The Decline and Fall of NASCAR
America’s most Southern sport has betrayed its own fan base.
www.theamericanconservative.com
OT: Interesting article on NASCAR
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www.theamericanconservative.com
The Decline and Fall of NASCAR
America’s most Southern sport has betrayed its own fan base.
replace the word "NASCAR" in the article with "NFL" or any other popular sport and the article will still ring true. The NFL thrived on mayhem and mean hits until the top brass started creating "safer equipment", "new rules to promote safety of players" and then adding the social factor into the equation, it's the same thing. Baseball did the same with dead baseballs, changed rules of the game to "speed it up". Next thing will be golf and hockey. They will get sanitized by a group of CEO's like all the other sports.
I would say that college football is on a “down”, and sinking fast.
I would also say that an epic date in that progression was November 5, 2011. College football has been on a steady decline since. Leave it to the politicians, media, and greedy lawyers to eventually destroy anything that’s good.
Well, it seemed what made it popular was the chance of a crash. What made football popular is the hard hits.
So, basically it's America's love of violence that propels the popularity of a sport?
Isn’t NASCAR that thing where they drive around and around for 195 laps at 180mph then slog through the last five laps with 247 crashes and cautions to essentially wipe away any difference achieved over the first 98% of the event? You know, like the NBA…
Use the little blue pill. It should help.I’m still waiting for the ups.
This article, by ‘The American Conservative,’ laments the banning of confederate flags and ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ chants at races. This is nothing like the NFL or any other major sport where a majority of athletes are minorities. It’s more whining about the loss of ‘white’ culture, for better or worse, in an effort to become more broadly accessible/accepted.
As someone who grew up going to races at PA's dirt tracks and follows the sport, I'm not sure how well the author researched or knows NASCAR or racing. Yes, some tracks lost races and the COT was a disaster that turned off fans. That said, there are some reasons for changes that the author ignored. Some of the tracks that lost races did so because fans either didn't show up for two races or the track owners weren't willing to do things like implement safety changes or make other facility improvements. Both Rockingham and North Wilksboro had seating and consessions facilities that would embarrass many high school football fields as well as poor racing surfaces that the owners resisted fixing. Despite those issues, they still thought NASCAR owed them top division races because of tradition. Changes in the automobile industry made racing old-school style stock cars pretty much impossible. Fans of oval track racing haven't been watching stock bodied cars race in top divisions for a long time - that went away 30+ year ago. The original COT was awful, but it's been gone 9 seasons; the new cars seem to race well and look as much like real cars as anything anyone is racing. Old guys complained about a woman racing, and Danica Patrick struggled, but her souvenior trailer always had long lines. The idea that having her hurt NASCAR with fans isn't based in reality.
The reality is that racing was and is a niche sport. NASCAR went through a period when it was hip and had a lot of fad fans, but like all fads, that period didn't last. It doesn't help that the days when a large portion of the population worked on their own cars is long gone and the fascination with cars as something other than a mode of transportation diminished. Beyond that, "roots" racing is much less common than it was; several oval tracks that were active when I was a kid are gone - Reading, Nazereth, Silver Spring, Penn National, and places like Selinsgrove and Hagerstown are on life support.
In the long run, I think the transfer rules and NIL deals will hurt college football. That may be fixable. Valid safety concerns that lead to changes in the sport and caused parents to discourage their kids from playing will also drive away fans who like hard hitting like the old days. I don't think there's a good answer for that.
The reality is that racing was and is a niche sport. NASCAR went through a period when it was hip and had a lot of fad fans, but like all fads, that period didn't last. It doesn't help that the days when a large portion of the population worked on their own cars is long gone and the fascination with cars as something other than a mode of transportation diminished. Beyond that, "roots" racing is much less common than it was; several oval tracks that were active when I was a kid are gone - Reading, Nazereth, Silver Spring, Penn National, and places like Selinsgrove and Hagerstown are on life support.
In the long run, I think the transfer rules and NIL deals will hurt college football. That may be fixable. Valid safety concerns that lead to changes in the sport and caused parents to discourage their kids from playing will also drive away fans who like hard hitting like the old days. I don't think there's a good answer for that.
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I'm never sure how I'm supposed to take articles like that one.
Let me get this straight -- snowflakes are those who complain all of the time and somehow ruining all things each and every day. Yet isn't that what this writer is doing? Complaining. He's on the right side of the issue?
Whatever happened to the idea that market forces result in changes over time? Writers like this one act like NASCAR doesn't want to make money. The NFL is a great game now and the new playoff format was universally hailed as exciting as hell.
Times change. Complaining is boring.
Let me get this straight -- snowflakes are those who complain all of the time and somehow ruining all things each and every day. Yet isn't that what this writer is doing? Complaining. He's on the right side of the issue?
Whatever happened to the idea that market forces result in changes over time? Writers like this one act like NASCAR doesn't want to make money. The NFL is a great game now and the new playoff format was universally hailed as exciting as hell.
Times change. Complaining is boring.
Southern Culture on the SkidsThis article, by ‘The American Conservative,’ laments the banning of confederate flags and ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ chants at races. This is nothing like the NFL or any other major sport where a majority of athletes are minorities. It’s more whining about the loss of ‘white’ culture, for better or worse, in an effort to become more broadly accessible/accepted.
There isn't a reason in that article that chased me away from NASCAR. Greed did. We went to the August race at Michigan for 14 years. The first year we went admission was 45 dollars and we took in two 12" coolers one with drinks and one with food. 14 years later the same seats were 80 dollars any you were allowed 1 cooler that held no more than six cans. No beer or no food.
When Hagerstown started selling beer at the track and you weren't allowed to bring your own attendance dropped
Hagerstown did a lousy job of maintaining the track itself and lost a number of drivers to Port Royal as a result. I didn't have a problem buying a beer on site, but I wasn't keen on watching races with small fields on a poor racing surface. The changing area demographics (DC suburbanites vs. small town folks) also hurt.
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I live about 2 hours from Bristol Motor Speedway. I've never been, but growing up in the 90s it was generally sold out and a costly ticket to get.
archive.knoxnews.com
They've brought back dirt racing to make what used to be an exciting race exciting again.
Bristol Motor Speedway still draws crowds, but sellouts take longer
Jeff Byrd saw it coming from a mile away. For months, the president of Bristol Motor Speedway has been working on a way to counter some of the tough economic times currently circling the industry of NASCAR. Venues all across the country have been surprisingly impacted by less-than-sold-out...
archive.knoxnews.com
They've brought back dirt racing to make what used to be an exciting race exciting again.
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