Posted By: TonyRostMotorsports on February 29 2016 at 06:13:51 PM
Long time reader, first time poster. I'm gonna draw some parallels between WoO and Supercross. This will be kinda long, but think about this for a second...
- Both sports have your big teams with professional drivers/riders, full time crew members, impressive race shops, and extremely nice haulers with 5 engines on board and drawers of titanium parts that cost more than some of us make in a year. Both sports also have teams who are a second and a half off the pace every night and rub nickels together to make quarters so they can go racing.
- I don't know what a competitive Supercross bike costs, but for giggles let's say it's the same as a competitive WoO car.
- For most of the SX races, the purse is similar to a WoO show (about $10k to win, $1k to start - $500 tow money to the non-qualifying contracted teams). I know weekday WoO shows pay less and there are big money races in boh sports, but for the sake of comparison let's just say the purse is equal.
- Race format is about the same (qualifying, short heats, last chance races, and 15-30 lap main events).
- I'd say they are pretty comparable in excitement to your average motorsports fan. IMO, it's easier to hurt yourself on a bike but we've all seen some pretty gnarly sprint car crashes too. I've seen great SX races that had me on the edge of my seat and I watched both WoO races in Texas last weekend in person and they were awesome. The close finish at CottonBowl and watching DP and Schatz knife through lap traffic at Royal Purple Raceway were so much fun to watch.
- Tickets to SX events can be similar to a WoO ticket or way more expensive depending on how close you want to be.
- SX allows fans to walk through the pits and get autographs and photos before the races and interact with their favorite drivers. Same with sprint car racing - the drivers are pretty accessible to fans.
Consider the following scenario:
You're typical fan that shows up to the event: You buy a $40 ticket. Go to the merch trailer and buy a $30 t-shirt. Take a photo with your favorite driver and get an autographed poster. You buy $5 beers and $6 hamburgers and sit in the stands for 4-5 hours to ulimtately watch a 10-20 minute main event.
If we consider everything I listed above to be equal, in this scenario you could easily be at a SX race or a WoO race.
So what's the difference? Monster Energy? Suzuki? Fox Sports 1? How does a SX race pack out Angel Stadium and a WoO race puts 5,000 people in the stands? Venue size- maybe. But WoO has a much bigger schedule than SX, so pretty much regardless of where you live, compared to SX you can get to a WoO race without driving TOO far. The closest SX race for me is St. Louis which is an 8 hour drive. I definitely think having a big corporate sponsor such as Monster Energy is huge for SX. Craftsman is a GREAT thing for WoO, but it's definitely not on the same level as Monster Energy. That could definitely play into the populartiy of SX.
The whole "Sprint car racing won't work on live TV" argument doesn't really work for me because SX does great and they have a similar event format. I could be wrong, but I think if you can make SX work, it's not THAT much of a stretch to put together a good live show for WoO. I think they do an alright job for the NASCAR Truck race at Eldora...you don't have to watch the bombers run 26 second laps and I didn't really lose interest despite TV commercials and DW yakking his head off. It can be done. Shoot some behind the scenes stuff - hauler tours, drivers at home in the off-season, life on the road and fill in the extra TV time with that.
I think for WoO to make it big and become mainstream, it definitely needs a TV deal. But there's more than that. I believe one of the main reasons Supercross is so popular is because prett much anybody can go and buy a dirtbike from their favorite driver's manufacturer. They can also buy the same Oakley goggles, Thor gear, and Fox boots. If you wanted to, you can look like Ryan Dungey and ride a bike that looks and feels like the real deal.
Can't really do that with a sprint car.
Fans love the smell, the sounds, the dirt flying, the danger of both sports and the excitement of cheering on their favorite athlete. But your average fan can't relate that well to Donny Schatz or Daryn Pittman because they don't have the money or knowlege to do what they see them do on the track. I don't think there's any quick fix to make WoO (and sprint car racing as a whole) more mainstream to the general public. By it's very nature it's a niche sport. That's just how it is.
For it to survive in the future there needs to be a constant influx of new blood in the sport - that goes for fans and drivers. For drivers and teams, that mostly comes down to who has the money to play the game (that horse has been dead for a long time). But for fans - I think having WoO broadcast regularly on MavTV, FS1, or CBS Sports would be great.
Also stuff like that new Big Ant Dirt Track Racing game could do more for the health and future of the sport than most people realize. It's the closest thing many people will get to being on the track in a sprint car and it's a way to get more younger people interested in the sport. It's not a marketing secret that if you can get the kids hooked the money will follow. If you can get a family to the track the kids will get photos with drivers, autographs, a t-shirt and maybe even get to sit in a sprint car - that's all they'll be able to talk about for a month and they'll keep pestering Dad to take them back to the track where he'll shell out another $150.
To keep this sport going it will take a combination of an active title sponsor (thank you Craftsman) and getting new (and young) people to the track. However that's accomplished, whether it's a TV deal, Big Ant video game (this is my plug for it - go back them on Kickstarter!), or something else I don't know...
Just my $0.02. Thanks for reading.
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