Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

I see motocross races, monster truck races all the time on tv. I just saw another race of jet boats on a road race water course. What are we doing that only sprint car race is champion ship race at end of year, and midget race 4 months afer Chili bowl. I saw a paved srint car race from Ohio area one night. Is sprint car racing on dirt on the bottom of food chain?

If someone could make money putting sprint cars on TV, they would. Is it the production costs? Not enough tracks with good lighting? Too much dust making crappy TV? No audience? No sponsors? Race format does not serve a live television format? Taped races don't have any excitment? Or a combination of all things?

It all comes down to the money.

Probably all of the above and then some. Add production crews waiting out rainouts and delays in the program, dust, poor lighting, lack of funding, whatever the sum of the reasons are it's sure a disappointment. Remember the TNN winter series and the old Thursday Night Thunder broadcasts? The Outlaws used to have more races televised as well.

So much for the next level. I think we've been going backwards for quite a few years now. Fortunately we have tons of internet coverage or there wouldn't be much of anything anymore.

Stan Meissner

The main reason we don't have much TV is because WRG doesn't help promote us like they should. Plus they won't spend the money. They will pay the liar Brian Carter and Deery $180,000 a year and if you got rid of one of those salaries you would have a real good start on the production cost of a show.

We have been going backwards every since Boundless, and now WRG have taken over. Lot of people didn't like Ted but he got us on TV.

They made their mistake when they dropped the Outdoor Channel, which I think had about the best format for sprints cars. They made the program 1 hr long, showed almost all heats, a highlight of the b main, and then the A main.

The Versus/MAV TV coverage for the ASCS has been pretty solid. I don't know how many races they will have this year, but they had about 10 last year.

Sprintcar racing live makes zero sense and is not good television.

It does pretty much all come down to money, plus throw in the unpredictable weather and it costs way too much to produce a high quality show on TV. IMO Sprint Car Racing does not make for good live TV (except the Nationals).

The new media (internet) is where we could make something happen:

Live video feeds are great, but there is alot of mixed feelings amongst track promoters, sanctioning bodies, sponsers etc.

An edited 1 hour broadcast streamed Tuesday or Wed., featuring full races or highlights from many races is my goal. Most people now have high-speed internet in their homes.

It still comes down to some sponsership, advertisers, or a premium-pay site. Have to cover the costs involved somehow.

JC

@Slideguy,I loved the Outdoor Channel shows! We watched them every Wednesday at our Local Moose club.

@HighVista, I could live with a Tuesday or Wednesday internet showing of the races.

Concerning the weather, I don't think it affects sprint car racing any more than NASCAR or any other form that does not race in the rain. Look at Daytona, what a complete bore that was on the Sunday of the race.

MRZERO nailed what I have to say.

Amazingly, people bitched (believe it or not) on here about the coverage Outdoor Channel had for the races they showed when there was nothing wrong with it at all.

David Smith Jr.
www.oklahomatidbits.com

I dont believe it comes down to money. It comes down to the number of viewers. If enough people were watching, the money would be spent, just like anything else on TV.

I forget where I heard this quote (Agajanian perhaps)

"Motorsports is a niche sport. Dirt track racing is a niche form of motorsports. Sprint car racing is a niche form of dirt track racing".

And to take it one step further (for us traditionalists) non-wing sprint car racing is a niche form of sprint car racing.

Jeff Kristensen

I loved the Outdoor shows. Used to go to a buddies and watch them every Wed. night.

I think WRG is completely missing the ball. They pretty much run three of the largest dirt racing sanctions(sprints, late models, and modifieds). Instead of trying to broadcast each separately they should have an outlaw night. Every week televise a race from one of your classes. Almost like lucus oil does, but with oval dirt racing. You could also make decisions based on weather for a better chance of getting the race in.

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner! Slideguy has it figured out. Sprint car racing on TV sucks, especially live. I'm a diehard sprint car fan, it's about all I'll go watch. Even I don't really care for watching it on TV. If I go to an ASCS National event at Devils Bowl, like I will in a couple of weeks, I will probably see about 25 minutes of green flag action for the entire night. That's heats, B mains, and 25 lap A main. Put that in a 2 hour show format and the rest of the time is filled with driver interviews and commercials, all of which most people could care less about. It shouldn't take a genius to figure out why sprint car racing doesn't work on TV. It never has been big, and it never will be.

