Numbers grow for NASCAR

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In: NASCAR Cup Series News

It was a big week for numbers in NASCAR.

The sanctioning body is reported to be asking $1 billion for a 10-year sponsorship of its premier Cup series once Sprint departs after 2016. Jim France, the major stockholder in the family-owned business of NASCAR, was reported this week by Forbes to be worth more than $2 billion, which is up by $1 billion since the turn of the century. Tracks hosting Sprint Cup events, meanwhile, took in $100 million in profit last year.

This year, NASCAR enters the first season of a lucrative 10-year contract with NBC Sports and continues with its long-term broadcast partner FOX Sports.

On a more mundane front, TV ratings for the Atlanta race were a 5.1, easily closing out the NBA game for weekend honors among sports events. Plus, those ratings edged last year’s number for the Sprint Cup’s second race weekend, which was held in Phoenix.

Heck, even a back-marker team’s car number recently got big play, although that’s because Team Xtreme’s number 44 race car was stolen from a motel parking lot the night before qualifying. (The plucky outfit missed the race, but recovered the car and is entered for this weekend’s event in Las Vegas.)

What do all these big numbers mean? NASCAR is a major league enterprise — even if it’s treated as less than major league by major newspapers, most of which do not assign writers to cover it regularly.

But there are other flies in the ointment for NASCAR beyond the snobbery of stick-and-ball types who seem to prefer athletes who skip classes and graduation to those who just skip college all together and take up racing.

When it comes to numbers for NASCAR, they did not look good in the Atlanta grandstands. Less than half of the 87,000 seats were filled on a cold, damp, rainy Sunday. Counting the suites and the capacity crowd in the infield, attendance came in at an estimated 50,000.

In some respects, this ongoing difficulty selling tickets to NASCAR events is part of the same ball of wax that generates those huge TV contracts and the largest sponsorship package in professional sports, the latter being dependent upon TV coverage.

When the mega-deal TV contracts with FOX Sports and NBC Sports were originally put together for the 2001 season, the blackout rule was eliminated. Prior to the 2001 season, tracks — instead of NASCAR — independently sought their TV deals and generally insisted on a wide-ranging blackout rule. New grandstands were built willy-nilly in the 1990s — a process aided by the fact fans couldn’t see a nearby race unless they saw it in person.

But once the upsurge occasioned by the death of Dale Earnhardt subsided and the Great Recession hit, it was clear NASCAR had sold its soul to, well, TV. Without the blackouts, the crowds began to dwindle, especially after the Great Recession.

Yet, the TV money (65 percent to the tracks, 25 percent to the race purses and 10 percent to NASCAR) continued to come in tidal surges. The publicly owned track ownership groups — which include the France family’s International Speedway Corporation — continued to show considerable profits.

The new contract with NBC, which will succeed ESPN, and the $1 billion price tag on the Cup series sponsorship confirms the strategy of taking the guaranteed TV money in advance. In turn, grandstands are now being scuttled (an entire high-rise holding 16,000 seats has disappeared from Turn 3 in Atlanta) in favor of filling all available seats to help promote the sport’s image in TV.

In other words, the NASCAR fan — like all other, ahem, major league fans — are going to start paying more for tickets as soon as demand exceeds seating supply.

Although it suffered during the Great Recession, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where the seating capacity is 142,000, is one of those filling its grandstands because Sin City is such a popular destination for NASCAR fans.

Another stop on the western swing is Phoenix International Raceway, which also has been selling the majority of its seats. After the equivalent of a lobotomy along its front stretch, the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., the third stop, is also expected to fill the majority of its seats.

NASCAR may not overtake the NFL anytime soon. It may not be regarded as major league in some print media quarters. It may have off weekends in foul weather.
But it’s a healthy business as some of this week’s big numbers suggest. And, as usual, fans will eventually pay for it.

NOTEBOOK: The Las Vegas race will be missing two hometown heroes — brothers Kurt and Kyle Busch. The latter is recovering from a leg broken in Daytona. Kurt, meanwhile, earlier this week informed NASCAR officials he will enter a treatment program after a family court in Delaware concluded he had committed domestic violence. Suspended indefinitely, the older Busch will be eligible to regain his NASCAR license once he completes the unspecified program. On Thursday, it was announced Busch will not be charged by the Delaware Attorney General’s office, because the burden of proof could not be met to charge him with a crime. … Tires are a key element in this year’s switch to lower downforce cars at speedways. After extensive testing in the offseason, Goodyear will introduce new tires on the left side and right side in Las Vegas, which will be used by both the Sprint Cup and Xfinity Series teams. So Saturday’s running of the understudy series should be a preview of Sunday’s race when it comes to tire performance. In Atlanta, there was some “cording” in the Sprint Cup race, but on the roughest and one of the fastest circuits in the series, Goodyear’s new tires held up well under the demands of low downforce — which creates more demand for mechanical grip. … Police have located a “person of interest” in the case of the race car, van and truck owned by Team Xtreme that was stolen from a motel parking lot in Morrow, Ga., the night before Sprint Cup qualifying in Atlanta.

NASCAR Wire Service
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