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

Lots of interesting stuff here.  I've just got a couple counter points to others lol before I get to your question.  This is just my opinion and I guess maybe a different perspective or a different way to think about things.

This is a professional sports league, ANY comparison to any other business is apples to oranges.  If I walk into a restaurant and they don't have Mellow Yellow, I get a Mountain Dew and don't think a thing about it.  When I'm done I don't think about how great it would've been to have 30 different soft drink choices or watching who would've ordered what.  Again, this is just my opinion, running a professional sports league like an unrelated business could have catostrophic effects.

The "greed" and "business decisions" are interesting statements to me only because it shows how the same actions can be looked at different based on your perspective.  However, if I was running ANY professional sports league, I would be very careful about "greed" or "business decisions".  Recently I've heard some stuff about NASCAR, I really don't know if it's true but it makes a lot of sense.  Basically, over twenty five years ago NASCAR started negotiating with some TV networks and eventually they made the "business decision" to sign with the highest bidders.  At the time they were the second highest watched sport behind only the NFL.  The TV networks were happy to be partnered with them because of their popularity but of coarse they wanted something too (can't blame them) the first thing was they wanted to promote a new channel that most people didn't have (I think it was FX?) so they ran some races on that channel, it didn't seem like a huge deal at the time but it started the trend of putting events on a channel that not many people get to get more money out of consumers (thankfully that doesn't happen anymore lol).  Was it best for the sport to have an event that a lot of people couldn't see?  Nope but it was a "business decision" or "greed".  Eventually all of our cable bills went up a little bit and we all got the channel and everyone was happy (especially FOX).  Then the networks said "We are loving this but the ratings always drop in September, how do we fix this?".  Together they decided it was because the championship was usually decided by then and that's probably why people weren't watching, I'm not sure what else would start in September that could affect ratings?  So they made the "business decision" to come up with The Chase.  Initially this helped ratings, so it looked like a great deal.  But eventually ratings went down again.  So they thought "maybe it's because guys like Dale Jr. and Jeff Gordon missed "The Chase" and that's why people stopped watching (I still can't think of anything else that that starts in September that could affect ratings) so they tweaked it and then again and then came up with the dumbest points system according to any fan I've ever talked to but every talking head on TV would tell you how great it was because they had to.  Ratings kept tanking, everyone on TV kept talking about how great the sport was doing but more and more people quit watching.  My point in this is NASCAR had the fastest growing sport out there and it was the second most popular sport in the U.S., there's not many sports that can say that.  But "business decisions" or "greed" killed it or I should say tanked everything they worked so hard to build.  Even though at the time they were great decisions in the short term, long term it wasn't at least not for the growth of the sport.  So well doing things like scheduling races to make sure you keep your drivers away from marquee events could seem like a great decision in the short term, eventually it could turn into nobody giving a shit about professional sprint car racing at all.

Now to your question "What's best for Sprint Car racing"?  It's kind of a loaded question because to me there's three parts to sprint car racing being successful.  The owner/drivers, tracks and the fans.  Obviously without the owners/drivers there's no show.  Without the tracks, there's no where for a show.  And without the fans, there's no money for them to do what they do.  So, what's best for the owner/drivers, the split we have now is great for them, there's more high dollar events with watered down competition and there's more full time sprint car teams than there was before HL, so it must be working.  What's best for the tracks, again it's great for them, many tracks can now schedule two high dollar specials and there's lots of tracks that maybe couldn't get an outlaw race in the past that can now maybe get one or the other.  What's best for the fans?  Well, if you're committed to seeing all of the races close to you that now probably costs double but you can look at it another way and say it's more specials you get to see.  From the streaming aspect, three years ago you could stream all of the races with a $250 or $300 subscription, now you need to double that if you want to see all of the races but again you can now say that you have more opportunity to see more races.  My point is, it takes all three parts to be successful.  I think most of us are fans here so you might agree with me here but this split didn't happen to bring in more fans or make it more enjoyable or anything like that.  So as to your question, "what's the best thing for sprint car racing"?  A merger.  As someone else said, there can only be one alpha and that's so true at least when it comes to a professional sports league.  If you want to look at past examples look at indycar racing in the 70s, they had a split and never recovered.  Look at multiple other attempted splits or startup leagues, the only example I can think of that everybody won was the AFL/NFL merger.