There may be a few ways to make a live WoO show more interesting though. You could always count how many times Lasoski winks at the camera during his interview, or how many times Kinser says "uh".

I remember Kings Royal Weekend when TNN was taping the races on friday; it rained and they did NOT get racing timm 1230am est on sat because the program was supposed to start at 8pm est back in 1997 when the King crashed on friday; Dave Blaney won and King won with a Mile car he raced and won at Indy Mile ; TNN was allways good to Woo not like other tv stations ! If there was a rained date TNN allways stayed either till late in the nite or the next day; i just wish other stations like Speed would do that today but its all about the MONEY BOOOO

Long Live  20 Time  World Of Outlaws Champion Steve 
Kinser #11 

I try to look at the practical side rather than spout off a bunch of hate on every subject that comes up on here. Racing is more fun for me that way but if you like being mad at the world go right ahead and be my guest. I'll just bow out of the conversation like I usually do when the conversation deteriorates to finger pointing.

Stan Meissner

It does not come down to money, it comes down to viewers? You might want to go restudy the business model for TV shows. I think that you may be missing the big picture.

I would love to see more televised races, but agree with most on here that its a money thing and WRG either doesn't want to spend the money on production or they can't find an outlet that is interested in televising the sport. Television IMO is key to growth, NASCAR would not be what it is without televised races. With television time comes Sponsorship money.

I believe that easier than getting WoO races on TV, the first step the organization should take is to make the production value of the live show itself better. If you go to any college or professional sporting event there is alot of things going on along with the event itself. My thought is people on this board love the sport and would go even if there wasn't an announcer, so they already have my money for attending the show when its anywhere near me. Its the casual fan or maybe wives or someone that has never went to a sprint car race that they need to make the experience great for so they want to go to another show and thats where making it a fun event comes in. A couple of things I think they could do that would help the production is having a traveling scoreboard with maybe a video screen on it so they could play good video clips and have times and driver names posted, speakers that you can hear which maybe means WoO having there own audio set up so your not trying to hear it threw the tracks scratchy crappy audio system. Fireworks in the infield during the 4wide salute, 4wide is cool in itself, but you could do more to really aw the audience and thats what people will remember. Maybe some new music instead of the same Metallica song that they've played for how many years now. $35 is quite abit for 1 race so you need to make sure that when people pay that they get more for their money than when they pay $14 for a regular weekly show and they know why they paid more.

Just my 2 cents

http://gph.is/XMLGff

Actually, after the many years of hearing how TV exposure will help our sport I have come to a completely different conclusion. It actually hurts because given the production problems you can never duplicate the thrill of being there in person. It would seem that the best thing for our sport is: continued exposure via the internet,since this is where young people are, half hour compilations on cable TV of non-wing and winged sprints, midgets, etc.

Lastly, be careful what we wish for when speaking of the money it will provide. I for one never want our sport to become the polished TV product that NASCAR and the NFL have become. Part of the appeal of our sport has always the rough edges, down to earth feel of it, being in a niche is not always a bad thing. Remember what Knoxville used feel like!

Don't believe anything a few anti-WoO guys will post here. The main reason its not on TV is dirt track racing is far too unpredictable. Red flags are routine every night, often several of them. They will not pre-empt other programing that is supposed to come on immediately after the scheduled two hours or 2 1/2 hr dirt program. TNN tried very hard to make it work but it didn't. Blame World Racing Group. That's stupid. I'm surprised someone didn't blame Donny Schatz.

Lawlessness + liberalism = HELL -  NYC, Detroit, Chicago, 
Seattle, LA  Who the H runs those cities. 

Why would we blame Donny Schatz that is just silly. We all know that it is Sammy Swindell's fault.

Was TNN losing money on all of those live races they used to do?

Or ESPN back in the 1980s & 90s?