NASCAR‘s kumbaya has been replaced with a record scratch. And boycott. This feels like a bad idea.
Remember 2020? That was when the pandemic broke out around the world, but it was NASCAR, with the participation of its team owners and drivers, that came up with a famous plan that would allow it to become a league sport. The first major to return to its major sites.
Remember 2021? That’s when NASCAR unveiled its Next Generation race car, praised for its cost-cutting capabilities and one-size-fits-all versatility but even more heralded for its “fitness level.” unprecedented” to design and build new machines.
Remember 2022? That’s when vintage racing’s giant sanctioning body launched a long-promised overhaul schedule, with new races and venues. It started with a pre-season exhibition held on a bullring built inside the LA Coliseum’s high-profile sacred Olympic temple. When the sport hit Daytona two weeks later, the garage was filled with hugs and smiles and Jeff Gordon did all that and more when he snapped at me and Marty Smith on television. directly, shouting while hugging, “NASCAR is back, baby!”
Well, this is 2023. And all of the fun stuff listed above feels as if it’s been dumped in a ditch like it has to do with the restart of the Circuit of the Americas.
If only it was interesting. Instead, it’s meetings and pie charts and pointing and… crude, isn’t it?
The first dark cracks in the sun began to appear late last summer, at the height of NASCAR’s most competitive season in a generation. That’s when drivers spoke very clearly and clearly about the lingering safety issues with Next Generation vehicles, specifically the two factors every rider most wants to avoid: fires and head injuries. NASCAR seemed to have let its guard down, with president Steve Phelps admitting to ESPN over the winter that he failed to realize the seriousness of drivers’ emotions when they weren’t being heard.
“Honestly, I was surprised,” he said, “but I’m grateful that they spoke up, even though it was uncomfortable, because it led to regular and formal meetings. than, really, weekly.”
The next wave of discontent came in October 2022, when a team of Avengers-like senior executives, including Gordon, met with a small group of NASCAR reporters to express their displeasure with the series. movie. More than what? What they believe is a too slow response to their demands for a new, “fairer” agreement regarding group charter agreements. The current deal, a new idea to create franchise-like value for racing teams, was started in 2016, renewed in 2020 and will expire at the end of 2024.
Over the past few weeks, drivers, NASCAR owners, and enforcement agencies have openly argued over penalties and fines. See: NASCAR VP Competition Elton Sawyer, himself a former driver, expresses his displeasure that thing Hendrick Motorsports successfully appealed to reduce his major penalties from Phoenix Raceway last month and Denny Hamlin on Twitter almost all the time.
Just as a reminder.
I was watching a podcast and apparently broke 3 rules 24 hours later. 50k and 25 POINTS.
– Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) March 30, 2023
On Wednesday, the driver Chris Buescher also took to social media a meme questioning what has largely been considered a success: turning the Bristol Motor Speedway into a dirt race for the third consecutive season. Yes, Buescher won his final run on the half-mile track last fall, dirt-free.
– Chris Buescher (@Chris_Buescher) April 5, 2023
However, just as Buescher is using the image of an exasperated Pedro Pascal to illustrate his feelings, there is a lot of hurt feelings at NASCAR HQ. That’s because when they prepare for the quarterly meeting with the owners of the Series Cup teams, those owners never show up. Do not have. Belong to. Surname.
It was an organized boycott of the team owners.
Why? When one of those owners was contacted Wednesday afternoon, they said, on condition of anonymity, “Still those bulls— the reasons were raised to you last fall. Nothing’s changed. So why go to a meeting when you don’t know what’s going to happen? That’s called wasting time.”
When the Associated Press broke the story, other owners – who also wanted to remain anonymous, citing the “sensitivity of the negotiations” – said NASCAR had not handled those negotiations amicably. even the lack of urgency when it comes to the speed of the process. Racers have never liked going slow. They also said they wanted to settle not only with old NASCAR brass but also with some good old-fashioned NASCAR royalties, namely the president (and son of the sanctioning agency founder), Jim France.
