The Current State of IndyCar

[HJJ]

Racer talks to Derrick Walker.

http://www.racer.com/insight-busy-of...=OTc3ODc1OTgS1

[Baigu]

Speaking as a former CART/Indycar follower, current Sportscar & F1 follower:

The problem with Indycar is they are not the "leader" in anything

Oval racing: Nascar does it better
Entertainment: Nascar do it better, even if it's fake sometimes (or often)
Technology / Inovation: ALMS, F1, WEC do it better
Engines: ALMS, WEC, F1 do it better
Racetracks: F1, ALMS, WEC, & GT Racing have better racetracks
Fan Interaction: Everyone except F1 do it about the same
Cars: ALMS, GT Racing, F1 & WEC do it better
Signature Events: Except Indy 500, nothing special about any other Indycar races.

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by Baigu

Speaking as a former CART/Indycar follower, current Sportscar & F1 follower:

The problem with Indycar is they are not the "leader" in anything

Oval racing: Nascar does it better
Entertainment: Nascar do it better, even if it's fake sometimes (or often)
Technology / Inovation: ALMS, F1, WEC do it better
Engines: ALMS, WEC, F1 do it better
Racetracks: F1, ALMS, WEC, & GT Racing have better racetracks
Fan Interaction: Everyone except F1 do it about the same
Cars: ALMS, GT Racing, F1 & WEC do it better
Signature Events: Except Indy 500, nothing special about any other Indycar races.

NASCAR does not do "oval racing" and "entertainment" better than IndyCar imo. Most NASCAR races nowadays are snooze fests compared to most IndyCar races.

It's hard to compare ALMS, WEC, GTs to IndyCar. It's apples vs oranges vs potatoes.

[gomick]

Long Beach Grand Prix goes pretty good too...

[HJJ]

Interesting...

http://indycarsponsor.com/demographics.html

[Burp]

Sponsorships available for the 2010 & 2011 season, including the Indy 500!

Time machine?


Guessing those figures are out of date now

[Dragger]

And now they've lost Dario. This sucks.

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by HJJ

Interesting...

http://indycarsponsor.com/demographics.html

Age distribution is a worry.

[Dragger]

Originally Posted by Salamus

Age distribution is a worry.

I just turned 35, yes, we're getting older. I think improving the look of the cars is one way to appeal towards a younger audience. Increasing technology also, but that requires a greatly increased budget accross the board, simply not there. Get them back to 900HP beasts again, make the turbos louder(kids these days like that sort of thing), it wouldn't hurt in bringing in younger fans.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by HJJ

Interesting...

http://indycarsponsor.com/demographics.html

Ummmm.... hmmmm....

irl series fans make up 20% of the US population?

All those numbers are delusional.

[Paradise City]

1 in 5 U.S. adults are IndyCar fans

Wow. Indycar is the most popular sport in America. Cool.

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

Ummmm.... hmmmm....

irl series fans make up 20% of the US population?

All those numbers are delusional.

Read it again! 1 in 5 US Adults are IndyCar fans.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Salamus

Read it again! 1 in 5 US Adults are IndyCar fans.

Oh my that changes everything.

Still delusional numbers.

How can you have 50,000,000 million fans and only 200,000 people tune in to watch on TV?

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

How can you have 50,000,000 million fans and only 200,000 people tune in to watch on TV?

A couple things to keep in mind:
1. These numbers are a couple years old. Neither of us would be surprised if those numbers have gone drastically down.
2. A large fanbase with disappointing TV ratings means one thing...a lack of promotion. I'm a fan and sometimes I don't even know when the races are happening...albeit I don't have a TV.
3. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of IndyCar fans are over 40. Sorta hard to build something when the young are not interested at all.
4. I don't live in the US so can someone confirm if NBCSN is available to everyone or is it part of a sports package that requires you to pay extra?

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Salamus

A couple things to keep in mind:
1. These numbers are a couple years old. Neither of us would be surprised if those numbers have gone drastically down.
2. A large fanbase with disappointing TV ratings means one thing...a lack of promotion. I'm a fan and sometimes I don't even know when the races are happening...albeit I don't have a TV.
3. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of IndyCar fans are over 40. Sorta hard to build something when the young are not interested at all.
4. I don't live in the US so can someone confirm if NBCSN is available to everyone or is it part of a sports package that requires you to pay extra?

