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IRL - Champ Car Reunification
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#21
 
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Re: IRL - Champ Car Reunification -
02-24-2006
, 09:33 AM
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They seem to be doing pretty well without much of a foreign market. I don't really see how catering to an international market will benefit an American open wheel series. In my view, catering to a market outside of your fan base runs the risk of alienating your fan base. |
there is a world outside of the US, unless they left during a stint in
the military to blow up some third world shit hole.
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#22
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Carey Akin <cmakin (AT) att (DOT) net> wrote: They seem to be doing pretty well without much of a foreign market. I don't really see how catering to an international market will benefit an American open wheel series. In my view, catering to a market outside of your fan base runs the risk of alienating your fan base. That's only because you associate with NASCAR fans who aren't aware that there is a world outside of the US, unless they left during a stint in the military to blow up some third world shit hole. |
Or, upon their return, the Murrah Federal Building in OKC.
#23
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I think you sort of missed his point. Going in NASCAR will help there exposure with a totally different segment of the US market. Nascar fans are more now than in years past but are still not a representive sample of the US market. Even as NASCAR has gotten as big as it has and in my opinion is getting close to topping out, there are still a whole lot more people that don't watch NASCAR than do. |
back about how a racing series in this country would benefit by changing to
cater to more international tastes. I don't feel that it is a good idea,
since they then run risk of alienating the original core fan base in the
hopes of gaining an international one. Yes, NASCAR may well run out of
tricks to increase their market share of sports fans, but they would be
better served by creating or tying in the NASCAR "vision", if you will, with
an international style racing series. This way, they could garner
viewership from that untapped audience without losing their fan base back
home. If they were to alter their style of racing in the US to cater to a
more international audience, what would happen if they lost their core fan
base back home? They may well get that huge international TV viewership,
but who then would attend the events, or would it then just go on the road
as a "stock car" F1? This, in my view, is what has happened to open wheel
racing in this country. In an attempt, largely by CART, to mimic F1, the
domestic fans turned their back on it. NASCAR filled the need of a racing
series with a US "style", if you will, and the fans stayed with what they
wanted.
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Any company that sells internationally, and thats most of them now, are going to try to control how the ads are presented based on the view audience. You would use a totally different marketing approach to reach a NASCAR fan than you would a Champ Car fan. Both US, both selling the same product, but two entirely different approaches to the same end which is to have person A buy product B. |
deal altogether. Sports, in general, have strong cultural attractions.
Soccer (or associates football) is insanely popular in the rest of the
world, but still hasn't really caught on here in the states. Most of the
audience for the US pro teams is made up of immigrants and expats. Rugby,
also incredibly popular in the rest of the English speaking world outside of
North America, is only popular as a club level sport. Baseball is a strange
one. Very popular here in the states, of course, outside of Japan and Latin
America, it has almost no following. Traveling through the Caribbean plays
that out. Countries like Cuba, Republica Dominicana, Venezuela, etc. enjoy
the game immensely and have supplied US baseball with some of its best
players. But nearby islands like Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and the other
English speaking countries have some of the best cricket players in the
world. Or, countries like the French and Creole speaking Haiti, that shares
the island with Republica Dominicana, has other issues altogether. Yet the
American version of football isn't even considered in any of the countries
that I mentioned, other than the US. Attempts at European and Latin
American expansion of football are having mixed results. But, the NFL did
not try and expand the US NFL teams into these areas. And, the NFL does
great business without a major world audience. This is what I am discussing
more than marketing approaches.
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Three things would drive most of these decisions. Total budget, cost per view and demographics of the audience. It really isn't that complicated and if someone has a little common sense to take advantage of the opportunitites that exist, there are plenty of sponsorship dollars to be had by all if given time to grow. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. And I agree. But sports have such a cultural attraction, it is difficult to |
Carey in Manvel
#24
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That's only because you associate with NASCAR fans who aren't aware that there is a world outside of the US, unless they left during a stint in the military to blow up some third world shit hole. And you would be very wrong with that opinion. |
Carey in Manvel
#25
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Carey Akin <cmakin (AT) att (DOT) net> wrote: They seem to be doing pretty well without much of a foreign market. I don't really see how catering to an international market will benefit an American open wheel series. In my view, catering to a market outside of your fan base runs the risk of alienating your fan base. That's only because you associate with NASCAR fans who aren't aware that there is a world outside of the US, unless they left during a stint in the military to blow up some third world shit hole. |
but really doesn't know shit about them.
