A Voice For The Fans ~ Improving The Fan Experience
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I bid
you welcome gentle readers, and as always, a cordial welcome as well to he or
she whose job it is to monitor what we print and advise someone in a higher echelon
of NASCAR if we are found to be disrespectful to that sanctioning body, which
fancies itself the greatest thing since personal deodorant. Please note, I said
“fancies”, which indicates that it really is nothing of the sort. In fact,
there is a lot about that sanctioning body that could definitely use some of
that deodorant, as from the aroma thereabouts, one might say, “There is
something rotten in Denmark.” Or maybe that should be Charlotte… or Daytona
Beach.
For the
record, this column had been in the R&D stage for some three days before
another column appeared on our pages. That’s one thing I love about RFF; we all
can agree to disagree without calling names or throwing stones. J.L. Steele and
I sharply disagree on this subject, but I’ll go down fighting for his right to
his opinion.
With
that said, it well might be that my age is a factor, but I find absolutely no
rosy side to the sharp decrease in seating at almost every track on the
circuit. All manner of figures abound, depending upon where you read, and
almost all of them contradict another. So, whom are we to believe? Let’s bring
it down to a manageable scale for now, and discuss the Richmond track, where
yet another huge bank of seating is being ripped out. The following is from an article from WAVY-TV:
RICHMOND (WAVY) —
Richmond International Raceway, which once boasted a capacity of 112,000 and a
33-race sellout streak, will remove the entire backstretch stands, which will
reduce the track’s capacity to 60,000.
WWBT in Richmond
was the first to report this story. This will be the second reduction in two
years at the Action Track. The three-quarter mile track, which was once owned
by the late Paul Sawyer from Norfolk, is now owned by International Speedway
Corporation. ISC is run by the France family, which controls NASCAR.
The removal of the
backstretch grandstands is expected to be completed in time for the spring race
in April.
Please let
me assure you that the figures quoted in this article are the correct ones,
give or take a few seats. How can I be so sure? Because RFF’s own Dave Fulton
was the Media Relations Director for Richmond International Raceway for 10
years, and it was under his watch, through the entire decade of the 1990s that
the seating capacity of Richmond International Raceway grew to 112,029.
Gentle
readers, most of you know this isn’t my first rodeo, and I’m on my third
generation of the France family as CEO of NASCAR. If there’s one thing I hope
I’ve proved over many years to each and every one of you is that I’m honest,
and I strive to have any information presented in my columns be accurate to the
nth degree. However, and Mr. France please take note, honesty is in no way the
equivalent of stupidity.
Mr.
France gave an hour of his time last week to do a Q&A with Eli Gold on NASCAR Live, Sirius XM
Radio. There is a listening link on that page should you so desire. There were
many topics touched upon in that hour, but one statement struck a nerve in this
old fan much like a dentist with an errant drill. In answer to a question of
how he thought his father and grandfather would feel about the state of the
sport today, his answer was, “I think they would be over the moon with how
things look for the sport."
Really?
Mr. France, have you ever actually talked to a fan, or more importantly actually
listened to a fan? I have. I talk with hundreds of them weekly, and with all
due respect, most tend to think that your immediate ancestors might be howling
at the moon in displeasure, but not over it with some sort of elation. Indeed, what
the vast majority of fans think is that you have taken something that each of
those good men worked a lifetime to build, and without raising a finger to
improve or even maintain what they built, you seem duty-bound on destroying it.
The
massive reduction of seating across the sport, and the way it’s being
presented… pardon me, “marketed” to the fans is today’s case in point. In the
political field, it’s called “Spin.” Adolph Hitler called it what it was,
“Lies.” His theory was that if you told a big enough lie for a long enough
time, the people would come to accept it as truth.
We the
fans, sit here in our mostly modest homes and watch the reduction of seating
capacity, and hear excuses, excuses and more excuses for why it’s happening.
