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

Are we in another golden age of sprint cars? It seems that where ever the WOO travels the place is packed, plus with how many drivers are on the tour this year, it seems like at least the traveling series, and not just the WOO is in a good place.

With that said, can the WOO get any bigger right now? So many people can now see a world of outlaw race across the country every single race night, sponsors can see their drivers race every single race night, and then go watch them in person when they're close to their home. 

What would happen if every race paid $20k to win and we had multiple $100k to win races? 

Can the WOO get any bigger than it currently is right now? 

Keep It Real

I believe the WoO is in as good a place as it's ever been.  As you stated, packed stands.  Great full-time car count.  A great field of competitive cars----I know many don't think so, but when it comes to the number of cars with the ability to win any night, it's as good (or better) as it's ever been.  

My count so far:  

35 races

10 different winners

6 drivers with multiple wins

5 drivers with 3 or more wins

Also, I don't see every race paying $20,000.  With full stands and full A-mains, I don't see significant purse increases anytime soon. 

When it comes to anything really, and maybe especially auto racing, exposure is the key to success. For example, what DirtVision is doing. The Fast Pass that they now offer might very well be what takes the WoO to the next level, that everyone has talked about for so many years. I have no idea what the subscription numbers are currenty at, but should the numbers grow large enough that non motorsports companies see the benefit of advertising during the DirtVision broadcasts, many things become possible. And with the normal down time associated with a sprint car race, there is plenty of time for additional video entertainment based on sprint cars to fill the dead space during a broadcast, and then advertising isn't such a turn off. Beats watching track prep for example.

Very true

Not just the Outlaws, the All-stars too. Every all star race or picture I’ve seen from an all-star race the stands have been full and they get tons of cars. 

The touring series are in really good shape. The WoO have been doing things the right way for a long time and keep fans coming back. The All Stars are in a real upswing with the quality of the touring drivers and have a lot of support as well. 

I’m  worried about the local 410 racing though. Knoxville with 18 cars last week, Williams Grove with poor regular show crowds, the west coast and south being pretty much 410-free, I’m less bullish on 410s overall than I am with the Outlaws.

It looks like my opinion is in the minority here, but I think they could do more.  Why is it I can not see a live sprint car race (or any race at all) on cable TV anywhere?  Don't get me wrong, I really do apreciate what dirtvision is doing but how does their model help attract new fans?  As race tracks continue to close, car counts at local tracks continue to drop and the majority of fans continue to get older, what is the state of the WOO in 20 years?  Especially when local sprint car racing has dried up in many parts of the country and the only way to see the top-tier profesional series is to pay for it.  Also I have never seen any WOO advertising on TV or any other website outside of here.  How do you attract new fans?  Word of mouth?

Years ago (mid to late 90s) I heard a rumor (which was obviously false) that NASCAR had bought the WOO and every NASCAR track was going to build a dirt track and at every NASCAR race there was going to be a WOO race on Friday night, and that would be the only races the WOO would have.  I was disapointed when I heard that rumor because they wouldn't race anywhere close to me anymore.  But if that had been the case I would have seen a lot more races than I do now.  

Antoher question I have always wondered is with many people ditching cable for an antenna why do the major networks not want more new or live programming?  I've always found it funny that when the NASCAR race is on FS1, Fox will have reruns or some other stupid shows on that I'm pretty sure nobody is watching.  Who wins with this?  During the summer months why wouldn't Fox want to have some live racing on a week night?  Lord knows outside of NASCAR or the NFL, Fox doesn't have much to offer.

Short answer: Times have changed.

Longer answer but still way to short to get too involved: To get on cable or satellite networks is expensive and possibly not a money maker. The PPV seems to be a lot more profitable for a niche market such as sprints. Let's face it, probably 90 percent of Americans don't care for sprint cars and maybe 5 percent or less would watch. so I think the WoO is doing exactly what they should be as far as Tv is concerned. I still don't get PPV due to usually attending 2-3 races a week. It simply doesn't make sense and I believe the local tracks need my money now more than ever. 

Thank goodness that NASCAR rumor never came true. Look at who is trending up and who is trending down. 

20 years in the future is too far out to predict but altering your future starts today. Get kids families and sponsors into the sport on a local level otherwise it will dry up locally and end up being the demise of he traveling series.