#26
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| Nascar has already altered their style of racing in the US, it just hasn't reached up to bite them yet. Yet no series thumbs its nose at its history without seeing the results of it. Going to the Labor Day race at Darlington this year? Who's leading the mothers day race? One isn't going to have a race and one is. Hmmm How many real short tracks are left? A few but not many, and where do you think the new dates for all these tracks that are being built in places like New York are going to come from? Whats up with this chase for the championship? I thought the whole season counted for everyone and that you didn't start over midway through the year just to make sure you had a close finish for the title. I heard an expression once years ago. Many family businesses have trouble with the third generation. Time will tell. The current NASCAR style vision need a new set of glasses. |
the fan base here in the US. That is why they are moving away from the
short tracks (except for Bristol that can seat enough folks) and dropping
some traditional races and venues. While I don't think these changes have
completely run off the traditional fan, they certainly have raised some
concern. Just wander over to RASN and have a look. I believe that the move
to bring Toyota into the fold is less an attempt at getting international
exposure for NASCAR than it is to get the Toyota driver into the fan mix (as
if he isn't already there). This move, it seems to me, is much the same as
the inception of the Craftsman Truck Series, i.e. one of the biggest selling
type of vehicles, especially to the typical male demographic they are
looking to attract, are pickup trucks. So they created a series. To me, it
is no coincidence that Toyota outsells GM at about the same time Toyota is
allowed into Cup. Moves to other venues around the country and the
modification of the point series to add that "play off " type tension for
the short attention span fan also caters more to the US market than the
international. Just a broader portion of the international market. Believe
me, I have some real issues with NASCAR, and really only pay attention to it
to see how a handful of drivers are doing. More on that later.
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Now as for changing its product. It really didn't unless you go all the way back to 79. When Cart formed in 79, road racing became part of the product. It has been an important part of the product since. Though prior to that road racing was something that really wasn't done in Champ Cars, the teams were also struggling to survive. Dan Gurneys thoughts recorded at the time were quite to the point an telling. Champ Car didn't quit going to ovals and I expect more of them to slowly make their way back on the schedule even now. Instead it created a new market outside of the spridget following it had based in Indy area. It didn't attempt to imitate F1, but with the growth by the mid 90s it was really perceived to be a threat to F1. Otherwise the FIA never would have bothered banning them from overseas road racing at the time. Even up to 95, the product was growing, the cash was coming in and sponsors were easy to find. |
or CART/OWRS. In fact, I do enjoy some road racing events. It is just that
road racing, like some European style sports, has never generated the fan
following that oval racing has. The longer CART had their own season, fewer
and fewer ovals were appearing on the schedule. There was still a fairly
solid fan base, however, because the legendary drivers like Foyt, Andretti
(either one), Mears and other had already established themselves and brought
many folks to the events and the TV screens. In my view, as these "name"
drivers retired and the series, other than the 500 (which remained a USAC
event) moved more and more to cater to an international audience, the US fan
base moved to NASCAR to see oval racing. And, don't discount those spridget
fans. I think you would be surprised to see just how many follow NASCAR
now, just because that is where "their" drivers (Stewart, J. Gordon,
Schraeder, et.al.) have not only gone to race, but have thrived. I am not
sure how much CART was growing by the end of 1995, but I would imagine if
one looked at it practically, the domestic support was probably waning. I
do know that among the die hard fans (and participants) that I have been
involved with through the years, the interest in CART was down to nearly
nothing by 1995. In fact, with the inception of the IRL, not a whole lot of
former open wheel fans (ala USAC) that I knew really thought that there was
going to be much of a change. But that is the subject of another thread,
and a place that I do not want to go with this one.
