January 6, 2011
By Doug Demmons
With all the focus on changes that NASCAR might be making shortly to try to boost the sport, there are plenty of ways that changes can hurt the sport and plenty of ways the sport can suffer through inaction.
Here are my own top 10:
10. Add more drivers to the Chase. Take it from 12 to 15 and then check your watch to see how long it takes for A.) Someone to suggest that it’s NASCAR’s way to get Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Chase and B.) Someone to compare NASCAR to the NBA.
9. Eliminate half the Chase drivers after five Chase races. Drivers currently eliminate themselves. An artificial elimination scheme will eventually result in a driver winning two races but being eliminated after two DNFs or because of a 150-point penalty. Let nature run its course.
8. Ban Sprint Cup drivers from winning the Nationwide championship but not from racing in the series. If Austin Dillon wins the Nationwide title with just one win while Kyle Busch wins 12 races, how legitimate will the Nationwide title be?
7. Do nothing to attract younger fans. The media age of a NASCAR TV viewer is 51.6 years. That’s older than the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB. It means half of all NASCAR TV viewers were born before the Kennedy Administration. The sport won’t last if that trend continues.
6. Assume that ticket prices and hotel rates are the only thing keeping grandstands half empty. Putting on a good race isn’t enough anymore. An aggressive ISC capital campaign to add features like Daytona’s FanZone or the Neon Garage that SMI built at Las Vegas would help fill the stands.
5. Continue to party like it’s 1999. The world consumes sports information in ways that weren’t even dreamt of 10 years ago. NASCAR is way behind other sports in utilizing things live streaming, social media and development of apps for phones and iPads..
4. Cling to the notion that races have to be 500 miles or fans who buy tickets will feel cheated. The maximum time that the average sports fan will commit to watching something on TV is about three hours thanks to the NFL and baseball. Cut all but a few races to 400 miles or less and the only thing that will be lost will be a lot of lap-logging.
3. Make schedule decisions based on factors other than which tracks will put on the best races. The fact that a track has a casino and makes money for ISC, but it does nothing to boost the sport.
2. Continue the ban on testing. Top teams have already found ways around it through expensive computer simulation programs that small teams can ill afford. Instead, develop a testing formula that taxes larger teams and subsidizes smaller teams – bigger teams pay to test, smaller teams get funding to defray some of the costs of testing.
1. Do nothing to address the decline in TV ratings and continue to insist that it’s just a cyclical thing or that the drop in Chase ratings is because of the switch from ABC to ESPN. There isn’t just one cause for the decline and there won’t be just one magic solution.
Doug Demmons is a writer and editor for the Birmingham News ~ he writes daily and weekly auto racing columns ranging from NASCAR to open wheel to Formula One, local tracks and more... you can read Doug's columns online at Blog of Tommorow
Follow Doug on Twitter: @dougdemmons
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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