Why Are Indycar’s Ratings On Versus So Low?
Indycar’s TV ratings from Texas are in and they are not good at all. On the plus side they are up by 12%. Which sounds great. But what happens when you multiple 12% by 0? You still have zero. And to most sponsors a .38 might as well be zero. This is the third year of Indycar on Versus and it still is unable to get decent TV ratings. When Indycar originally announced it’s move to Versus it made a lot of sense. It might hurt a bit in the short term but ESPN’s coverage of Indycar was pathetic. Surely putting it on Versus would pay off, right? But things got off to a rough start with a .3 at St. Pete in 2009 and have not shown much improvement. With new cars and engines it vital that Indycar’s teams sign more sponsors over the off season. With ratings like this… how exactly is that suppose to happen?
I honestly do not understand why ratings are so low. The NASCAR Nationwide series pulls between a 1.2 and 2.0 on ESPN/ABC and it’s pretty much the Kyle Busch show. Camping World Trucks on Speed regularly get between .6 and .8, or over double what Indycar get’s on Versus. The Grand Am series is able to equal Indycar on Speed! Versus get’s a lot of the blame for the poor racing but I’m not sure that’s fair. After all the NHL, WEC Cage Fighting, Tour De France, AND Professional Bull Riders (Bernard’s last job) all get very strong ratings on Versus. PBR is not a mainstream sport at all but it still manages to get over 1.0 ratings on their events. It’s not completley Versus fault Indycar can’t get a decent TV rating.
Ride Buyer's are the only people who benefit from low ratings
Some people say it’ll just take time for ratings to grow, but does Indycar have time? Unlike PBR, WEC, NHL, or most other sports, racing require TV ratings because they must sign sponsors to compete, and need a fair amount of money to be competitive. Without TV ratings how are teams suppose to sign sponsors? Without sponsors how are teams going to fund themselves? What is happening so far is that teams are signing random International Ride Buyers that fans could care less about. That in turns makes the series less attractive to fans and thus makes growing the ratings even harder. Where as PBR or NHL could survive with poor ratings and not have it affect their competition, it DIRECTLY affects the competition in Indycar. Alex Tagliani has won two poles for Sam Schmitt (a team he helped build, by the way) and he may not have a ride past Edmonton. The freaking Indy 500 winner does not have a ride, and almost half of the drivers who made the Fast Nine at Indy also are not full time. I guarantee if ratings were better this would not happen. The longer Indycar goes without good TV ratings the worse things are going to get and with the new cars coming next year teams have got to get more sponsors.
Camping World Trucks have over twice the fans that Indycar has, at least on TV
How to grow the ratings is the million dollar question. And honestly I don’t know the answer. I really thought the Texas race, after an exciting Indy 500 would see a nice ratings bump and it didn’t. That scares me. Some how or another Indycar has got to get more people watching their races on TV. The most availible audience is NASCAR fans, as demonstrated by their third tier series having twice the TV ratings as Indycar. But it’s hard to get them to look away from NASCAR. Indycar fits as an “extreme sport” and that would be an effective way to get younger fans involved but it’s hard to market Dario Franchitti, Mike Conway, or Scott Dixon as extreme in any way, shape, or form. The best course of action is to try and attract current racing fans, NASCAR, Sports Car, Motorcycle, and F1. That would improve ratings and attendance on all the tracks. At the same time start to develop new fanbases as an “extreme sport” and try and make it more inclusive than NASCAR. Actually accomplishing this is where Indycar is struggling, and how to accomplish this would require a small novel’s worth of blog posts and would bring up all the controversial debates (re: exciting racing, ovals/road courses, American drivers, ect.) that are not the point of this article.
The NBC/Comcast merger could still pay off. If they can get more races on either NBC or USA Network it might pay off and get ratings high enough to attract sponsors. If that’s the case they have got to get the announcement out before next year starts so that teams can attempt to sell it to sponsors over the off season or I shudder to think what the car count might look like next year, or the amount of ride buyers in the field. ESPN/ABC has better racing but the quality of the coverage is so poor it’s hard to imagine it attracting new fans. But the longer it takes to see improvement the harder growing the series is.
If Danica could just win a few races Indycar's Ratings would grow very fast. But A. she needs to win multiple times and B. that means she can't go to NASCAR. Neither of those are looking likely...
