by Bobby Bennett. It's really very simple. For any business to survive and thrive, it needs to be proactive, not reactive. http://competitionplus.com/drag-rac...e-titanic-didn-t-adjust-and-see-what-happened
Great Commentary... (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Nunz
- Start date
Where do you take races from? Just think of 6-8 places you are going to pull them from. I can hear the howling now.
Sponsors sure aren't going to pay the same amount for 16 or 18 races, so this isn't going to fix anything monetarily. In fact, I would say it will hurt teams financially. If you cut 1/3rd of their sponsorship money coming in, 1 out of 3 people lose their jobs.
It doesn't help attendance. Most people are only going to drive so far. If you take away Topeka for example, not very many people from KC will drive to Denver or St. Louis. A few may, but not many.
I don't think this fixes to anything. If a team wants to, or can only afford to, race 16 times now, they are racing 16 times. If they can afford or want to race 24 times, they are.
You take away the double event races to start
Charlotte and Vegas each drop one
2 at Pomona might need to be looked at as well. With all of the restrictions and PIA of California, it might be wise to look elsewhere.
Kansas might be taken away on it's own, so not counting Pomona that is 3 to start with and probably a good first step. Dropping 6-8 might be too much at first.
Like Bobby said in the piece, the per race sponsor fee stays the same. You might not get $3 mil per year now but $2.7(or whatever number) instead. You are not going to as many races so you don't need as much UNLESS, and here is the key to this working.
How did many of us life long fans become a fan? For many it wasn't a national event. We went and saw some type of match race or booked in show at our local track. Those are now few and far between.
Norwalk puts on a huge one-day race (Night of Fire) Force shows up with his team and the Bader's book in a few others as well. All involved make money that day, sponsor gets exposure, fans are happy, dogs and cats are getting along...it's a beautiful thing. Cordova does this with the World Series and there are a few others.
With less races, we open up the opportunity for teams to take on more of these money makers AND it spreads racing to other areas. Think about it, some smaller track in Idaho, Oklahoma or Rhode Island can't fit a full NHRA national event in their space but, they can book in 4 Nitro cars and build a show around that. Rather than hoping a new fan drops $60 to come to race for the first time at a nationals or maybe gets hooked via TV, we now are taking the racing to the people. Make it an affordable ticket, let the team sell their shirts and such and you solve a few issues.
With less national events on the schedule, more of these opportunities would open up, it would allow teams to make money (which with the prize money at NHRA events makes that difficult) still gets the sponsors out there and hopefully draws new fans. Once at a track, they are more likely to watch the next national event on TV then, which would boost those ratings which in turn makes more sponsors happy.
Charlotte and Vegas each drop one
2 at Pomona might need to be looked at as well. With all of the restrictions and PIA of California, it might be wise to look elsewhere.
Kansas might be taken away on it's own, so not counting Pomona that is 3 to start with and probably a good first step. Dropping 6-8 might be too much at first.
Like Bobby said in the piece, the per race sponsor fee stays the same. You might not get $3 mil per year now but $2.7(or whatever number) instead. You are not going to as many races so you don't need as much UNLESS, and here is the key to this working.
How did many of us life long fans become a fan? For many it wasn't a national event. We went and saw some type of match race or booked in show at our local track. Those are now few and far between.
Norwalk puts on a huge one-day race (Night of Fire) Force shows up with his team and the Bader's book in a few others as well. All involved make money that day, sponsor gets exposure, fans are happy, dogs and cats are getting along...it's a beautiful thing. Cordova does this with the World Series and there are a few others.
With less races, we open up the opportunity for teams to take on more of these money makers AND it spreads racing to other areas. Think about it, some smaller track in Idaho, Oklahoma or Rhode Island can't fit a full NHRA national event in their space but, they can book in 4 Nitro cars and build a show around that. Rather than hoping a new fan drops $60 to come to race for the first time at a nationals or maybe gets hooked via TV, we now are taking the racing to the people. Make it an affordable ticket, let the team sell their shirts and such and you solve a few issues.
With less national events on the schedule, more of these opportunities would open up, it would allow teams to make money (which with the prize money at NHRA events makes that difficult) still gets the sponsors out there and hopefully draws new fans. Once at a track, they are more likely to watch the next national event on TV then, which would boost those ratings which in turn makes more sponsors happy.
SoCal Racer
Nitro Member
Good commentary – or is it? Let me begin by saying that fewer events could be a good thing to reduce costs, BUT… The problem with doing that is you remove exposure to drag racing in some markets, and that’s probably not good for the sport in the long run. NHRA's strategy is to make drag racing available in as many markets as possible, and attract as many fans as possible. That said though, multiple events at a single facility/market does not really help, and it may be wiser to move some of those events to other facilities/markets. Spread the wealth so to speak.
The core problem however is the cost of racing. While travel and accommodation costs are a large part of the expenses, racing itself has become so expensive at the professional levels – actually any level - that the number of people able to do it is dwindling rapidly. If NHRA would rule in a manner that kept costs sane there would be more who could get involved. That could only be good for the sport as the show would be better (not the same old same old). The win-win in that is NHRA makes more from from gate AND back gate receipts.
The core problem however is the cost of racing. While travel and accommodation costs are a large part of the expenses, racing itself has become so expensive at the professional levels – actually any level - that the number of people able to do it is dwindling rapidly. If NHRA would rule in a manner that kept costs sane there would be more who could get involved. That could only be good for the sport as the show would be better (not the same old same old). The win-win in that is NHRA makes more from from gate AND back gate receipts.