I agree with getting on cable or satelite being very expensive.  And at this point it's probably not a money maker.  And I do agree with you that PPV is probably more profitable at this time.  I agree with all of that but my question is, what does it do to the long term health of the sport?  Another gripe I had was not with the WOO but with the networks.  With nothing but reruns being on, I can't think of one can't miss show that's on right now, why wouldn't they cut someone like the WOO a break during the summer and broadcast a summer weeknight race?  Aren't some viewers better than none (or signifigantly less)?

I agree that 90% of Americans aren't into sprint car racing, but does that mean they should just give up on getting exposure?  If I was a sponsor I would have a tough time sponoring the WOO because of the limited exposure.

I initially thought the same thing about the NASCAR rumor never coming true but the more I think about it, I'm not so sure.  As long as there wasn't the restrictions on where and when the racers could race, I think it could have worked out real nice.  Lets face it, there's a ton of traveling sprint car series' going on right now.  Maybe the All Stars or any other series would have stepped up to be like the current WOO as long as there was no restrictions on letting Donny Schatz race a Tuesday night wherever at another race, I think the whole format could have worked nice.

Maybe 20 years in the future is to far out to worry about or predict but I think it's worth thinking about.

The 90% figure is way off. NFL regular season games only average about 15 million viewers. That's 5% of the population. Most NASCAR races get a few million - you're talking under 1% of the US population.

A quick Google search shows Judge Judy gets about 10 million syndicated viewers. Even stuff like Law and Order gets several million. 

A sprint car race on TV? I'd say they'd be lucky to pull in 250K, and I think that's a generous number. Now factor in the costs involved with a live broadcast vs. a prerecorded, and it shouldn't be too hard to figure out why live sprint car racing just doesn't work. 

Smaller networks would be more appealing to land 250K viewers, but they still need to do it while showing black in the profit column. That's going to take a hefty amount of sponsorship dollars to offset. I've read that it costs nearly $200K a day for an NFL broadcast crew - obviously a sprint car race would be much lower, but the fixed costs would be similar.

I'd say you're probably going to spend $40-50K at a bare minimum to do a live broadcast - hard to get past some of the hard costs like uplink trucks and equipment. 

Let's just be extremely glad that DirtVision has stepped up a ton and provided an absolutely excellent service at an incredible price this year. 

You may be right there. I was just throwing out random quick guess numbers. I figured about everyone who watches NASCAR or just enjoys racing in the US was probably around 10 percent with less then 5 willing to actually spend time to watch. But I could see this number being less than 1 percent. PPV makes complete sense looking at the numbers.

As for the networks rebroadcasting reruns? Idk if they buy the shows and a rerun doesn't really cost them a dime so it's quick cheap easy money or what. As for never being on antenna tv they just continue to try and make pay for channels meaningful. It helps them try and keep people paying for cable tv and such. I only have antenna tv and watch nascar sometimes for the first half of the year on fox. They go to NBC sports here on out and I won't go out and seek a place to watch it. I move on and really don't keep up with them here on out. 

     Maybe I'll get yelped* at for having the contrary opinion, but it seems like as the WoO has risen, local sprint car racing has declined in a big way. I think the 2 situations are related. In fact, I'd be pleased if the WoO went the NASCAR way and divorced itself from local racing.

*Come to think of it, Yelp used to be seen as a bad word. Maybe I should randomly pull some word out of our language and become a bigtime entity on the net...... Have you seen his Bark reviews online!.. Carp reviews? Crab reviews? Grouse reviews, Bitch reviews? Hollar reviews?.... OK, so it needs some work.

PPV definitely fits the model of a sport like sprint car racing (or any dirt racing for that matter).  As much as we all love it, dirt track racing is & will always be a niche sport with varying ebbs & flows in popularity.  With a PPV model, the production/delivery costs are more manageable.  Also, the PPV presentation doesn't impact the viewing experience for the fans at the track the way a live TV event does.  Look at some of the absurd start times of live TV events that are set to fit into TV windows.  

I think dirt tracks will always be ones where the live gate is where the profit will come from & the ppv revenue will just be a "bonus" if you will.  More & more, TV sports are making their buck from the TV deals moreso than the live gate.  I think that is one of Nascar's issues now is that they sold out so many pieces of how the sport is run to satisfy TV execs at the expense of the live gate experience & now the live gate & TV viewership is way down.  