I don’t have all the answers to Indycar’s problem. But after 3 years still not being able to consistently (or ever?) get ratings equal to the Camping World Trucks series is a serious issue. In the dark ages of the IRL on ESPN Indycar could reliably get a .8 through 1 point something where as the Unified series has not been able to consistently get a .4 ratings point. Fixing this has got to happen and unfortunetly it’s got to happen fast. Otherwise the quality of the drivers and series is going to plummet. Especially with the new cars coming. These cars CANNOT be delayed again but at the same time they are going to cost more money, and that put’s Indycar in horrible position. I don’ really understand why ratings are so low on Versus, but whatever the reason, someone has got to find a solution, and find it soon.
Posted on June 15, 2011, in Indycar and tagged Epic Fails, NBC Sports, Randy Bernard, TV Ratings, Versus. Bookmark the permalink. 31 Comments.
Good question. First, I think NASCAR is auto racing to the average sports fan in the U.S. That’s it. I think it’s important to work with Nascar–in terms of program scheduling and oval tracks and overlapping promotions.
Secondly, I don’t think INDYCAR is on your typical sport’s viewer’s radar at all. I don’t think the average viewer could name one other race INDYCAR runs other than Indy. And I’m not sure they could name a driver other than Danica. I know that seems unlikely to we Indy fans, but ask people you work with or friends what they know about INDYCAR and the lack of knowledge is startling. This is why R. Bernard was hired and shows the work he’s got cut out for him. It also shows why they’re trying “gimmicks” like the twin races and the Vegas challenge–they have to do some crazy stuff just to get noticed.
Third, the only people who watch Versus are die-hard fans with access to Versus. That’s a small group. No one is turning to Versus by accident and staying to watch a race. The more I think about it, I think a bad network or ESPN deal is better than the great coverage on Versus because more people will watch a network by accident than watch Versus on purpose. I hope the series–as they enter negotitations with networks about the 500–will be able to work a deal to get all the races on a network.
Agreed
I completely agree. All the cable and dish services I have ever had put Versus in the higher number channels, like in the 50-100 channel range. Most people who have cable know their favorite channels by heart and immediately jump to those groups of channels to search fro what they want to watch.
I think that advertising INDYCAR as an extreme sport is an awesome idea. Put commercial highlights of Indycar races promoting the next race. That would surely bring some youngsters out to the races and to their TVs to watch. I think Dylan is right when it comes to Dario and Dixon and some others. Those are some of the top drivers in the series and they are boring and whiny so it would be difficult. Tony Kanaan is not that whiny and could be used as an anchor for “extreme” promotions and so could Marco Andretti if he would just find his grove (I would go on about Marco but that is a completely different story in itself). There are options with this and I think Indycar/Bernard need to take action here.
As far as you comment about NASCAR being “auto racing” to the general fans; you are 100% correct. Everytime that I tell someone that I don’t watch too many sports other than racing, I get someone saying “so you watch NASCAR?” As I tell them “no” they look at me with a puzzled face and I mention Indycar and they have not a clue of what I am talking about. Hardcore NASCAR fans are the same way almost. I work at Sprint’s Corporate office so naturally there are tons of NASCAR fans and even they can’t name a single Indycar driver except for when they say “oh that Danica girl drives in the Indy 500, right?” Simply put, Indycar has a long way to go to gathering up fans.
The insulated way NASCAR coverage is almost all NASCAR does not help. No mention of Le Mans, f1, or Indycar except to insult it. Also most of the NASCAR writers (with a few exceptions) only cover NASCAR and have no clue that other series exist. It’s possible to be a very hardcore NASCAR fan and have no knowledge of other series
Fixing the Racing=NASCAR thing is important, but hard. No one knows who any Indycar driver is but Danica, and sadly most think she’s a NASCAR driver. I’m fine with some gimmicks if it’ll improve ratings. Not sure about ESPN though, with coverage that bad it’s hard to convert fans. NBC SPorts will be an improvement, and an interm step is races on a channel; like USA network or TNT
Okay. Of course I’m not from the US, so I have less sentimental relation to the whole thing.
I think the whole problem of IndyCar is NASCAR and itself. When IndyCar seperated to CART/ChampCar and IRL, the main sponsors found it better to go to NASCAR instead. And by just then, a third NASCAR series was started, so there were triple amount of potential asvertising opportunity, all within one company, while the two Indy leagues were battling with each other for audience and slowly they started losing audiences, too.
