According to a story on the Blog of Tomorrow posted on Wednesday, California track officials were pleased at having only one-third of the track empty for last Sunday’s Sprint Cup race.
According to reports, Gillian Zucker, speedway president, said “It’s an awesome crowd” with only about 60,000 of the 92,000 seats in the grandstand filled.
Now, in today’s economy I could see where this might get scored as a big win at any race venue. But this is par for the course at the Fontana track, which has had 11 non-sellout dates.
If it weren’t for that fact, I would be more willing to give the track officials a break. With tracks across the country struggling to fill seats and offering discounts to fans, Fontana did not go that route, even when Elliott Sadler offered up an idea to give tickets away to students.
Zucker’s response to that was “Elliott Sadler drives a race car for a living,” she said. “I don’t tell him how to drive it. I’m not about to, because I really don’t know much about it. And he doesn’t really know much about promoting a race track.”
Zucker contends that giving away tickets devalues the race product and upsets fans who paid full price.
I don’t think Zucker knows much about marketing in my opinion.
A couple of things – the racing at Fontana is not the best in the world. While a nice facility, the track is pretty flat and tends to provide fans more of a parade than it does real racing, no matter what Michael Waltrip says. The track has had pretty bad water issues in the past. The weather in the spring tends to be wet and the summer race is almost unbearably hot.
Secondly, teams all across the country give tickets away to fill the stands. Does it devalue the product? Maybe in the mind of the promoter but not the fan. NFL teams go through drastic measures in order to fill stands to avoid TV blackouts. Believe you me, if NASCAR ever has that policy, California will be in dire straits.
Giving tickets away to students for example, can go a long way to building community awareness and loyalty and help create a new generation of race fans that just might pay for tickets in the future.
In spite of the Fox announcers over the top declarations of a great crowd, it was obviously sparse and the declarations offensive to long-time race fans. We remember tracks such as Rockingham, Darlington and even Atlanta where smaller than desired crowds (by official NASCAR standards) have led to races leaving a venue or where the threat of losing a race is always hanging over their heads.
I don’t care how big the TV audience is in California, the track owners owe it to the community to provide more than the usual. Want an economic stimulus plan? Instead of just trying to own our minds and wallets, how about stimulating the heart and souls of fans in return? Race fans are the most loyal fans in the country and that is why sponsors have always been such a big part of NASCAR. Perhaps Zucker ought to bone up on the history of NASCAR fans before outright dismissing a helping hand during tough times.
Drive fact, turn left and keep the shiny side up race fans.
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It sounds like a great idea to me to give away tickets that are not sold. If you give them away maybe 20-30% of those would get hooked on racing and be paying customers in future years. An added feature would be the money they spend at all the vendors for food and souvenirs.
It sounds to me like the promoters of this track work in Washington D.C. We will give you universal health care, so what you need cataract surgery in one eye to help you see. 50% is better than none. When you are totally blind come back and see me and we will fix one of your eyes.