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

Let's look at a few numbers that stand out and common sense tells us a few things when we look at these numbers. Napcar likes to say that they are 2nd only to the NFL in popularity and numbers.... oh really ,,, lets look at a few sports including Dirt Track Racing overall.

Major Leauge Baseball - 30 teams with 15 games each night. Baseball attendance is up this year by nearly 15% in each market. Avg attendance per night is over 30,000 hmmmm let's do the math.

15 games per night x 15 that is 450,000 per night

Napcar over a weekend will be about 150,000

Baseball has 162 games per team per year and last year attendance topped 43 million

Napcar with it's 3 divisions does almost 9 million ,,,hmmmmm not even close

TV Napcar this year is averaging about 4.4 million households on a Sunday afternoon once per week.

Baseball has 15 games per night with each game garnering nearly 450,000 viewers - total households watching across the country 6.75 million - and that is nearly every night across America.

There are over 700 Dirt Tracks across the country for our purposes we shall round it at 700. If each track averages just 1,500 fans per track per weekend that would be 1,050,000 watching a race on Dirt. On average each track has about 24 weeks of racing including special events. That puts attendance at 25,200,000 again Napcar live is nearly 9 million.

Napcar says it has 75 million fans,,, really the numbers do not dictate that at all. The biggest race in Nascar is the Daytona 500 and it garners about 13 million viewers. The Superbowl does nearly 53 million viewers, the NFL regular season games average 18 - 23 million viewers. The numbers that Napcar likes to spew just do not add up. In a recent survey where fans were asked what their favorite sport was Motorsports was only 6% with Football and Baseball dominating.

While Dirt Track racing has declined it has still remained a vital part of the communities that have Dirt Tracks near them by contributing the economy and providing great entertainment for the dollar spent. Napcar has seen it's numbers this year decline and average ticket prices are $70 per person for 4.5 hours of shear boredom. Just an observation and by applying some common sense to these numbers we can put the propoganda that NAPCAR spews as just that propoganda.

Just for $hits and giggles, F1 averages 300 million TV viewers for each race.

Member of this message board since 1997

So you are saying 150,000 pay $70+ each Sunday for 4 1/2 hours of boredom and dirt tracks that probably all have at least 3000 seats draw 1500 people per week @ $10 - $15 per ticket.

And these numbers prove....................??

The numbers prove that Napcar is not as large a spectacle as they would like everyone to believe. F-1 by far is the largest viewed Auto Racing in the world and is supported the countries the teams are based in. A budget for an F-1 team is over 300 million. The numbers also show that Dirt Track racing is still viable and is being atteneded. As for 3,000 seats being half full, I would guess that quite a few of the tracks struggle to have a seating capacity near 2,000. My point with these numbers is that Napcar has done a great job in marketing themselves while the Dirt community still struggles to gain national attention or recognition.

Come on now, is there really any better racin' than F-1?

Napcar as some like to refer has closer finishes than sprint cars on a regular basis. They have Kings Royal type parties and hoopla EVERY weekend, not just a few times a year. They have side by side racing like the non-wingers talk about constantly so don't under estimate that 5oo lb gorilla there in your living room. If they ever figure out what to do for the middle three hours to connect with the first 20 and last 20 laps they might make even some in here forget about sprint car racing, maybe? Take It Easy....

The biggest difference from a marketing prespective is that you can reach each and everyone of those Nascar fans through ONE TV buy and ...... you'd have to negotiate with over 700 race tracks to ......

So I'm really not sure what that proves other than there are one heck of a lot of people that go to dirt tracks. But then again there are one heck of a lot of people that attend high school football games and.....

Comparing Nascar to Baseball......... is like comparing watching paint dry and grass grow.  Both boring as hell.  F1 is no better.

Don't forget nascar also sanctions weekly shows at alot of local dirt and pavement tracks.. Several years ago San Jose, Ca. ran modifieds and later sprint cars that were nascar sanctioned for many years before they closed there doors..

I would love someone to find real numbers supporting dirt track racing and sprint car races specifically. just business's numbers appear to be mostly guess work.

The baseball arguement is ridiculous. Their numbers are based on shear volume of games. 162 games is a meaningless ridiculous schedule.

Based on your own attendance numbers realize that baseball gets 5 times the attendance of NASCAR but with about 15 times as many events (including estimated number of postseason games and busch and truck series races) Take out the meaningless and less popular Busch and Truck series and those numbers skew further.

Any idiot with half a brain can skew numbers to support their viewpoint, it's up to us smart people to tell them how stupid they are.

I saw more passing at the USGP this year than I did at the local WoO race....

Member of this message board since 1997