Now, when IndyCar was unified again, they were already late. Viewers who parted, stuck to NASCAR because it would have been hard to pick up the story again over a decade later. For them, and the general viewers it is a new series with only one race that matters with the others being a run-up and run-down for it.
NASCAR holds all positions now, there’s a lot less risk in it than IndyCar. You shouldn’t forget either, that NASCAR stock cars are much better basis for advertising with the big flat clean areas, while in IndyCar there is basically an opportunity to play with colorschemes and smaller ads that work with close-up and onboard cameras only.
If I was a sponsor, I would put my money into NASCAR, too. From this position it is just impossible for IndyCar to climb back where it once was, morveover to where it was several years ago.
Unfortunately it all seems to a possible end.
There are two ways to survive in general, methinks.
1. Spread to a truly international level. A lot cheaper than F1 to organise, and from a non-racing enthusiast they may seem very alike. So, go countries where there is a need for F1, but they don’t have it. Like South Africa, Argentina, India (although there is going to be a race there, but there’s still a potential basis there), Russia, Northern Europe (Sweden has a great American car culture), maybe the Balkans, and I’m sure some Arabian countries would welcome the event, too. This may or may not rise US TV statistics, but international advertising could bring a lot of money.
2. If IndyCar still wants to be US-centered that much, I wouldn’t believe a NASCAR-takeover would do it harm, and it could be a fourt series, saying NASCAR Indy. The tag itself would chase die hard fans away, but would bring into plenty of new ones. Drivers could switch from one series to another, stirring up interest, and so on.
I can’t really see the risk and the downside of this latter solution, it may work out pretty well.
Excuse my grammatical errors, I have written it in a hurry.
I definitely do not want to see Indycar go international. However, I get your point and see where you are going but I think I would rather see Indycar dropped from the face of the earth before it became a poor mans F1.
I think getting new fans and ratings up has come from Indycar getting the drivers names out there and marketing them as exciting, crazy fast drivers that push it to them limit. Indycar has a Hollywood office now so they need to see about getting these guys on late night talk shows and have them guest star in sitcoms and have them on early morning shows talking with Regis and Kelly. Ask Dario and Dixon the right questions and you can get some decent reactions out of them and it will grab some interest. Doing this wouldn’t cost Indycar any money other than gas driving to the pitch meetings and flights for the drivers. It would be like free advertising while the drivers are on the show. Throw in some exciting Indycar commercials during the break and there you go, Indycar has hours on end of cheap advertising streaming to the masses getting people interested. The “victory tours” that indycar puts the Indy 500 winners and Championship winner through don’t work from I can see. Putting the drivers on radio shows were only the people in the broadcasting region can hear is a pointless venture. Lets get these guys on TV so we can hear and see them. I am not talking like Indycar Open Wheel Weekly kind of TV, I am talking about what I mentioned above, BIG TIME TV (as in network).
Your NASCAR merger idea has some solid truth to it. But I think a partnership would be best. It would be cool if they work together on schedules and we could get the drivers swapping rides and and getting the big names from both sides driving in the big races. They could also have race weekends on ovals where NASCAR races on Saturday and Indycar on Sunday.
I can’t see either solution working. If they sold out to NASCAR it wouldn’t go well because NASCAR want’s to put Sprint Cup #1 and it won’t market it’s non stock car series (ASK the AMA or Grand AM). American fans do not want to watch an international road racing series so that’s off the table.
The big checks from foreign governments and sponsors are nice and there is some precedent for success (Surfer’s Paradise, Rio, Canada, Mexico) with American Open Wheel in other countries. The problem is, and has always been, that foreign races do absolutely nothing for the American audience and those big checks don’t always clear.
Outside of F1 and the major bike series, international racing series have proven to be incredibly unstable.
NASCAR could do a lot for the series if they controlled IndyCar. Would they, though? I really doubt it.
The only thing IndyCar has that NASCAR really would want is the Indy 500, and I don’t want to think about what they would do with it.
I’m not sure that NASCAR would want control of INDYCAR either, nor would I want them to. But I would like to see cooperation between the two major series (okay–one a lot more major than the other) in terms of scheduling races at non-competing times, getting INDYCAR back to Chicago, Phoenix or another oval. With Chevy coming to INDYCAR maybe some cross-promotional deals. Stuff like a Hendick/Penske INDYCAR team. Or Tony Stewart coming back to INDYCAR as an owner. Or maybe even a double-bill NASCAR and INDYCAR weekend at someplace like Fontana that needs fans in the seats.