I'm sorry but there are not tens of millions of indycar "fans" in the USA. Whoever concocted that number is using delusional numbers pulled out of the air.

NBCSN is not a free to air channel or in all cable and satellite packages.

[ace007]

As much as I love the Indycar series, it is not at his healthiest...
What would make it more appealing to the US fan? What would make it worldwide?

Do we need Michael Schumacher to be in it for ex.?
Do we need European races again? (better promoted than Champcar at the time?).

Any new ideas?

[NaBUru38]

More NBC Sports ads on other NBC Universal channels.

Checo Pérez to Ganassi.

Danica Patrick back to Andretti.

Brazil back into the schedule.

More shared weekends with Nascar Trucks and United SportsCar.

[Peat]

I'm at a loss tbh.

I've been a racing fan for 20+years and IndyCar has been my single-seater series of choice for the last 2 years. (I've been a fan of AOWR since the late 90's)

The racing has, largely, been fantastic. Still a bit too much banditry from time to time - mainly on the street tracks where we get into a death spiral of CAUTION > DF Restart > CAUTION etc etc.

But take Fontana. I echo Robin Miller "If you didn't like that race, you don't like IndyCar racing..."

Anyway, i have nothing constructive to add. Other than 'make the cars look less sh!t'.

I'm out.

[Paradise City]

It's incredible they are putting those comical figures online. Is baseball even that popular?

Those are ludicrous figures even when the sport was popular and sustainable at a fair level and it hasn't been that since the 90's.

[Dragger]

Give the car a more sleek appearance for new and casual fans. More open wheel look, no more bumpers. Lower the rear wing, makes the car look more sleek and increases passing.

Increase boost and/or displacement enough to get the cars back to around 900HP.

Louder turbo pop-off valve and pressure noises(like the early/mid-90's) helps bring in a younger generation. They like that crap.

Pursue more ex-F1 drivers to join, focus on getting and KEEPING the hotter young talent.

The racing is pretty good, we just need to make the cars look more sleek. A majority of fans are well above 30-40 years-old, we should start appealing more towards teens to twenty-somethings as well for the future of the sport. I'd love to see Indycar get back to it's early/mid 1990's status.

[Nikki Katz]

Originally Posted by Peat

I'm at a loss tbh.

I've been a racing fan for 20+years and IndyCar has been my single-seater series of choice for the last 2 years. (I've been a fan of AOWR since the late 90's)

The racing has, largely, been fantastic. Still a bit too much banditry from time to time - mainly on the street tracks where we get into a death spiral of CAUTION > DF Restart > CAUTION etc etc.

But take Fontana. I echo Robin Miller "If you didn't like that race, you don't like IndyCar racing..."

Anyway, i have nothing constructive to add. Other than 'make the cars look less sh!t'.

I'm out.

Sadly I agree. I've really got no idea where to start. I don't see a solution to the series' problems without throwing a lot of money that they don't have at it. The series as it is just seems not to appeal to Americans any more. Some of the recent changes, like side by side restarts, seem to be to try to ape Nascar to get US fans back. I just don't think it will work, the Sprint Cup has races every week it seems (and that's ignoring Nationwide etc), fans of that just won't need IndyCar.

I think the series needs to move to proper road courses rather than some of the bland and dangerous street circuits, but that requires money. They need to do something about the catch fence safety issues, but that requires a lot of money. The car probably needs a redesign to make it look less like a brick - money (although it's not like F1 has pretty cars any more, and the racing in that in the past few months has been worse than IndyCar).

Double headers are exhausting for race fans. I always taped the second one and watched it a week or so later (though since BT Sport got it, my Sky box has rarely got the correct timing for the race - in Fontana's case I still haven't seen the final half hour). But they only did that because otherwise next year would be a 14-15 race calendar. It would help if they tried to arrange the events for F1's off weekends though.

