Posted on 07/29/2013 5:32:58 PM PDT by B4Ranch
Ryan Newman won only $423,033 for his victory at the Brickyard 400. That would seem to be a low number since it is considered the second major race on the NASCAR circuit, behind the Daytona 500.
What happened to NASCAR? Attendance in general at NASCAR events is down. A recent article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported “The numbers don’t lie. Speedway Motorsports Inc. — the parent company of Las Vegas Motor Speedway — has watched total revenues, including ticket sales, drop annually for the past five years.
It may be that fans tend to come from areas of the country which have been hit harder by the recession and have suffered higher unemployment. But that doesn’t explain TV ratings, which seem to be flat to down as well.
Race event-related revenue at Speedway Motorsports’ eight NASCAR tracks has also dropped each year for the past five years except 2011.
Ryan Newman is in the wrong business, but it’s too late to become a professional golfer or football player now.
(Excerpt) Read more at 247wallst.com ...
He’s never gonna be a team owner at this rate. Looks like
Nascar has cooked the goldarn goo$e and the drivers are getting feathers .. again.
All the green, ethenol, PC crap has most fans staying home to be near a puke recepticle.
I’d like The Chase a lot better if they extended it to the full season and opened it to all drivers. :)
“Yes, because most of the drivers are foreigners. They started bringing in foreigners in the 60s to appeal to the world as opposed to only Americans.”
Most? Only 2 out of 57 Sprint Cup drivers are not Americans.
“They started bringing in foreigners in the 60s to appeal to the world as opposed to only Americans.”
Not entirely true. Foreign drivers have run Indy almost since the beginning; the 1913 race was the first one won by a foreigner. Also, from 1950 to 1960, the Indy 500 was a points-paying event in the World Driving Championship (and the only one not run to Formula One rules).
I think he was talking about IndyCar.
I followed NASCAR pretty closely for a few years, although I have to admit I didn’t pay real close attention to it until after the CART/IRL split (for most of the ‘80s and ‘90s I was a pretty big fan of CART). But then they decided to introduce the Chase, the “lucky dog” rule, the green-white-checkered rule...
I liked NASCAR a lot better when it was a racing series. Between all the silliness in NASCAR and the ongoing drama between CART/ChampCar and IRL, in the last ten years I’ve become a big fan of sports car racing. And I still follow F1 as much as I can given that it switched to ANOTHER cable channel that isn’t part of the package I subscribe to.
Bingo. I agree with all your reasons, maybe not in that order of importance, but with all of them. Vehemently.
When they started running restrictor plates, I quit watching.
The irony of restrictor plates is that they were put in for “safety” reasons. Well, the bunching of the cars now results in spectacular wrecks, and the recent event that sent debris over the net into the grandstands shows that restrictor plates aren’t a clear-cut improvement to safety. So... why bother with them?
That’s the other reason why I quit watching. The good ol’ boys are gone from the track, replaced by a bunch of people who are primped and marketed just like a politician is.
6. T. Wayne Robertson died.
So it finally leaked out into the press that Nascar attendance is down...
Most impressed with prayers to Jesus Christ before race and Stewart’s run on final race to win 2011 Championship
Now, I'm interested just from knowing some of the people involved and some of the personalities. You'd be surprised who you might run into day to day around here.
To NASCAR's credit, it's still not like it used to be, but the racing has gotten a bit better with this new generation car compared to the previous since the COT was introduced. Without a doubt, the driver protection and safety of these cars is amazing.
I think that 60” TVs and cheap beer have had a big impact on attendance
I don’t like “The Chase “either.
Let everyone race for it. Not just ten cars.
It’s become a rich man’s sport.
I am old, but I remember when people showed up in a Stock Car carried on a trailer behind his family car and qualified.
Today its a special car built for racing Tractor trailers filled with parts and mechanics, big teams own all of them and a man cannot get into the game without being a quadruple millionaire.
Remember the Kenny Rogers movie “Six Pack”?
I had fun watching that movie.
Makes me like the "little guys" even more. I am enjoying watching the success of Furniture Row racing team campaign a single car, even if it means tolerating to even rooting for Kurt Bush occasionally. I'm not a Bush fan, but I definitely respect the deep talent that runs in that family.
I also respect a good comeback and he and Furniture Row have been worthy competitors against the biggest and best this season.
But you are right about how much it costs to be there and be competitive. A little guy needs BIG bucks to race in NASCAR. Fortunately, they all sell their old cars to people like us and we can race their old stuff just like the old days on local tracks like the one a few miles from me.
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