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Stick and ball sports are really a bit of apple to oranges though not totally. The NFL has tried to go overseas (NFL Europe) and it has worked to an extent but not nearly to the extent it has here. These are games though. These games like soccer have a long history in many countries, but very little to none here. Same with many sports we play over there. Yet when it comes to auto racing, though some countries are far more passionate about it than others (Brazil for example) almost every country has some form of auto racing. The game is the same, the only difference is what you play it with. Ive watched and enjoyed races in everything from swamp buggies to lawn mowers, and though the vehicle was different the actual competition between drivers, mechanics and teams really doesn't change much. Only the budgets and what it looks like does. Unless polictics get in the way, an race fan is race fan. Brazilians were solid F1 fans and still are, but they loved CART and Champ Car racing. It was essentially the same product that was used in the US taken elsewhere. Sponsors in stick and ball sports are far more likely to be sponsors of the entire league rather than a specific team. Teams get cash from the gate. Teams get some cash from league/sponsor deals as well as maybe tv. The team in an auto racing series gets its cash from prize money/some times from appearance and special programs from the series, but mostly directly from sponsors. A huge difference. |
domestically and interationally. If you took an oval open wheel event and
staged it down in Brazil (and I mean oval, not a trapezoidal "roval" event),
staged exactly the way it is here in the US, with US drivers, I doubt
really if it would be all that popular. There is no denying the love of
Brazilians (or South Americans in general) of their racing, and especially
road/street racing. I imagine the popularity of the IRL in Brazil is due,
largely in part to the number of Brazilians participating. It is only
natural. I would imagine F1 would have a much larger following in the US if
there were any US drivers in it.
Answer me one question. While there is little argument that Champ Car
racing is popular in Brazil, could the same be said of champ car? Now that
there is some South American presence in Silver Crown, it will be
interesting to see if popularity outside the US increases for that series.
And, yes, I agree that the teams make far more from sponsorship than the
gate, so catering to their audience is more important. It just seems that
the IRL and OWRS are having trouble getting a product out there that an
adequetly sized audience in interested in. All of the mergers in the world,
short of merging with NASCAR will improve either series, unless one or the
other makes a serious change in "vision".
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difference between US and European styles of racing are as great as those
between Rugby and American football. They are similar, one even is a
modification of the other. Yet on one side of the Atlantic, they pack
stadiums with it, lots of sponsorship (mostly US firms) and bigger support
that any NFL team seems to get here (the coach of the English team was
knighted after his team won the World Cup in 2003).
Do you remember a few years back when they (and wasn't NASCAR involved?)
tried to bring the insanely popular German Touring Car concept here to the
US? Just whatever happened to the American Touring Car Series? Trans Am
probably has the longest running existence as a road/street series, but, for
the most part, they are just a support series at their events, and don't
garnish a whole lot of attention. Can Am was also a very interesting show.
Just ask Plotkin. But where are they now?
Oh, and one last and a little outside the thread of this discussion. Going
back to the spridget idea, last year I was up in Indiana for the Sprint Week
deal. Great time. What I found interesting was the amount of folks
scouting these guys for moving into other series (NASCAR). And the ones
doing the scouting? Sports agents.
#27
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| But when the product stays constant or pretty close (road racing, oval racing ect if you like it you like it) 200 million viewers is better than 100 million viewers but that isn't the whole story. The advertisers and sponsors look at "cost per view". For sake of discussion, I am going to throw out numbers that are not accurate or reseached but just to make a point as I don't have the real numbers and for this discussion it really doesn't matter anyway. |
the fan base. I don't even consider them pretty close. Judging by the
sucess of a primarily oval series like NASCAR, over a primarily road/street
series like OWRS, it seems that the domestic fan base aggrees with me, too.
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Lets say F1 has 200 viewers on a weekly basis, but the annual budget divided by 52 weeks leaves a weekly expense of $200. Do the math and it cost the advertiser $1 for every person that views the ad. You can add millions in front and the principle is the same if you like Now take the 100 people that see the ad each week but instead it only cost you $50. The cost per view when you do the math is $.50. You might not reach as many, but you do reach them cheaper. |
attraction to the type of racing. Your postulate seems to hinge on your
consideration of oval and road racing to be "pretty close" (your words). It
isn't the case.
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This exactly is where Champ Car is going to fit between F1. It will offer opportunities that will make it viable for companies that can not afford F1 sponsorship and reach most the same people and in time maybe even more. |
that a second tier racing series can market to a broader audience?
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F1 has there own version of a split coming soon to a newscast near you. I don't think they will fair much better. |
of racing. If anything, a cheaper version of F1 that has split off may well
doom OWRS. Is that why they are so anxious ot merge with the IRL?
Just a thought.