And that all sounds good for INDYCAR, but why would NASCAR? Maybe they’d eliminate any concerns as to INDYCAR ever being a direct competitor. (Not that they’re worried now, but you never know what the future holds.)
Sadly, Indycar’s obscurity can’t be attributed to just one thing, it’s a number of contributing factors here. There’s a myriad of problems for the series and none of them have to do with NASCAR’s dominance of the US racing market or Danica not winning races. To think that NASCAR is the root of all (or most) of Indycar’s problems, or that Danica’s inability to win a race is what’s causing the detriment to the series’ ratings is kind of ludicrous. Hoping for NASCAR to fail or Danica to win a race is not a proper strategy for growth. The front office at Indycar is focusing on ALL the wrong things (that includes the beloved Bernard). You want Indycar to return to prominence? It’s really quite simple, LISTEN TO YOUR F***ING FANS! How many times on this blog have we seen posts about the shitty tracks Indycar visits, or the horrible no talent no name ride buyers that no one gives a shit about, or the embarrassing TV ratings that VS garners? It’s no mystery where the TRUE problems of this series lie, the only mystery is why the hell the Indy front office hasn’t addressed them. Instead, they focus on ridiculous gimmicks like the twin 275s, or a $5mil season finale. Here’s some insight for you Indycar: No one cares. Those things don’t gain new fans for the series, they’re just gimmicks that are acting as bandaids to the real underlying issues. They don’t provide long term solutions in any way, shape, or form. People see right through them and at most they’ll generate a minuscule spark of interest for the series, then it’ll be right back to the dark ambiguity that Indycar is so accustomed to. Here are all the solutions to Indycar’s problems:
1) Get rid of douchebag Brian Barnhart…ASAP
2) Get rid of tracks that suck like Barber, Mid Ohio, St Pete, and Infineon. The racing at these tracks blow and makes for shitty TV. Add venues the fans want to see, and that lend themselves to good racing (California, Michigan, Phoenix, Road America, Watkins Glen, Portland, Miller, Road Atlanta, Sebring even)
3) Stop acting like you’re F1. International races aren’t the saving grace, they’re part of the problem. Sao Paulo was a mistake, and adding Porto will be an even bigger one. Abandon both immediately. The series needs to stop spreading themselves so thin across all these foreign countries. Focus on US races and develop this market FIRST. Then, and only then can you even consider branching out and extending your product. Apparently these guys didn’t learn from Champ Car.
4) TV viewership is dreadful, we all know that. The million dollar question as stated in the post is how to fix it. It’s simple, you generate interest. How do you generate interest? You reach more people with your product than ever before. How do you reach more people? You stream the races online for people who don’t have VS in their homes. You post full races and race highlights on Youtube and the Indy website. Stop coveting the programming like it’s some secret treasure that only people should pay handsomely for. Instead, put it out there as much as you can and get it to reach as many people as possible, FOR FREE. You can even sell the races for download on the Indy website, or through iTunes. Charge like $3-4 for it. I’d buy the entire season, just to have it when I’m traveling and stuff, and I know a lot of people that would do the same. The more VS and Indycar treat the race broadcasts like they’re a secret commodity only to be paid for, the more the broadcasts will remain a secret commodity only to be paid for. Thus, no one watches.
5) Lastly, those beloved ride buyers. This series is notorious for this, and they have to kick this habit ASAP if they want to be taken seriously. The sad truth is that there are no icons any more in US open wheel racing. We used to have Andretti, Unser, Mears, the list goes on. Now, we have Viso, Duno, Sato, the list goes on. It’s very difficult for fans to develop an interest and connection with these drivers when: a) they don’t know who they are or where the hell they’re from b) there’s a revolving door for ride buyers and they’re switched out every year c) they just plain suck. In reality it’s not the ride buyers’ fault, they’re just there to buy a ride like any other ride buyer would naturally do. It’s the series and more so the team owners fault. They allow it to happen. The Catch-22 though is that none of the teams have money, and in order for them to compete they need sponsorship dollars, which the ride buyers bring (hence the name). But the fans couldn’t care less about the ride buyers and as a result you have a grid filled with no talent nobodies, consequently the ratings continue to suffer. It will perpetuate itself until one of two things happens: a) the series goes under b) the team owners grow some balls and start going after talent instead of the quick buck. Eventually, if they find drivers good enough, the sponsorship money will find them, the ratings will climb, and interest will be renewed in the series. It’s just that initial pill that’s gonna be tough to swallow. That initial season or two when the driver is gaining recognition and popularity and not many sponsorship dollars are coming in. What ever happened to developing talent? We need to go back to that. The REAL million dollar question here is who’s gonna be that first team owner to make this leap for the betterment of the series?
