Race fans get into the 'Zone'

Nick Patrick has loved NASCAR since he was 5, and on Saturday he was back for more.

[Not a Fan]

90% of this "news story" was all about the hype and marketing. Where is any coverage of the race itself? That used to be front page news, back when the Sun was a real paper, not the laughingstock it has become recently. Last week, I read everything of interest in the Sunday Sun in under 5 minutes. It would have taken me only 3 minutes, but I didn't want to skip the 1/2 pages of ads.

[boo]

nascar sucks

[WWE CRASHCAR 2010]

Tried to watch some of today's race, but it put me into the sleep zone. Switch to NFL football.

[NB Forrest]

WWE CRASHCAR 2010 wrote:

Tried to watch some of today's race, but it put me into the sleep zone. Switch to NFL football.

NFL? if you want to watch a bunch of guys feeling each other up, I guess it is OK. By the way, NASCAR is America's fasting growing sport.

[The Truth]

By the way, NASCAR WAS the fastest growing sport, 10 years ago. Today, their revenue is off by 40%. Reason? Too many other sports events, at cheaper ticket prices.

[The Fat and the Furious]

Revenue is down, but no where near 40%. Lets get realistic here and not make up numbers. The last numbers I saw for ticket revenue were around 18/19%. Television ratings are down also, but I don't really have a clue what the numbers are for those.

Still, a significant drop. People could debate for a long time why the numbers are down. Jimmie winning 4 straight championships, the economy, Nascar's inconsistency, etc. etc. I suspect it's a combination of all those things I mentioned, including the etc. etc. All the major sports leagues have seen a drop though, so the economy is an obvious factor, especially considering Nascar prices.

[The Truth]

I stand by my numbers. NASCAR sponsors and fans are dropping like flies. The SB Sun says 50,000 attended the race yesterday. Where were they hiding? Maybe 50,000 drove past the freeway offramp, heading to a more interesting sport to watch.

[The Fat and the Furious]

Well, you can stand by some number you just made up all you want. That's your choice. I stand by what the real decline has been and it's hardly dropping like flies. Like I said, the numbers are down, but no where near the numbers some people want to spin. For instance 40%.

Either way though. Who really cares in the end? Nascar isn't going anywhere. Considering how the sport grew the last 20 years, some decline is going to far from kill it off. So, the drivers get a little less money, the sponsors aren't as willing to invest and teams quit fielding 3/4 cars and drop it to 1/2. Kind of sounds like what all these people complaining say they want, the old days of racing. I wonder how many of these people realize that in the old days of racing, many of them would never have even seen a race or been able to keep track of what was going on in the sport. Because, in the old days of racing, ESPN and their local and national news didn't let them know. There's a reason it was much smaller back than, because very few knew much about it, not because they wanted to keep it small and localized.