Most importantly they need a better TV deal, so that people can actually watch it, so there's fewer adverts and the small amount of time that isn't a commercial break isn't filled with the broadcasters stating repeatedly what their other shows are. It would be nice if they knew what they were talking about and offered opinion a bit more. But why would any network want to subscribe to a series with such a tiny viewership that most people seem to have forgotten the existence of?

All that's actually happened in the off-season so far that will have an effect is Dragon pulling out, and that won't make a whole lot of difference, especially if Ganassi and Penske field additional cars (which requires finding a replacement for Franchitti and Montoya avoiding jail). But I somehow doubt we've heard the last of it.

What the series really needs is an oil tycoon to rescue it. It doesn't really matter that much that the series would then be dependent on Saudi Arabia / Russia / China / wherever, as that can be said for much of F1, sports in general, and the world's economy already.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Paradise City

It's incredible they are putting those comical figures online. Is baseball even that popular?

Those are ludicrous figures even when the sport was popular and sustainable at a fair level and it hasn't been that since the 90's.

I bet I could pick a 1000 Americans at random and I'll be 99% or more would struggle to name one current driver in the indy racin' league.

I just think it's crazy for people to concoct phony baloney like that and put it out there as some factual piece of statistics.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Nikki Katz

Sadly I agree. I've really got no idea where to start. I don't see a solution to the series' problems without throwing a lot of money that they don't have at it. The series as it is just seems not to appeal to Americans any more. Some of the recent changes, like side by side restarts, seem to be to try to ape Nascar to get US fans back. I just don't think it will work, the Sprint Cup has races every week it seems (and that's ignoring Nationwide etc), fans of that just won't need IndyCar.

I think the series needs to move to proper road courses rather than some of the bland and dangerous street circuits, but that requires money. They need to do something about the catch fence safety issues, but that requires a lot of money. The car probably needs a redesign to make it look less like a brick - money (although it's not like F1 has pretty cars any more, and the racing in that in the past few months has been worse than IndyCar).

Double headers are exhausting for race fans. I always taped the second one and watched it a week or so later (though since BT Sport got it, my Sky box has rarely got the correct timing for the race - in Fontana's case I still haven't seen the final half hour). But they only did that because otherwise next year would be a 14-15 race calendar. It would help if they tried to arrange the events for F1's off weekends though.

Most importantly they need a better TV deal, so that people can actually watch it, so there's fewer adverts and the small amount of time that isn't a commercial break isn't filled with the broadcasters stating repeatedly what their other shows are. It would be nice if they knew what they were talking about and offered opinion a bit more. But why would any network want to subscribe to a series with such a tiny viewership that most people seem to have forgotten the existence of?

All that's actually happened in the off-season so far that will have an effect is Dragon pulling out, and that won't make a whole lot of difference, especially if Ganassi and Penske field additional cars (which requires finding a replacement for Franchitti and Montoya avoiding jail). But I somehow doubt we've heard the last of it.

What the series really needs is an oil tycoon to rescue it. It doesn't really matter that much that the series would then be dependent on Saudi Arabia / Russia / China / wherever, as that can be said for much of F1, sports in general, and the world's economy already.

Throwing good money after bad will do nothing.

The main issue is the ownership and until that changes there is zero hope. They were lost in the 1950's complete with Joie Chitwood style gimmicks and gags and front engine roadsters and ovals. We were told CART, the financial success it was, sucked and that people wanted to see low tech American engines and sprint car drivers and a style of racing from decades before. People did not so the indy racing league tried to then poorly mimic CART and that has failed as well. From the beginning they have been peddling a product fewer and fewer people want to see every year and if you look at what they do it's all been a sham from the start. Nothing at all of substance.

So until the dead wood is swept away and the family finally gives it up and puts their massive ego lost in past glories aside, there is no hope. None. Nada. Zero.

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

We were told CART, the financial success it was.

Are you forgetting 2001 to 2003?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by D.R.T.

Are you forgetting 2001 to 2003?

That was drectly the result of the aborted 2001 Firestone Firehawk 600, which resulted in a law suit that cost CART $5–$7m in legal fees and out of court settlement.

Though already commited as series sponsor for 2002, FedEx withdrew their support for the 2003 season as a result of the law suit.