I think a few mega events (Chili Bowl, Knoxville, Kings Royal, World 100 on the late model side) could justify live TV.  Chili Bowl has demonstrated that with MAV TV in recent years.  MAV also did a live broadcast of the Show Me 100 for late models this year.  Of course that event is at Lucas Oil Speedway (who owns MAV & the Lucas late model series).  I believe the track has some production facilities built in so that makes a live broadcast a bit more feasible.  

Many years ago Terry McCarl said something to the effect that the weekly/local 410 racing needed to quit trying to be the WoO and do things to save the weekly racer money so that there would still be cars.

I agreed with him then and now.     Its not the WoO that needs to divorce itself from weekly racing, in fact the WoO needs weekly racing.   When they go somewhere that there isn't any weekly racing within 500 miles they have very dismal car counts.   

The "divorce" needs to be innitiated by the weekly tracks.  Ie, rule changes designed to curb engine costs, mainly unhook the cars.      If the WoO doesn't want the divorce to go through and lose out on the big $ events that have huge fields of cars they'll have to make changes and play by the rules.

There is precedent with Knoxville forcing the WoO to make rule changes, they need to push the issue again.

Good points hardon. 

On one hand, I am confused why we can have Cricket, mud bogging, boat racing, drifting, rock-paper-scissors tournaments, 4-wheeler racing, monster trucks.............and the list goes on, but we can't televise a sprint car race.   On the other hand, sprint car racing is very boring, and tough to watch on TV unless you're a die hard sprint car racing fan.  When I am watching a race on Dirtvision, and a friend asks me how fast they're going, they are really surprised when I tell them the speed.  They all say it doesn't look like it.  

As far as the state of the WoO, let's start with:  It could be MUCH worse.  You stated the tracks that are closing, how 410 local racing is struggling, etc.  If the WoO had 1/2 crowds, no cars, and Dirtvision did not exist, I would say it's panic time.  However, the WoO is VERY healthy.  As a previous poster stated, the All-Stars are VERY healthy.  

Here's what I see for tracks going forward:

1.  Very few tracks will run weekly shows.  If they do, it will be fender cars, bombers, and mods.  Tracks will "share" a 305, 360, and/or 410 class if they do run weekly shows.

2.  Tracks will try to schedule 6-8 "big" shows per year.  WoO Late Models, WoO Sprint Cars, Lucas Oil Late Models, USMS Modifieds, IRA, All-Stars, ASCS, Invader 360 Sprints, etc......... (You get the point--I'm only naming those in my area)

All of the tracks are faced with ONE big problem no one is mentioning:  Our kids' sports have started to take up all of our time.  I refuse to let my kids join club sport's teams.  I will not spend the entire year travelling to other cities, staying in hotels, and going broke so my kid can play non-stop volleyball, softball, basketball, or baseball.  When I went to Knoxville a couple of weeks ago with my 14 year old son, I started to look around in the stands.  I didn't see ANY kids around my son's age within sight of my seat.  That alone is the killer here.  I asked no less than 10 friends and their son/daughter to go with us to that race.  Every single one of them had a tournament to go to that Friday and Saturday.  Every single one.  And half of them were playing "winter" sports.  ??????

Until the club sports die out (and I don't see that happening) our tracks are going to have to find a way to survive with no teenagers, their parents, and many of their grandparents.  Just a sad reality. 

I'd agree that live TV will likely never be a common thing. What sells live tv is viewership, and then the networks selling that to sponsors aka commercials. 

The reason we see so many duplicate shows, or reruns on tv now is b/c our need or we're told, that we need 300 channels to chose from, cut that down to even 50, which seems high, and the reruns decrease. Many tv shows now aren't even viewable on cable or satellite, only if you have internet. So in that sense with more people "cutting the cord" and jumping to internet only and with more and more streaming options, the WOO seems to be ahead of the curve as far as making their races accessible from the internet.

I honestly can see in 20 years in the major sports, NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, Nascar that attendance continues to decline b/c we can get such good coverage online, and not leave our couch, and then with VR, virtual reality b/c common place. 