Some real good points, London–although a bit scary in your anger towards the series. Several questions come to mind. Many of the tracks you mention don’t want Indycar there–how would you force them? Why are you mad at Indycar when NBC prohibits computery type content? And why would you expect team owners to hire non “ride-buyers” if they can’t make money doing it–especially the shoestring teams?
NASCAR in control of Indycar is an awful idea, seriously, look at the AMA Pro series and tell me it’s a good plan.
I disagree, if Danica were to win Texas, Milwuakee, and Iowa, ratings would skyrocket. Indycar needs better tracks and it needs less ridebuyers but that’s hard to accomplish. The best way to get that is to bring back “Tony Bucks” which I think would work a lot better with Bernards Vision. Sadly the Hulman family isn’t super excited about that idea.
Hmmm… an interesting predicament.
I wonder if the Texas race may have been hurt by the two-week gap after Indy. I know Eddie Gossage said he didn’t want to have been dwarfed by the event, but maybe a quick fire the week after could have pulled in some of the audience – who knows now?
As for the structure of the Twin 275′s, I never understood why anyone would have thought the first race would be anything other than a safety run to the flag. I assumed that would have been the obvious conclusion..?
Maybe a Feature race, followed by a Sprint for bonus points would have been more beneficial for the show?
Having a race after Indy is a good idea and I can’t have helped.
Multi-heat races in the US tend to not have hte sandbagging issue, although that’s due to the format usually being elimination heats which means, you’ve got to finish well to make it into the main race. The format of the Twins is more built for NASCAR.
By the way Dylan, completely unconnected, but one of the F1 journalists, Joe Saward, has just written a brief piece on the trends of television and modern media, with a nod to F1. Worth a little look.
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/interesting-trends-in-tv/
Thanks, interesting read
I know that last post came off as a bit incensed but I’m just a frustrated fan that sees an immense potential for the series which is being completely untapped. I love Indycar, it’s just disheartening at times watching the direction the front office is taking the series in. I’ll try and address your questions in order:
1) Many of the tracks you mention don’t want Indycar there–how would you force them? The short answer, you don’t. The current model in which the series operates regarding track selection doesn’t seem to work all that well. They have a lot of tracks on their schedule that don’t provide good racing. In order to get the series to those tracks that do, there are only two options: a) lower the sanctioning fee b) promote your own races. The current sanctioning fee to promote an Indycar race is currently $1.5mil. In my opinion, that’s ridiculous. From an economical standpoint it just doesn’t add up. With a fee that inflated the promoter is already fighting an uphill battle and he hasn’t even taken staffing or marketing into consideration yet. The tremendous costs of promoting a race makes the venture many times not a profitable one, and thus causes instability in the race calendar with tracks appearing and disappearing so frequently. There’s no consistency in the calendar b/c the numbers don’t make sense, and consistency is key to the success of any enterprise. Indycar unfortunately has none, from their drivers to their calendar. A promoter can go do an Eagles concert for a third of what it costs to do an Indycar race, and make a ton more money at it. I know this b/c I’m in the promotion game. And I know that comparison may sound arbitrary to the discussion, but you can kind of see my point regarding how out of whack the sanctioning fee is compared to the fees of other non racing events. If Indycar lowered their sanctioning fee to say 1M flat, or 1M and a little back end coin if a certain gross amount was reached, or some sort of other structure that makes the undertaking a feasible one for the promoter, then I guarantee you there’d be a line at the door to host a race. And in that line would probably be all the great tracks that fans so badly want to series to visit.