The one I like best is that the tracks are decreasing seating capacity to
increase the “Fan experience.” You know what Mr. France? Every race fan I’ve
ever met thought the RACE was the fan experience. They went to a track, or maybe
even several of them each year to experience a live race. I don’t know a single
soul that has ever gone to a racetrack for the express purpose of playing video
games, watching the race on a bigger TV than he has at home or attending a rock
concert. I have yet to meet the fan that goes to any track just to pay the “Over
the moon” prices at the concession stands for what is in many cases
sub-standard food and drink at premium prices.
Stepping
back to the Richmond track for just a moment, the following is taken from
another article on the track’s seating reduction, this one from WWBT-TV, Richmond’s NBC affiliate.
RIR officials
haven't confirmed yet what they'll be doing with that space but promise it
will improve the fan
experience. This is phase two
of the track's plan. In October of 2013, the venue removed its Henrico Tower, a
portion of backstretch seating.
"It's going to be
a lot better than just people looking and seeing empty seats and wondering
what's going on here,” said Arena Racing
founder and CEO Ricky Dennis.
So,
from the exact wording above, they have no idea what they will do with the
space on the now empty backstretch, but it will be better than having people
see empty seats. Oh, and did you catch in that article that over the last two
years, the track has been widening the seats they are now ripping out? Sure
sounds like a plan to me. They are “improving the fan experience.” In politics,
phrases such as that are called “talking points.” Just as Adolph Hitler said,
keep repeating it over and over, and sooner or later they’ll start to believe
it.
Something
even funnier by way of an excuse, and this is by no means only applicable to
Richmond, but nationwide, is the idea that fans are not going to the tracks
because “a lot of fans are choosing to watch it from the comfort of their own
homes.” Oh, please allow an old lady to
call BS on that one and scream it from a mountain top! One has only to
follow the TV ratings to know that fans have turned away from stock car racing
in vast numbers. The fans that remain are being used in an attempt to boost the
ratings of a couple of Cable channels, FOX Sports 1 and NBCSN. While it’s true
that airing races on those channels places them where many fans can’t even get
the channel or don’t choose to pay exorbitant Cable prices for the privilege,
it has still increased the channels’ viewership to a great degree. NBCSN is quite
new in that format. It used to be VERSUS, and before that it lived a lonely
life as the Outdoor Life Network. FOX FS1 did not exist until SPEED Channel
disappeared from our TV sets, which makes it fairly easy to understand that
their ratings as cable channels had nowhere to go but up.
So, we
now have NASCAR playing to almost empty houses both at the track and in the
living room. Your scribe is going out on the same limb as she has in the past
and make a prediction. (That limb hasn’t broken yet) Those TV contracts, all $8.2
Billion with a “B” of them, won’t stand for the agreed upon 10 years. NBC and
FOX do not have fools for attorneys. Somewhere in those contracts there have to
be escape clauses for non-performance. NASCAR racing is not growing in
popularity; it is shrinking at an alarming rate, and well inside of ten years,
that rate will be reflected in the ratings drop for the channels it was meant
to build.
Mr.
France, I know that many of the fans that I speak with are probably not of your
preferred demographic, but they are the fans that made this sport the success
it was before you took over and started it going downhill like a snowball
headed for Hell. Don’t mistake me for someone wanting to live in the past or
“bring back the good ol’ days.” That is not me. I am,
and have been since my teen years, a race fan. The “fan” part is shortened from
“fanatic”, a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal.
Like so
many others in my demographic, I could tell you tales of love for stock car
racing that would amuse and delight you only because that love made me an
essential part of what made you rich… that being the success of your father and
grandfather. No, I have never been one to live in the past, but I have never
run headlong away from it just to affect change either.
I still
have my writing and my gentle readers, which is why I’m still here today and
not gone like so many I’ve known that just gave up in disgust. Those are their
seats being torn out at every track on the circuit. Daytona may be rising, but
she’s doing it with only 101,500 seats, where in 2003 she could accommodate almost
twice that many. (Attendance quoted by NASCAR at the 2003 Daytona 500 was
200,000).
