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

$37.50 ???? No chance... Makes dirtvision seem like a bargain !!!

We live 550 miles away and were going to check out the video until we say the price!!  I dont understand their reasoning for such a high price when the outlaws and Dirtvision dont even charge that much.  We were dissapointed but know we will get to see most of these guys in just a few short days at Knoxville.  Sounds like we weren't the only ones that thought the price was a bit steep.  I realize I was one of the guys supporting Knoxville's live video feed pricing but to pay dang near the exact same price to watch 24 cars at husets compared to watching the Knoxville Nationals just doesn't make sense for us.  I hope the people that do buy it enjoy the show.  We just chose to pass this time.

Curious to know how many people actually pay that much.  I'm hesitant to pay $21.99 for an Outlaw race given the picture quality and choppiness, let alone 37.50 for an All Star show.  

Especially when you can watch Knoxville for $15 with great picture and a better field of cars.  

They don't call em the Screwbins for no reason! 

Not sure of the rationale of this. There's a ton of misguided thinking about trying to protect the local gate when in reality they're shutting themselves out of a much larger market across the country by jacking the price up. It's just dumb. DirtVision did the same thing - they have a product that people will gladly pay a certain price for but they're way over it and now I'd have to bet they're hurting in terms of revenue from last year. May have a better profit margin but if I were a betting man I'd say overall profit is down. 

Thought Knoxville was properly priced and a good show.$15 I can handle that..$37.50 no way..I'm from ohio so I guess their idea is in comparison to travel it's a bargain lol

Yet another reason why I no longer attend the track 2 miles down the road from where I live

This month I paid $32 at the Brad Doty, and $30 for an outlaw show at Williams Grove, and last year paid less then 37.50 at Eldora for the Kings Royal......I dont even think the final night of the National's is worth that price, let alone for 24 cars

IMO, they should charge the GA ticket price for all PPV.  If Huset's was $20 to watch live, PPV should cost $20, if they were charging $30 for GA, they should charge $30.

That price is insane. I understand it costs money to do this, but wow.

yet people pay $70 to watch WWE or boxing or UFC....

It's all entertainment and cost $$$ to produce and stream. 

Their business model can't be to lose $$$$, so math tells you what you have to charge.  If costs = $XX  and you average Y# of subscibers normally it = what you would charge.

Put simply, if it cost $5000 to produce (payroll, bandwidth, etc) and you average about 134 subscibers for shows from Huset's (or All-Star shows) = you have to charge $37.50 to break even. 

Now remember, odds are that Huset's (or the All Stars, or BOTH) want a cut of the PPV $$$ too, so all of sudden your # of subscribers has to increase to keep the price the same (or you have to have more buyers).

No different than DirtVisino when they charged $99 for the season last year (or was is less??).  If it costs let's say $1500 per night to produce and you have 90 nights of racing, you have to have 1364 SEASON subscribers to break even (odds are they weren't breaking even, thus the increase overall by charging per night this year).

The proper business move would be to find the right price to maximize profit.  If you charge half that price, can you get double the viewers?  I don't know what the correct amount is for maximum profitability, but I can almost guarantee you it isn't $37.50.

So are you saying you'd spend to $37.50 to watch the All Stars at Husets online?

So if Dirtvision or Husets keeps dropping customers, your plan dictates them to keep raising the price, which in turn is very likely going to cause the dropping of more customers, so another price raise will have to be made... You see where I'm going? It's not a sustainable model. Raising the price will absolutely never have a positive effect.

I agree that you can't take a loss on it, as that's equally non-sustainable.

DirtVision may have increased prices to offset costs - from most of the reviews I've seen, they didn't deliver a quality product last year or the past few years.

However, some other entities are likely padding profits, which isn't wrong at all, but the method they're implementing doesn't seem right. I imagine bandwidth isn't a fixed cost (ie: the more being used, the better rate per MB/GB), so dropping the price a bit to entice enough customers would make for a better overall move than to increase the price and losing customers. Additionally, the more customers subscribing will dictate a much better return in advertising dollars, which is where the real money tends to come in. 