Thing is, France was there on Wednesday and was eventually stood up by people who were very adamant about getting him there in the first place.
What is all this really about? It’s about how to split the TV money next. That’s it. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There’s been a lot of talk about those charters, that teams want them marked forever, amen, while France prefers to keep signing franchises by contract because no one knows the permanent future. far will really look like.
But that’s all tied to TV money, which is the only real huge pile of cash the NASCAR world can snag. Current pie chart of the last rights deal signed, an $8.2 billion deal with Fox and NBC in 2015, that supposedly sends 25% of that booty to teams via racing wallet, 10% for NASCAR and 65% for racetracks — most of which are owned by NASCAR.
Those uneven pieces date back to a time that predates this century, when individual tracks made their own television deals. It was also a time when racing teams like Richie Rich were sitting on top of a mountain of coins, able to claim blank checks from the likes of Budweiser, GM Goodwrench and DuPont, and those corporations toss in money. blindly as if they were being robbed and happy it happened.
That’s not how it works anymore. It hasn’t been a very long time.
Today’s funding landscape is a daily battle and a flurry of deals. That’s why today’s owners are so anxious, openly complaining about — in the words of Team 23XI advisor and longtime team co-owner Michael Jordan shipper Curtis Polk — a “model “The economic model has been disrupted for the teams. Sustainability in this sport is not long-term unless we have a fundamental change in the model.”
With the current TV deal set to expire after the 2024 season, the exclusive negotiating window with existing broadcast partners will close later this month. So yeah, that’s the funnel all this stuff is being pushed through. That is the reason for this sense of urgency from the owners.
However, they should also keep an eye out for another concern that may not feel as urgent but certainly is: what all of this looks like for NASCAR fans. Think about it. A classic disgruntled fan base, which did so because fans increasingly felt disconnected from the racers, seems to have finally returned to enjoying the product on the track. The increase in TV ratings and attendance proves it. As soon as they are once again settled on their couches on Sunday afternoons, does the sport really think they’ll be ready for a long, public play rife with fights. debating who gets what percentage of billions of dollars?
This weekend at team owner Bristol and #NASCAR It would be like the couple who broke up in front of everyone at prom on Saturday night but then still had to sit next to each other in class on Monday morning. From @JennaFryer at AP… https://t.co/BDZQqZj7Q9
– Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) April 5, 2023
Major League Baseball first opened a widening gap between them and baseball fans in the 1980s, when massive player contract and labor disputes and arbitration hearings and strikes by the players and blah, blah, blah dominate the conversation about winning, losing, and running home.
America’s open wheel racing was torn in half in 1996 when Indianapolis Motor Speedway heir Tony George split from the CART IndyCar Series to form the Indy Racing League. The series owners and drivers themselves believe they can rally fans to their side by broadcasting countless dirty clotheslines through the media. Instead, those fans become confused, disgusted, and walk away. The sport will never fully recover. Because sports fans are tired of such postures.
For example, boycotting a meeting and then non-anonymously revealing the fact that you boycotted a meeting just to make a point.
Now, when NASCAR seems to have finally turned the tide of more than a decade of bad decisions. Now, when the stock car race finally has momentum. Now, when everyone seems to be at least considered rowing all the oars in the same direction… this? Currently? Publicly babbling and pretending about shares and franchises and he-gets this and I-don’t-that and yes, blah, blah, blah? Actually?
There’s definitely a problem. Those issues definitely need to be addressed. But that is the purpose of meetings, slow or not. That’s also why meetings are held behind closed doors. There’s a reason nobody sells or buys tickets to meetings. Because no one without special interests cares, especially when they are working all day trying to make ends meet and the battle they are forced to see is the tug-of-war between millionaires and billionaires.
Do what you have to, NASCAR owner and operator. Heck, call me and tell me all about it. Just don’t do it out loud. So boring. It is self-service. Your fans don’t care. They have races to watch…unless you give them a reason to go see something else. Again.