One
more thing and then we’ll move on for today, but if any of you have other
topics you’d like to address from that radio broadcast, or anywhere else for
that matter, you have only to ask. This page is here for you, the fans.
The
picture below is of the fans at Richmond helping commemorate the 9/11 attacks.
I’m told the year is 2011, the 10th anniversary of that horrific
day. Those seats that create the blue field where the crowd has spelled out
“God Bless America” will be entirely gone when we go back in April of this
year. Progress? Improving the Fan Experience? Perhaps America isn’t the only
thing that could use God’s blessing…
Did we
learn anything here today? Probably not, but our purpose here is to reach the
ears and eyes of NASCAR, and at that we succeed rather well. None of us mere
fans can put the egg back into the broken shell, and it’s not a shell that we
broke. Brian, that honor is all yours. Along with that eggshell, my poor old
heart is broken when I hear my close friend speak of Richmond thusly, “From
112,029 seats to 60,000 and they still can't sell them. What am I missing?”
Dear
friend, what you, and all the rest of us are missing is good competition on the
track. Yes, the Gen-6 looks a bit better out there than did the squat COT,
especially if you are Ford, GM or Toyota. At least they have name plates by which
one can identify the cars and the headlight decals are of varied shapes
according to make, but the racing has not improved. It may some, with the new
“package” NASCAR has set up for this year, but that accursed splitter is still
there, and the cars are still quite literally scraping the ground as they
circle the track. That alone kills most of the passing efforts made. If both
cars and engines are all identical, and that is what we’re moving toward and
have almost achieved, then passing will remain impossible. How can you change
the quality of the racing if the same identical change is made to each
identical car on the track?
Would a
return to great racing bring back fannies to those seats that once were
occupied? Perhaps, but perhaps not. Today’s kids do not share the love affair
with the automobile that my demographic did when we were that younger
generation. Still, making the racing more exciting would bring a lot more folks
to the track than ‘Improving the fan experience.” The only thing that will
accomplish that is better racing, because what it all boils down to is that
racing IS the fan experience! The end and Amen!
Time
now for our Classic Country Closeout, and we’ll be reaching back for some true
classics this time, as performed by the original singer and/or group. First up
is a real “oldie” called “Faded Love”, written by Bob Wills
and John Wills, and performed as always by them with the Texas Playboys. This
particular recording was made just days before Bob passed away, which makes it
a treasure to hear and share.
Next
up, let’s hear one from the “Singing Brakeman” or if you prefer, the
“Mississippi Blue Yodeler”, Jimmie Rodgers. Here’s Jimmie with a very original
rendition of “Frankie and Johnny.” Please enjoy!
If
you’ve ever heard Ernest Tubb sing “Filipino Baby” and it didn’t sound
quite right to you, then the one you’re recalling from many years ago is this
version by Cowboy Copas. This was the original and Ernest
changed the wording just a bit, which spoiled both the rhythm and the rhyme for
this purist.
A lot
of folks have tried their hand at this one, but absolutely no one sings it like
the original offering by Tex Ritter. This is a cut from the movie, “Song of the
Gringo”, in which Tex sings “Rye Whiskey” for I believe the
first time. (1936)
This collection
just wouldn’t be complete without that priceless song written and sung by
Mama’s all-time favorite, Red Foley. This version though, might well be one you
have never heard. To my knowledge, it has only appeared on one album, and of
course, its 78 rpm vinyl version back in the 30s. I was too young to care about
the old 78, as it predated me by a few years, but I do have the album by the
same name… “Old Shep.” Those of you that love
Classic Country, listen close. Red was so young here that it’s almost hard to
tell that it’s him, but also, pay attention to the wording. There is one subtle
but very important change that appears in every other recording but this one.
Guess there were PC Police even that long ago. (A thousand thanks to my
“adopted” son Darrell for getting this one on YouTube for me. I’d be lost
without you Son… or I’d have to learn to do it by myself. ~Hugs)
Be well
gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~PattyKay