Sports News
Economic Crunch Hitting NASCAR
Tickets are a luxury these days, so some changes must be made to racing.
It's the economy, stupid.
That phrase, derived from a sign that political strategist James Carville hung in Bill Clinton's Little Rock, Ark., presidential campaign headquarters in 1992, echoes with particular relevance in 2008.
When money's tight, tickets to sports events are a luxury, and NASCAR racetracks aren't immune to the challenge of trying to keep the grandstands and infields full in a climate where fewer fans can afford to be there.
We've all seen the empty seats this year. At Dover, Martinsville and New Hampshire, for example, we've seen the glint of metal grandstands where, in past years, fans have colored the bleachers with the regalia of their favorite drivers.
The two companies that combine to host 31 of 36 Sprint Cup points races — International Speedway Corporation and Speedway Motorsports Inc. — are feeling the pinch. For the quarter ending May 31, 2008, ISC reported admission revenue of $53.4 million, down $3.8 million from the same period last year.
In the first quarter of 2008, SMI's admission revenue was down $2.9 million versus the comparable period in 2007. Despite a healthy jump in net income for the quarter, ISC's stock is trading near its 52-week low, as is that of SMI.
It's impossible to ignore the effects of the economy on attendance at races, but it's a mistake to interpret the data as a fundamental lack of interest in or disenchantment with the sport itself.
In a recent appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman," Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig crowed that overall attendance was on record pace this year. What Selig didn't say was that eight of the 15 teams that led the Major Leagues in attendance last year have shown declines in average attendance this season.
What Selig also failed to mention was the lengths to which team owners must go to keep fans in the stands. This past weekend, while Gateway International Raceway was hosting the Nationwide Series, the St. Louis Cardinals were offering half-price tickets for an upcoming series against the Milwaukee Brewers to their e-mail list — and that with the Cardinals, Brewers and Chicago Cubs in a heated three-way battle for the National League Central championship.
The Cardinals drew a crowd of 45,399 on Saturday afternoon for a game against the San Diego Padres. Gateway, just across the Mississippi River in Madison, Ill., drew an estimated 50,000 fans that night for the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250. The crowd included Padres reliever Trevor Hoffman, major league baseball's career leader in saves.
That a stand-alone Nationwide race in America's heartland can fill 50,000 of 65,000 seats is an encouraging sign. So was the sellout for the first Saturday night race at Chicagoland Speedway, where fans had to buy a weekend package to attend the Cup race.
Let's face it. NASCAR's introduction of its new racecar wasn't without its share of controversy, nor was its welcoming of Toyota into a previously all-American sport. There are fans who have been reluctant to embrace the changes — but in the vast majority of cases, it wasn't to the point of refusing to attend or to watch the races.
Kyle Busch did the entire sport a huge favor July 12 when he buried his No. 18 Toyota into the first corner at Chicagoland and made it stick, passing leader Jimmie Johnson in a two-lap shootout for the win. If the new car needed validation on the performance side, Busch's daring move certainly helped.
Not that things are perfect. They never are. I'd like to see the height of the front splitter on the Cup car raised closer to the height used in the Craftsman Truck Series to minimize contact with the asphalt. I'd like to see more travel in the front suspension. I'd like to scrap the rear wing and return to a spoiler car, as the Nationwide Series reportedly will do when its version of the Car of Tomorrow is introduced.
In other words, I'd like to make the driver, not the car, the limiting element of the equation.
From the fans' standpoint, I'd like to see more information on display at the track beyond SprintVision and the traditional scoring pylons. I'd like to see pit road speeds in real time. I'd like to see a scoreboard indicating which cars took four tires, two tires or fuel only on their last pit stops.
Everybody has a wish list, though, and just because there might be holes in the ideal notion of NASCAR racing, that doesn't mean fans won't show up — if they can afford the tickets or the $500 tanks of gas for their motor homes.
For the ones who can't attend, it's a safe bet it's the hole in the wallet that's keeping them away.
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