Now if Indycar lowers it’s fee and still those tracks don’t show up to play ball, then the series should promote their own race(s). If Road America wants no part of staging a race, fine, the series will promote it’s own race. Rent the track, staff it, market the event, race. It’s not rocket science. I know Indycar is not in the business of promoting races, but maybe they need to take a long hard look at how they’re operating and modify some things. It can and will work. I hate to use the failure that was Champ Car as an example but they did this from time to time. ALMS does this with Sebring and Petit and both are raving successes. Granted, Don Panoz owns both those tracks but still, even if he didn’t and ALMS rented those venues for the events they’d still be just as successful. The current model in which they’re assembling their calendar is not working. We’re getting more and more street race heavy and it’s turning into champ car 2.0. Street races are cool and all but they do not provide much in the way of entertaining racing for the fans. After Indycar lowers the fee, more promoters will come to the table and they will get better tracks on the schedule. The fans will be more satisfied and more people will watch, I guarantee it. After there’s a renewed interest, they can then SLOWLY start raising the sanctioning fee again. Numbers don’t lie, people do, so once the numbers are in and the other tracks start to see the increase in event attendance and TV figures, they will want to jump in the mix as well. If the series is promoting some of their own races, then they can even go to those tracks they’re doing their own events at and ask them if they’d like to pick up that event. If the numbers make sense I can’t see the track not accepting. This way, the series gets out of the promotion game while still receiving a nice sanctioning fee, and the track picks up a profitable event that’s already been built up and established.
Why are you mad at Indycar when NBC prohibits computery type content? You’re absolutely right about this. But Randy really really needs to push these guys to get the point across. NBC is a large bureaucratic conglomerate w/prehistoric ideologies regarding television and online streaming. Randy needs to convey to them that this can work. He needs to show them evidence of how many Indycar fans are missing out on the races b/c their homes don’t have VS. He needs to push like hell. NBC could televise the same exact broadcast online that they do on TV, so it makes literally 0 sense to me why they don’t do it. More people would watch, thus giving sponsors more exposure, thus raising the ratings and allowing teams to gain more in sponsorship dollars. And if NBC doesn’t comply after all that pushing, leave. There has to be an out somewhere in that clause, find it and exercise it. Go buy time on Speed or ESPN2. The buy rate on Speed is 50k/hour and 100k/hr for ESPN2. Buy the 2-3 hours you need to conduct your broadcast, and then charge for commercial slots to recoup some or maybe all of that buy fee. Then you could do whatever you want with the content: you could post full races on youtube, on the website, stream the qual and races live, whatever. IMS owns their own production company so logistically this shouldn’t be a problem. They wouldn’t have to go out and hire a third party production crew for 800k a race like Champ Car used to have to do. The series needs to stop relying on all of these outside sources like the network, the tracks, the promoters, the sponsors, and start taking some initiative. Take matters into your own hands and make shit happen. Stop relying on other people cause more often than not they’re gonna let you down, as they’ve all done so far for Indycar. These are all drastic measures, but drastic times call for measures like this. An argument that could be brought up is that Indycar has no money to do these things. Well, that may be true, but I doubt that they’re completely broke. I’ve read that the family has spent in the neighborhood of $600mil to keep the series afloat since it’s inception. That may be an exceedingly exaggerated figure, but even if it’s half that then it means they’ve sunk a lot of cash into the thing. What’s another $5-10mil to implement some of these desperately needed changes? And that money, (most of it at least) will be recouped in the form of TV ad buys and ticket sales (which is 2 revenue streams that’d be coming directly to the series now that they do everything in house).