Carey in Manvel
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#28
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"Jeff Parsons" <email (AT) message (DOT) sig> wrote in message news:email-5F3447.08000323022006 (AT) news-nb00s0 (DOT) nbnet.nb.ca... In article <DrbLf.5686$z82.4677@fed1read07>, "." <. (AT) dot (DOT) com> wrote: "SG" <spaamtrapper (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message news:ZsSdnR01UZ-Cm2DeRVn-uw (AT) comcast (DOT) com... The bigger question is: What would the new series be called? A combined grouping of that sort is tantamount to a proposal of a unified field theory, fits well with this year's IRL featuring of the Michael's son Marco experimental project. Experimental projects? Is that like a Whinedretti trying one more time? Or an Underacheever trying one more time? Are they trying one more time, or are they padding? And didn't they once race for Champ Car? Champ Car. The future of open wheel in North America. ;-) -Jeff -- My email address is gamson att nb dott sympatico dott ca The mental midget can rest assured in the most certain knowledge that he isn't, and never will be, in the slightest danger of ever finding himself anywhere in the vicinity of a realization of the intended humor in those word plays. |
#29
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Does Dot even understand his own incoherent babble? |
just might cave. From the instant that this item broke, dot has been
testing the Safer barriers at every opportunity.
Dot thought his "word play" was humorous. <chuckle> I quite agree with
his assessment of experimental projects. I merely expanded on the list.
What -is- humorous, is that dot insists on testing those Safer barriers
with appendages in his yap. ;-)
-Jeff
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"." <. (AT) dot (DOT) com> wrote "Jeff Parsons" <email (AT) message (DOT) sig> wrote in message news:email-5F3447.08000323022006 (AT) news-nb00s0 (DOT) nbnet.nb.ca... In article <DrbLf.5686$z82.4677@fed1read07>, "." <. (AT) dot (DOT) com> wrote: "SG" <spaamtrapper (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message news:ZsSdnR01UZ-Cm2DeRVn-uw (AT) comcast (DOT) com... The bigger question is: What would the new series be called? A combined grouping of that sort is tantamount to a proposal of a unified field theory, fits well with this year's IRL featuring of the Michael's son Marco experimental project. Experimental projects? Is that like a Whinedretti trying one more time? Or an Underacheever trying one more time? Are they trying one more time, or are they padding? And didn't they once race for Champ Car? Champ Car. The future of open wheel in North America. ;-) -Jeff -- My email address is gamson att nb dott sympatico dott ca The mental midget can rest assured in the most certain knowledge that he isn't, and never will be, in the slightest danger of ever finding himself anywhere in the vicinity of a realization of the intended humor in those word plays. |
My email address is gamson att nb dott sympatico dott ca
#30
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In article <KwRLf.3363$S25.1908 (AT) newsread1 (DOT) news.atl.earthlink.net>, "Shell" <jtshellnc (AT) earthlink (DOT) net> wrote: Does Dot even understand his own incoherent babble? Dot is having difficulty coming to grips with the notion that Toe Knee just might cave. From the instant that this item broke, dot has been testing the Safer barriers at every opportunity. Dot thought his "word play" was humorous. <chuckle> I quite agree with his assessment of experimental projects. I merely expanded on the list. What -is- humorous, is that dot insists on testing those Safer barriers with appendages in his yap. ;-) -Jeff "." <. (AT) dot (DOT) com> wrote "Jeff Parsons" <email (AT) message (DOT) sig> wrote in message news:email-5F3447.08000323022006 (AT) news-nb00s0 (DOT) nbnet.nb.ca... In article <DrbLf.5686$z82.4677@fed1read07>, "." <. (AT) dot (DOT) com> wrote: "SG" <spaamtrapper (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message news:ZsSdnR01UZ-Cm2DeRVn-uw (AT) comcast (DOT) com... The bigger question is: What would the new series be called? A combined grouping of that sort is tantamount to a proposal of a unified field theory, fits well with this year's IRL featuring of the Michael's son Marco experimental project. Experimental projects? Is that like a Whinedretti trying one more time? Or an Underacheever trying one more time? Are they trying one more time, or are they padding? And didn't they once race for Champ Car? Champ Car. The future of open wheel in North America. ;-) -Jeff -- My email address is gamson att nb dott sympatico dott ca The mental midget can rest assured in the most certain knowledge that he isn't, and never will be, in the slightest danger of ever finding himself anywhere in the vicinity of a realization of the intended humor in those word plays. -- My email address is gamson att nb dott sympatico dott ca |
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