I'm not sure if this is a trend or not but yes, car counts are a little lower this year, and Knoxville's no different. NOT that long ago Knoxville had 30 plus cars weekly in the 410 division. If Knoxville, and any other weekly sprint car track jumped their purse up to say, $7-8k would that increase car counts that much? I'm sure each track thinks about this. "if we raise our purse by X amount how many more cars will that pull in?" By the way, Knoxville's total purse for the Nationals is over 1 million dollars.

Really I think it comes down to sponsors. With seeminly more interest in local dirt track racing, thanks in part to Kyle Larson, Tony Stewart, and others racing when they're able, I can see more and more different sponsors taking a look at whats going on on the smaller tracks. Sometimes it's cool, not to be the top dog (NASCAR) and doing what everyone else is doing, and I think sprint cars fit that bill. Shoot look at the Scelzi boys, do you think they could of gone down the same path as their dad? 

This probably sounds dumb to many on here but I guarantee that if you're on social media and tweeting, and posting about using a sponsor that supports racing the sponsors notice. So do your part and support sponsors, tracks, drivers, whatever.

Keep It Real

I think you'll find that the NFL numbers don't include streaming services/devices, or things like Direct TV's Game Pass. The numbers that are counted are just the network numbers. I think I read somewhere that their numbers were also compiled by an age group like from age 18 to 49. So to say the 15 million number would only be 1% of the population would be incorrect. So there are more to the numbers than we might realize. Not saying you're wrong, I'm just sharing what I believe is involved with the data that is released. Also, does the $200k for an NFL broadcast include the the high dollar announcers and anylists? I'm sure their gameday paychecks are pretty hefty. Also, the equipment neccessary to do a broadcast isn't throw away equipment. So that cost would get broken down by the number of broadcasts it's used, plus any maintanence. I don't think enough information is available for any of us to calculate what the numbers mean to those networks doing the broadcasts, or what the real benefit is to the advertisers, who ultimately pay the bills. We can only speculate.

Another thing that hasn't been brought up. With Friday night and Saturday night being the consistant nights for WoO races, will broadcast viewership ever have an affect on live attendance at the local tracks?

I think the slight loss of attendance due to Dirtvision's broadcast will be offset greatly by the extra exposure the WoO is getting.  I will gladly drive 250 miles to see a show live (if schedule permits) rather than watch on TV.  I drove to Wilmot, Beaver Dam and Knoxville.   Look at it this way-----If I couldn't make it to those shows, at least I have an option to watch them.  

You refer to another golden age.  What do you consider as previous golden ages?  

When I was a kid in the late 50s and early 60s the Minnesota State Fair packed close to 20,000 in the stands all ten days of the Fair.  That's a lot of people and most were curious Fairgoers many having never seen a race before.

I have a program from a group called MSA from 1973 that lists close to 100 Sprint Car teams that competed with them the previous season, most from the 5 state area of MN, IA, SD, and ND.  Today I can only think of a handful in Minnesota who run 410s.  Heskin, Tatnell, Whitney and a few others down here by the Cities and a few on the MN side up by Grand Forks.

When I was chasing races for the paper prior to 2008 there were B Mains in the Stock Car and Modified classes for weekly shows that struggle today.  Not Sprints but they keep the tracks open so the Sprints have a place to run.  I'm not saying doom and gloom but nothing I'd consider a golden age.

Racing has the unique position of depending on working people to be both competitors and fans.  That is problematic with today's costs and a lot of places don't fill the field.  The Outlaws aren't a self contained show so that could come back to hurt them.  Part of their selling point is coming in and beating the locals.  Not so hard if half of them are starting and parking non competitive cars.  

I don't feel the golden age but maybe I'm not seeing something.

Stan Meissner

I have seen old pictures of these huge crowds at State Fairs, with everyone dressed up. Maybe I'm off on my thinking and we typically don't know an era or period of time until it's over but would everyone agree that the 90s, were the golden era. I'm thinking when Steve, Sammy, Mark Kinser, Blaney, Wolfgang were in their prime and car counts were high at least at the Nationals. 

The only reason I think we MIGHT be in another golden age of at least the Outlaws is the car counts and quality of drivers that are winning. David Gravel won 5 races in 2014 and finishes 10th. And the accessiblity of viewing the Woo as well plays a part, IMO. 

It's crazy to think how much the internet has changed the world. 

Keep It Real