Both the WOO and HL need to be careful here in my opinion.  From what I've seen in the past is fans kind of like politics or bickering in sports UNTIL it affects the product they want to watch and then they get pissed and will quit watching.  You can look at the CART/IRL split and even though that's been resolved now forty years later, it's still not as popular as it was.  Another example is the MLB strike in 1994, I don't think baseball has ever recovered from that.  For a lot of people, when they hear millionaires bitching about doing what they do while making their millions by doing it, it turns them off from that person.

Again this is just my opinion.  If I disagree with you it doesn't mean I'm insulting you lol.

You may find this hard to believe, but I agree with almost everything you said.  I don't care what soda the restaurant has.  They do.  Because that's how they sell soda.  Makes zero difference to me.  I do agree Nascar screwed up.  However, I don't think it was because of greed.  I think that was what they thought they needed to do to grow their business.  While they are still in business, it definitely blew up in their faces because it definitly had a negative impact.  It doen't mean they got greedy.  

I don't disagree with the business models of either national series.  The WoO is doing what they have to do to protect what's theirs.  The HL is doing what they have to do to take from the WoO what they want.  That's not greed to me.  That's survival and business.  What has bothered me all along is the notion that somehow the WoO were doing it all wrong all of these years, and now the High Limit is doing it all right.  What little differences there are between the two continue to shrink every single day before poof----they're the exact same thing fighting for the same spot---which is where we're at now.  

I agree 100% with your second to last paragraph, although my thought process may be slightly different.  The WoO needs to be careful because trying to "keep up with the Joneses" (FLO) may put them out of business.  The double-edged sword is, they are likely to lose the King's Royal and will have to replace it.  If they continue to lose some of these big races, they will also lose subscribers.  How do you get this back?  Schedule big events against those events with big purses in hopes of regaining that lost audience.  If that flops, then there is no longer a talk of greed, but a talk of survival.  High Limit needs to be careful as well.  Driving the WoO out of business would be very bad for the sport, especially since everyone is split down the middle over this. 

I think the only good option for this is a merger.  But, I'll say it again as I did a few years ago when this all started.  The only way this ends is with one national series running the show.  And when the dust settles, no matter if it's a merger, or one of the 2 series goes out of business, we will have one national tour that half of the sprint car world hates because it thinks they are arrogant, show favoritism, and try to run the show.  Sound familiar?  

Let me ask you this---If NBC loses the bid for the 2027 Super Bowl to Fox, NBC will be fine with it, right?  I mean, everyone still gets to see the Super Bowl.  NBC will just be happy for FOX and really not care that they lost it?   Come on man.  The King's Royal is a Dirtvision race, and one of the biggest races for viewership in the world for sprint cars.  Of course it makes a difference to the WoO who has the sanctioning rights to that race.  If the WoO loses that race, whether anyone wants to acknowledge it is a WoO race or not, it will be devastating and I'm not so sure there wouldn't be something scheduled against in on the schedule to retaliate.  We will see... 

Of course HL & WoO are both profit seeking organizations...

You said "I'm not so sure there wouldn't be something scheduled against in on the schedule to retaliate."

If HL can survive & grow while letting WoO sponsor Kings Royal, why can't WoO do the same?

Hardon had a great point about the 3 parts of racing: fans, tracks & teams. Don't you think Outlaws would lose fans if they ran against Kings Royal?

In my world, spending a week in business not making money, is losing money.  Officials still have to be paid.  Dirtvision loses a notch in the belt.  I guess I'm in disbelief that anyone believes they should just lay down, let the High Limit do what they want, play along and it will work out better for everyone.  That's not what businesses do if they want to remain in business.  Before this is all done, you'll not be able to see the best cars in the country together all at once, anywhere.  Unless there is a merger, the war is coming.  Don't say I didn't warn everyone back when the High Limit started their "weekday only" shows.  There can only be one alpha.  Once that alpha is in total control (whether that be by driving the other out of business, or a merger), we'll all be right back where we started when 1/2 the sprint car world hated the WoO for being the alpha.  If the WoO wins, the WoO haters will be pissed.  If the High Limit wins, the WoO haters will be ecstatic without realizing they just have the same thing with a new name.   

This is going great...