Why would you expect team owners to hire non “ride-buyers” if they can’t make money doing it–especially the shoestring teams? I don’t. I don’t expect team owners to do anything, b/c it seems all they care to do is bitch about how little money they have instead of making what they have work to the fullest of its abilities. Team owners don’t have to hire non ride buyers, but it’s what they should do if they want to begin a turnaround of talent in this series. Drivers like Dan Wheldon, Paul Tracy, Alex Tagliani, Tomas Sheckter, Townsend Bell, Bruno Junqueira, Alex Lloyd, Buddy Rice, and Simon Pagenaud don’t have full time rides while guys like Takuma Sato, EJ Viso, Sebastian Saavedra do/did. Like I said in my previous comment, the team owners will be taking this leap knowing that they’re not gonna make any money through sponsorhip for at least a season. But they’re doing it for the betterment of the series in the long haul. It may not provide an immediate payoff like a ride buyer will, but in 2-3 years it will pay off immensely. The sponsorship dollars follow the talent and interest, they money will come. Team owners being short sighted and chasing the dollar in hand from a ride buyer will never make this series appeal to a mass audience. I like what Dale Coyne did with Milka Duno and Alex Lloyd. He fielded Milka and took all her Citgo money in order to also run Alex Lloyd, who apparently wasn’t bringing much dough to the table. This could be the compromise for the team owners. If they can’t afford to run two non ride buyers, then run just one ride buyer which will help financially in running the non ride buyer (aka the talent driver). Maybe the series should even step in and subsidize team costs if they’re fielding a talented driver that they think has future star potential, like Bryan Clauson. The series should incentivize teams to go out and hire drivers for talent, even give them a bonus on top of their $1.2mil TEAM money. That’s how you get the owners to start going after good drivers with a steady following, instead of the ride buyers they’re currently chasing. A lot of team owners nag about having no money or over purchasing a $70k aero kit, yet these are the same guys who have million dollar transporters and 80k square foot facilities, and 4 motor coaches for each of their drivers. Little ole Lotus destroyed Ferrari back in the 60′s working out of a tiny garage, w/limited personnel, and hardly a transporter. You don’t need all the gaudy overpriced shit to win races. You need a crew with brains and a driver with balls. So sell all the excess bullshit and put the money back into driver development and the team. All of the other stuff doesn’t matter, winning races is what matters, right?
Dylan, that’s true, ratings would skyrocket but they’d come right back down after she stops winning, much like they did in 05′ when she first came out. Ratings spiked for a bit but then declined after the novelty wore off. Plus she’s leaving for NASCRAP after this year.
I don’t think Tony has access to the checkbook anymore, he F’d that up long ago.
Leigh, I agree about the 2 week gap. They should’ve run Texas a week after Indy to maybe try and piggyback off Indy’s success and gain some residual interest from the 500.
well the ratings are crap because the series became crap! my father worked on al unser jrs team owned by rick galles back in the 80′s and it was exciting!
nowadays all indy car is,is a bunch of foreigners that are all crybabies,and you have danica patrick! hahahahaha… what a joke. enough said. the series wont last much longer!
sadly I don’t know if it’ll last much longer either. If it does, it’ll never amount to much more than it currently is, a relatively inconsequential race series to most people but a few. The series is hemorrhaging money, the Brickyard 400 has fizzled out and is in decline, and who knows if the speedway is making a profit on MotoGP (which is likely leaving after this year or next). How much money can we expect the Hulman-George family to pour into the black hole? Sooner or later they might realize it’s just a money pit and there’s no point to keep it running. That would seriously suck but it’s certainly a possibility.
They need to overhaul their entire model for there to be any hope of returning it to prominence. They don’t seem to want to do that though.
I don’t understand how the low Indy Car ratings should be such a mystery. I’ve spent the last 20 minutes trying to find today’s Indy Car race on TV. I have the DirecTV mid-tier package, and Versus is not part of it. Unless you have ComCast or pay for premium channels, you’re out of luck.
Ehhhhh…. there was no IndyCar race today. A number of the driver’s are here in the UK celebrating IndyCar at the Goodwood Festival of Speed
exactly the point, they make it far too hard for fans to watch a race. Their TV deal is garbage, so the only way to remedy that is to either add live streaming, or get a new TV deal. Considering the fact VS just stopped allowing live streams of the race, it doesn’t look like they’ll do either. These guys seem to hate the concept of fans actually watching their races.
Once again, how is it the fault of the TV deal if no race is actually taking place?
Leigh, I know that there’s not a race today, I don’t know if Cam knows that, but today is not what I’m talking about, I’m talking about in general, like when it is a race weekend.
Two Reasons!
First, good luck trying to get NASCAR fans over to indycar series. To many IC drivers are foreigners and not enough Americans. Sorry this is America and most NASCAR fans are good old southern boys/gals and raising their children the same way. They DO NOT want to see foreigners winning. We got enough bad taste in our mouths from China and Indians stealing our jobs. And sentiments on our economy are getting worst.
Second and equally important reason is, people can’t relate to an INDY car other than going out to local Walmart and buying a hot wheels version. If they resembled a real word car Ford Mustang, Chevy Camaro/Corvette, Dodge Charger now I can relate and even buy a car that functions and even represents my favorite on the track.
Guys were talking the good old south here. Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan need not apply! And those owners of the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Prius could care less about racing in general. They care more about making sure their car emissions don’t kill the shadows of their trees in their front yards.
Get my point?
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