race they should do the same thing as NFL, black out the race in the area of the race untill it is sold out

I will never believe the argument that crowds are down because of live television. Last year's National Open had as large a crowd as I have ever seen for any race at Williams Grove -- bigger than the crowds for non-televised National Opens just a few years earlier. Just as a fan, the atmosphere at the Nationals doesn't seem to be anything close to what it was 15-20 years ago.The field is down by 50-60 cars from what the overall car count was in the 1990s. This is not a shot at the Nationals, but saying the crowd is down because of live television seems to be ignoring some other rather obvious reasons.

I'd blame the Knoxville and County cops' borderline gestapo tactics for the decrease in attendance as much as live TV and the economy. It's not like it used to be at the Nationals.

Phil Taylor

home-theater-systems-advice.com

I've said this before on other threads including one recently and I'll say it again. Sprint car racing will never go over on TV. I've heard many people say that we have to get it going on TV if sprint car racing will take it to the next level. Sprint car racing will never take it to the next level and it will never go over in a big way on TV no matter what anyone does. The reason should be obvious to anyone. Only us diehard sprint car fans will watch it. Noone who isn't already a racing fan will watch it. This leads to another question, would someone become a racing fan by seeing one of these telecasts on TV? Obviously not! You don't get the sensation of speed on TV nor any of the atmosphere that exists at a big race. You have to go to the track to experience it. Sorry to bust anyone's bubble, but sprint car racing on TV is never going to be a big thing.

Seth, good points, but to me the differences are that the events you mention are controlled by a central governing body whereas sprint car racing is basically controlled by individual promoters and tracks. With some changes in the operating model, WOO or ASCS could probably do something like you describe, but so long as they essentially sell their drivers services for one night at a time and let someone else take all the financial risk, it's not going to happen.

Also, the financial investment to televise a track race must be significantly greater than the events you speak of. Adequate track lighting is certainly one of those factors (Musco isn't cheap and most tracks do not have adequate lighting in place for TV coverage live or delayed.) Weather is a wild card. How many races on the WOO circuit were postponed/cancelled last year due to rain? That would result in significant up front expense with no recovery.

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to see progress along the lines that you suggest but I don't know if anyone has the muscle to pull it off at this point. A made for TV event could be the catalyst.

Haven't seen any rantings about WRG's financial situation in quite a while. Maybe their situation has improved to the point where they might consider adding a weekly highlight/recap show with at least half of it devoted to their sprint cars. They travel with so many people and equipment now, that a few light towers and cameras stands could probably be managed. I could see adding a race to every program with just the commited regular drivers with a separate purse and point fund to be featured in the TV program. Having just the same 10-12 or whatever drivers in a separate race every week on
TV could start to generate the type of fan response you speak of.