Quote:
Originally posted by Russfeld
CART gets a 4-5mil audience per race in Brazil, about US-level ratings in Europe and Canada/Mexico and I think 2-3mil in the Asia-Pacific reason. Its actually fairly strong internationally . . .
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Russ, I've heard all that data before, but have never seen any real evidence to support it. There may be some popularity in Mexico, and I know there is popularity in Canada, but I've also seen NASCAR races broadcast in French in Quebec. And I've seen a lot of griping on CART boards by Canadians because they constantly see NASCAR stuff (apparel and such) everywhere, but very little CART stuff. (I ran into a guy wearing a Mark Martin shirt when I attended the 1996 Canadian GP.)
As far as CART's European audience goes, all year I've been hearing the European fans on the CART forums complaining about not being able to see the races. And when they were getting them in past years, they were usually one hour condensed versions shown a week later, if they were lucky.
And if CART is so popular outside of North America (of NASCAR proportions, as you claim) then why have they lost all of their overseas races, with the exception of the Australian race? Why don't they get any TV revenue if they have such large TV audiences? Why have Toyota, Honda and Mercedes Benz all abandoned CART?
I've heard the big international TV audinence claims before. I've yet to see any evidence to support it.