What’s happening in world motorsport at the moment?
The FIA World Endurance Championship kicks off this weekend at Silverstone in the UK, and they tell us 2 days before the event starts that we now have to pay for a live stream of the race!
The Tudor United Sports Car series in the US is only 3 races into the calendar. The standard of racing has plummeted. Every decision they have made this year to make the unified series successful seems to be sending it downhill at an alarming rate. Ridiculous rules that stifle racing, crazy driver grading systems and stupid amounts of advertising that outweigh the racing make it extremely hard to watch and are driving the fans away in droves.
V8 Supercars, here in Australia, have joined the party and have made the decision, in 2015, to get out of free to air television and run on payTV.
All these moves by the race series mentioned have the effect in making them harder to follow. They obviously have their reasons for doing so, but in this present climate of instability, one would be forgiven for thinking that they would all be looking at retaining their fan base and simplifying procedures to expand on it. The opposite outcome appears to be the case.
Another thing that intrigues me is the secrecy. Surely one would be forgiven for thinking that promotion is all about being open and honest, spreading the word and doing so, well before the event, rather than fans having to go searching for details two days before a race starts. Don’t advertisers and sponsors deserve better?
I think it would be a good time to step back and have a good look at what these marketing genius’ are doing to the sport and the damage that is being done.
Just when a race series starts to genuinely get ahead, make advances in crowd numbers, increased TV ratings, larger grids etc, they shoot themselves in the foot with what seems to be a crazy, backward step in driving fans away.
I don’t get it.
porsche91722 
I think the same thought is motivating all three series’ decisions: Cash In Quick.
Instead of looking at the TV product as a part of the promotion, which will, if done properly, increase the popularity of the series which will in turn drive up the value of the advertising, Series Execs are using the Get Rich Quick, Only This Quarter Matters approach where as soon as a thing gains traction you milk it for all it is worth until it dies.
Thing is, that approach guarantees the series will die because by cutting off fan access they lower fan interest.
NASCAR is everywhere in the U.S. because absolutely everyone sees it, if only while flipping through channels to get to other shows. It is on network TV a lot of weekends and all over the TV listings all weekend long and often during the week, so absolutely everyone knows what it is.
These means when people talk about it, other people know what they are talking about. This means when friends tell other friends, “You need to check this out,” not only do they know what it is, they can actually tune in and watch from just about any TV anywhere.
Because of its availability, NASCAR is now part of U.S. culture.
Thing is, it started out as a regional series. It was through effective marketing, through series execs Investing Long-term in the series that NASCAR eventually became a household word and actually attracts big-name sponsors and earns expensive TV ad rates.
For those not familiar with U.S. culture: Bernie didn’t start raping people for F1 races until he had built the series’ value.
Series management in two of the three series mentioned (WEC, TUSC at least; not sure about Aussie V8) are simply short-sighted. Nothing wrong with a business making money—it dies if it doesn’t. But trying to make a killing on your business before you have soundly built your business drains its value.
TUSC is killing itself with stupidity and greed, and now it seems only the P1 manufacturers are going to save WEC from itself.