Then again, I don't know their full business model and this is all speculating on my part, but the idea of continually raising prices is going to crash this market sooner or later. 

People use ticket price as a guideline. Yes, UFC fights may run $70 but how many tickets go for that on the real market? I'm sure there are face value tickets that may be within that realm, but I'd assume trying to buy one is going to be much higher once supply/demand takes effect and resellers get involved. 

My opinion is that asking 150% of a face value ticket for a PPV webcast is absurd. Especially for a 3-4 hour show. At four hours and $37.50, you're at $9.37 an hour. The movies don't look bad at that price. 

No, I wouldn't.  But apparently they have people that will, thus the price they charged (what were gate prices for GA?  if they were $37.50 I have no problem with them charging the same).

If GA tickets were $20, charging anything greater than that makes no sense.  However, like I stated above, you've go to remember that Huset's and the All Stars were probably getting a cut of the $$$, if they both think they need $10 or more per subscriber, the price was probably just so the Cushion could cover their costs and not lose $$$.

I'd say the Cushion (and DirtVison and XSAN) have enough data as to what they are averaging on PPV buys per event to know how many people will buy events.

I agree that the quality of the broadcast has to be good to constitute the price (thus far, DirtVision doesn't live up to the pricing, however the Cushion.com and XSAN both do IMO).

I highly doubt that lowering the price would entice more buyers.  Sprint Car (and all dirt track racing for that matter) is a small niche of a niche sport, so it's not as mainstream as UFC, WWE, etc.  They start out with a much smaller pool and then only have those that are sitting at home with nothing to do to draw from (so, those Friday or Saturday broadcasts are tough sells as a lot of their "market" is at the races somewhere).

WWE PPV is $70 for an event you can buy tickets for $20 to attend in person (you can spend more than $20 to attend, but they offer tickets for as low as $20).  I'm sure UFC is the same (they make their real $$$ on PPV, but they have to have a full arena to make it look like a "must see" event and to advertise that "the only way you can see UFC 100097 is to purchase on PPV".

I have no idea what face value of the tickets to the All Star show were on Sunday, but as long as people are willing to pay the cost, they aren't going to lower it.

Pricing can definately affect buy rate. Take the Nationals. I can not afford the cost of going to Iowa, but if I could, I could personally justify the cost of tickets to be there live. For me though, I can't justify the cost of the PPV (not many other sprint car fans in my neck of the woods Va. to share the cost), so I won't purchase it, I'll just listen to the live audio for free. By no means is my singular case scientific or statiscal proof, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. Same for UFC, I would pay to see it, but not what they are charging for it.

Vande--How do you know people will/did pay that amount?  Just because that's the price tag doesn't mean it is going to sell.  You are always talking business/economics/etc, but this is the first "special" Huset's has offered PPV and they were WAY off.  I highly doubt they sold more than a handful.  I often purchase the Cushion & Dirtvision, but this was too high.  Like I mentioned, just because the item/service has a price DOES NOT mean it is going to sell.

It's funny you bring up WWE - they're $60ish through your cable/satellite company but online streaming is $9.99/mo for their network, which includes all PPVs. They seem to get it.

And most WWE PPV tickets start at about $35 before TicketMaster fees. However, their main revenue source there isn't the gate, but rather the merchandising and PPV/streaming dollars. 

Re: your last point - do you think anyone made money in the Huset's deal Sunday night? I'd love to see the subscriber numbers from that event. 

I bet that A: they're very low, and B: a majority of subscribers may have a personal connection to those racing (ie: family, friends who couldn't make it to the track).

Anyone on here order it? 

GA was $25.00 for Sundays All Star show.

Dave Boy

Thought so - the 150% figure is for PPV to GA costs is true. That's just nuts.