NASCAR looking for new fans

Here is an article from trade mag - NASCAR is looking to branch out and bring the brand to more of the masses...

http://adage.com/article/agency-news/na ... aign=adage

your thoughts.....

Here is an article from trade mag - NASCAR is looking to branch out and bring the brand to more of the masses...

http://adage.com/article/agency-news/na ... aign=adage

your thoughts.....

My thoughts? I had to delete them as they were fighting words and I'm not in the mood to defend them.

This isnt really new as there were articles about this last yr and earlier this yr as well.

Young people today are interested in other things that dont require sitting on bleachers for 3-5 hrs watching a race that may or may not be exciting. Teens/young adults are into X game type events where other young people their ages etc are competing in an exiting venue like motor-cross, skate boarding etc and all the snow boarding/wintergames events and many considered the X games which are much more exciting then Nascar, Indycar or any auto race. Even some drivers in Nascar when interviewed in the past i remember said their own teen kids seldom watch as its too boring for them, unless of course they are the ones trying to become drivers then its different.

Every sport and every venue has always tried to get more young fans and if was easy they would be successfull at it, but its NOT> Remember Ricky Carmichael is/was racing in nascar and that hasnt helped draw the younger fans in now has it, as popular as he once was?

Ditto, N Dunn!!! If an example of this new trend is Trackside, then they need to go back to what they had. It is stupid! They mess with it to much and they will loose the fan base they have. At least they have the money to pay for the tickets, etc., not these kids!! Must be a Brian France idea!

This isnt really new as there were articles about this last yr and earlier this yr as well.

Young people today are interested in other things that dont require sitting on bleachers for 3-5 hrs watching a race that may or may not be exciting. Teens/young adults are into X game type events where other young people their ages etc are competing in an exiting venue like motor-cross, skate boarding etc and all the snow boarding/wintergames events and many considered the X games which are much more exciting then Nascar, Indycar or any auto race. Even some drivers in Nascar when interviewed in the past i remember said their own teen kids seldom watch as its too boring for them, unless of course they are the ones trying to become drivers then its different.

Every sport and every venue has always tried to get more young fans and if was easy they would be successfull at it, but its NOT> Remember Ricky Carmichael is/was racing in nascar and that hasnt helped draw the younger fans in now has it, as popular as he once was?

...could be 'cause Ricky Carmichael = blows @ NA$CAR style racing. The ONLY chance you'd have at the fanbase following is he(or Pastrana) gets to Cup level AND is successful...and even THAT'S no assurance.

When a national insurance company came out with a commercial that had pit crews repairing wrecked cars, I said, see, Nascar is changing the market. It would have been more correct for me to say, racing is changing the market. But I see more recognition by the general public every day. Nascar is becoming more main-stream, and we will all benefit from it. JMO

My thoughts?

1 - Ms Brink needs to find a new job ... and NASCAR needs to hire someone who knows what they're doing.

2. Fox Channel tried to use Digger to bring in kids... and was eventually pulled, by fan request, as being "too childish" for the majority and too annoying to everyone. (( LOL ))

3. The paint jobs, jackets, seem to reflect a young audience to me. (( Esp, for some reason Kyle's car's always make me want candy! LOL ))

4. I think I know what Ms Brink is thinking... and it aint "we need more kids" - - - it's "We need kids to come to get mom and dad to buy them stuff." NSynch creator first came up with this marketing concept.

5. Trying to attract "multi-cultures" never works. Take it from me, from San Fran experience ... it gets messed up, convoluted, the "multi-cultures" just come for the freebies and skip the events.

6. NASCAR should stand on it's history and roots and not change for any age group or culture.

If you like racing,...there will always be drama, suspense, excitement, disappointment, characters out there, good guys & bad guys...winning & losing. If you don't care for racing it will always be cars going in a circle for hours ... regardless of any "swag" offered.

Just my humble opinion....

Um, on the #5 comment....before anyone gets the wrong idea... I was just an observer on many, many occasions.

A lot of times, somewhere in San Fran... there will be, let's say a Columbian festival. Well all cultures come.... and put down, insult, compare cultures and fight.

Now since there was a Columbian Festival.... there needs to be a Islands of Great Samoa festival now too. Wait... we can't let the Somoans have that festival on that date... it's in Feb, African American month. Well if the African Americans get a month... why don't the Irish? And on and on it goes....

I must have been to at least 2 doz of these lil festivals in San Fran ...and as cool as they are ( because I love to explore other cultures ) they never seem to run smoothly.

In San Fran, a HUGE melting pot of cultures ...the only people I see getting along, multi-culturally are the homeless! LOL They're honey badgers... they don't give a crap anymore....

my 2 cents (I didnt bother reading article)
Nascars 1st mistake was trying to convert channel surfers into Nascar fans. They will always be channel surfers. They will tune in for the wrecks & the end of the race if Nascar is lucky. So to do that they made all these crazy changes, alienating the hardcore fans. To me Nascar is lucky the fan base hasnt gone down! Not up.

#2 what makes a nascar fan is a race fan 1st. How do you create a race fan. It is live events that creates race fans, which basically means all your Fri, & sat. nite racing around the nation. However nascar now is messing with the sat night local tracks by doing more & more races on Sat. nights. Which messes with the with the local tracks economy, which in turns means they can not afford to bring in the bigger attractions (the divisions that cost more money) We lose race dates all the time because a track promoter cant pay for the series to come to the track. This is with different division I have been with. So less less exciting races at the local track takes away from someone that might have gotten into racing as a whole.

