FWIW - NASCAR attendence (1 Viewer)

[Jim]

Linked to an article via Autoweek

I'm not sure their ideas are any better than those posted here.....
....and not to introduce politics (really), if the economy was really cranking, ageing demographics not withstanding, I think many of the problems (of NHRA and NASCAR)would - pretty much - take care of themselves.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1864315-how-can-nascar-fix-its-attendance-problems

 

[DrRocket]

I'm not so sure about that. I think a lot of the fans they pulled into the stands during "the glory days" simply grew a bit jaded and moved on.

NASCAR isn't the only one suffering from this. Indy car racing's stands are famously empty now, much of that coming from disgust with Tony George's infamous power grab and the resulting split. Those fans, many of them long time open wheel die hards were pi$$ed and simply left, never to return.

Even F1 is suffering from this. At the Chinese venue, the seats were removed from some of the smaller stands and replaced with billboards, a practice you're seeing much more at a lot of motor sports venues.

Some interesting ideas though, I must admit.

 

[Randy]

Their solution was to paint the seats in the grandstands so from a camera angle the stands look full.

 

[BF]

Decreased seating to bunch up the fans that remain is a good way to piss off fans who might actually like that vantage point that they had. Many people who had tickets at IMS on the pit road terrace lost them when the F-1 pits were installed. Many of those never returned.
Shorter races: When you're a fan of something, you don't want less of it. (especially at the same or higher price, see NHRA)
3 day events to 2 day events is not a bad idea, it can be hard for most working people to attend on Friday. With the state of the truck and NNS series, it's not really worth the extra effort anyway.
Concerts: I have never attended a major race because of the artist doing a pre-race concert. I don't know of anyone who has, though there may be a couple out there.
Rotate the Chase: The best thing they could do is do away with the Chase. Rotating the tracks would chase off more attendance due to change of dates yearly. You should read some of the NASCAR message boards on peoples' hatred for the Chase.

 

[vegasnitro]

F1's attendance issues are a little different. The sanctioning fee is so high to host a race, many of the traditional venues in Europe told them to go pound sand. So Uncle Bernie had to drum up some races somehow, and every race that has been added to the calendar in the last 15 years has been government subsidized (including the USGP in Austin). This has taken F1 to places where there is not a historical F1 fan base (USA) and to places where there is no historical interest in motorsports nor can the average citizen afford a ticket (China, Turkey, Malaysia, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Korea, India, etc). The attendance has been atrocious at most new events (save for Shanghai and Austin). The attendance remains strong at traditional venues like Silverstone, Monza, Monaco and the Nurburgring.

There is a parallel to NASCAR in so far as that if you want people to buy a ticket to watch you race, don't move most of your events away from your traditional fan base.

Lastly, F1's TV ratings worldwide are incredibly strong. In Europe, South America and Australia, only the Olympics and the World Cup draw larger ratings, and those events only happen every 4 years. There were 19 races on the calendar this year in F1. Until those ratings dip, nothing will change in F1. Especially since Uncle Bernie gets his money up front, he flat doesn't care if anyone shows up in person and buys a ticket or where in the world the race takes place.