Non-Road Boards > Sports
NASCAR
thspfc:
At this point, NASCAR is relying on its expensive TV contracts with Fox and NBC. I believe that those will expire in 2024. It will be interesting to see what happens after that. Do Fox and NBC want them? Do they go to other networks for less money?
Some say that NASCAR’s downfall is due to them trying too hard to appeal to the “casual” fan, instead of catering to their hardcore lifers. I disagree. That business model has been successful for many sports leagues. The main issue is very simple: NASCAR’s product just isn’t that good. The Daytona 500 is fun but other than that, it’s boring. They’ve tried to improve it by adding more road courses, but those don’t really interest me either. And don’t even get me started on them having their season continue into the fall months. Like, come on, you know that you’re going to get destroyed by the NFL and the plethora of other sports going on at that time (baseball playoffs, early-season hockey and basketball, college football, MLS playoffs).
Mapmikey:
--- Quote from: hbelkins on February 13, 2021, 11:23:15 PM ---Stuff like this...
https://www.sbnation.com/nascar/2016/4/21/11483470/nascar-fines-tony-stewart-safety-lug-nuts
If that had happened in 1996, and if it had been Earnhardt or Wallace or Darrell Waltrip saying it, there would have been no fine. Big Bill would have taken the comments under advisement. But two decades later, and after Earnhardt's death had led NASCAR to start emphasizing safety with renewed vigor, this took place.
Track attendance had been falling steadily, a combination of the economy and the on-track product. Now the TV ratings are tumbling. I'm not sure if the France offspring (Brian France and Lesa France Kennedy) are still running things or not, but whoever's in charge needs to take note. The Chase, stage racing, the "lucky dog" and no racing back to the flag ... if they were trying to attract new fans while maintaining the old ones, they failed in both efforts.
--- End quote ---
I always thought they misapplied how the lucky dog should work when they invented this. In situations where they were racing back to the flag sometimes 3 people got a lap back, sometimes nobody. Some of the drivers who got a lap back were multiple laps down. The way to get that same outcome with the lucky dog would be to give back a lap to anyone not on the lead lap who was within say 3 scoring loops of the leader when the caution flag comes out. It seems ridiculous to give the first car one lap down a lap back when they were 3/4 of a lap down and do nothing for someone laps down who is right behind the leader on the track.
You could've also kept the race back to the flag by throwing a red flag if there is a safety reason to not race back to the flag on any particular caution incident, such as the Dale Jarrett spin near the start/finish line that prompted the rule change to begin with.
I'm not the hugest fan of stage racing but I would like it better if they did not throw a caution at the end of the stages. The stage racing format gets rid of a lot of green-flag pit stops which can greatly impact a team one way or the other depending on how it was executed.
The one problem with the Chase sort of equating what happens for playoffs in other sports is you are much more likely to end up with a champion who wasn't the first or second best driver during the season. The other flaw is that other non-chase drivers have influence on the outcome of the chaser's finish.
Some tracks are definitely more boring than others - partly a product of how they engineer the cars to keep them from going airborne in a crash and these adjustments also make it hard to pass due to how air interacts with cars around you when you are not crashing. I hate restrictor plate racing. They should run those races on 6 or 7 cylinders so that there can be differences in engine building prowess and therefore some cars will be faster than others. Or flatten the curves at the two tracks that need this so that a driver must slow down and therefore some skill is involved in getting around the track.
74/171FAN:
--- Quote ---I'm not the hugest fan of stage racing but I would like it better if they did not throw a caution at the end of the stages. The stage racing format gets rid of a lot of green-flag pit stops which can greatly impact a team one way or the other depending on how it was executed.
--- End quote ---
Even Eric Estepp (who supports stage racing) agrees that cautions should not be thrown at the end of stages on road courses. Cautions at the end of stages really mess with the strategies on the road courses with anyone wanting to stay up front basically being forced to give up stage points for it.
NWI_Irish96:
--- Quote from: thspfc on February 14, 2021, 08:54:47 AM ---At this point, NASCAR is relying on its expensive TV contracts with Fox and NBC. I believe that those will expire in 2024. It will be interesting to see what happens after that. Do Fox and NBC want them? Do they go to other networks for less money?
Some say that NASCAR’s downfall is due to them trying too hard to appeal to the “casual” fan, instead of catering to their hardcore lifers. I disagree. That business model has been successful for many sports leagues. The main issue is very simple: NASCAR’s product just isn’t that good. The Daytona 500 is fun but other than that, it’s boring. They’ve tried to improve it by adding more road courses, but those don’t really interest me either. And don’t even get me started on them having their season continue into the fall months. Like, come on, you know that you’re going to get destroyed by the NFL and the plethora of other sports going on at that time (baseball playoffs, early-season hockey and basketball, college football, MLS playoffs).
--- End quote ---
I think NASCAR is aware of the struggles of grabbing ratings in the Fall. Golf made their switch to end their season in August. In order to do this NASCAR would have to push the start of the season well before mid-February. That either forces the Daytona 500 to either move off its traditional mid-February weekend of cease to be the first race of the season. Beyond that, it would be hard to find enough tracks where it's warm enough to have races in December-January.
This year they've pushed up the start of the season by one week, doubled up the Pocono races to a single weekend, and eliminated an off week and gotten the season finale up to Nov. 7. That's probably the best they can do. In 2020 they were forced to run weeknight races due to COVID and got bad TV ratings so they probably aren't willing to consider that as a permanent change.
NWI_Irish96:
--- Quote from: 74/171FAN on February 14, 2021, 09:50:32 AM ---
--- Quote ---I'm not the hugest fan of stage racing but I would like it better if they did not throw a caution at the end of the stages. The stage racing format gets rid of a lot of green-flag pit stops which can greatly impact a team one way or the other depending on how it was executed.
--- End quote ---
Even Eric Estepp (who supports stage racing) agrees that cautions should not be thrown at the end of stages on road courses. Cautions at the end of stages really mess with the strategies on the road courses with anyone wanting to stay up front basically being forced to give up stage points for it.
--- End quote ---
I don't like the planned cautions of the stages. It saves drivers who have made mistakes or had accidents and were about to get lapped under green. It makes it easier for the strongest teams to stay at the front and makes it harder for the second tier teams to steal a win based on strategy.
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