I am a race fan, & always been a cup fan, but when Cup isnt on, I will find myself turning on other forms of racing. For nascar to get a bigger nascar fan base, you must 1st start with a race fan. If you never converted someone to a race fan, they will never be a Nascar fan. Sounds to me Nascar needs to promote local racing to create a bigger fan base. Not try & to snag a basketball fan who could care less about racing. Or some kid that watches cartoons, into a Nascar fan. All they do when they try this is #### off the true fans that have been around. Then again Brian France isnt a fan, he is just a business man, so it doesnt surprise me how many boneheaded things he does to my sport. A good reason why he doesnt understand current Nascar fans.

Bill France & Bill France Jr. lived Nascar. They were more about what was best for the racing series, than what would just make money. Dont get me wrong, they had every intention of making money, but they weren't going to risk destroying the series with radical crap, that we deal with now.
Brian France could care less. As long as it makes him money. Honestly he likes his name out there for being radical (a visionary if you will)

Ditto, N Dunn!!! If an example of this new trend is Trackside, then they need to go back to what they had. It is stupid! They mess with it to much and they will loose the fan base they have. At least they have the money to pay for the tickets, etc., not these kids!! Must be a Brian France idea!

What this about is the fact that young people are what they call popular. Since I'm over the age of 30 I hate it when we are ignored and aren't important any more. We backed NASCAR for the last 50 plus years so they suppose we don't spend money any more. I got news for them. One of my biggest gripe I had was when Oldsmobile had an ad campaign and the lead tag was "This isn't your father's car any more". I live in Oldsmobile country and the city was beside themselves when this came out. But then General Motors decided Olds were not to be made any more. Go Figure....One of the largest Olds dealership still sits empty here.

Just to ad, Indycar has been trying or talking about the same thing, how to attract new younger fans for awhile now also> They once even mentioned having some type of X games competition before the races to draw the young fans and hopefully they stay for the race itself, but hasnt happenned yet. I doubt they would stay once they saw the boring parades of follow and try and catch the leader that Indycar calls racing anyway. You could have a circus before every race but once the circus was over the fans would be leaving--just how it is. Younger fans are impatient and if its not exciting on their level--they're gone. Besides young people, teens and into their 20's are often fickle, as even if they all like something as a fad or to fit in with their friends, often times fast as you blink they're done with it so not worth trying to grow a lasting fan base with in my opinion. There are some exceptions of course like young kids who went with their parents for yrs and yrs and got to like drivers and became avid fans in that regard and as they grow up they still like it which are the fans all sports hope to have to grow with them.

my 2 cents (I didnt bother reading article)
Nascars 1st mistake was trying to convert channel surfers into Nascar fans. They will always be channel surfers. They will tune in for the wrecks & the end of the race if Nascar is lucky. So to do that they made all these crazy changes, alienating the hardcore fans. To me Nascar is lucky the fan base hasnt gone down! Not up.

#2 what makes a nascar fan is a race fan 1st. How do you create a race fan. It is live events that creates race fans, which basically means all your Fri, & sat. nite racing around the nation. However nascar now is messing with the sat night local tracks by doing more & more races on Sat. nights. Which messes with the with the local tracks economy, which in turns means they can not afford to bring in the bigger attractions (the divisions that cost more money) We lose race dates all the time because a track promoter cant pay for the series to come to the track. This is with different division I have been with. So less less exciting races at the local track takes away from someone that might have gotten into racing as a whole.

I am a race fan, & always been a cup fan, but when Cup isnt on, I will find myself turning on other forms of racing. For nascar to get a bigger nascar fan base, you must 1st start with a race fan. If you never converted someone to a race fan, they will never be a Nascar fan. Sounds to me Nascar needs to promote local racing to create a bigger fan base. Not try & to snag a basketball fan who could care less about racing. Or some kid that watches cartoons, into a Nascar fan. All they do when they try this is #### off the true fans that have been around. Then again Brian France isnt a fan, he is just a business man, so it doesnt surprise me how many boneheaded things he does to my sport. A good reason why he doesnt understand current Nascar fans.

Bill France & Bill France Jr. lived Nascar. They were more about what was best for the racing series, than what would just make money. Dont get me wrong, they had every intention of making money, but they weren't going to risk destroying the series with radical crap, that we deal with now.
Brian France could care less. As long as it makes him money. Honestly he likes his name out there for being radical (a visionary if you will)

As a racer, you sir hit my opinion SPOT ON!

If you like racing,...there will always be drama, suspense, excitement, disappointment, characters out there, good guys & bad guys...winning & losing. If you don't care for racing it will always be cars going in a circle for hours ... regardless of any "swag" offered.

Great summation SMOKIESONEFOUR, are you a lawyer??? Just kidding but you hit the nail on the head.

I don't see how Nascar could attempt to appeal to the younger crowd without pushing away the older crowd, meaning the die-hard race fans who have loved it for what it is and appreciate the history of it all.
I think Ms. Brink (hired last Fall, according to the arcticle) needed to come up an earth shattering, whiz-bang idea in order to justify her job position and make it seem worthwhile. And this is the big idea she came up with.
Plus she says Nascar should try to appeal to the Hispanic audience, too. How can they do that? We've only got one Hispanic driver in Juan Pablo Montoilet.

In my opinion, Nascar could easily increase it's fan base by: Getting rid of the speed limit on pit road, allow racing back to the flag when the caution is thrown, and getting rid of the stupid "Lucky Dog" free pass.
Wait a minute....didn't we used to do all of that??

That's just me, though.

Put the carburators back on, take off the spoilers and just let them RACE.