I’ve seen heavier ammunition than this when it comes to shots across the bow.
However, counter-shooting is counter-shooting, so even if it’s just a warning shot, you need to be careful about its existence.
NASCAR’s top teams, which are part of the Race Team Alliance, have strategically announced that they are exploring the possibility of hosting their own exhibition race as soon as a year from now.
I think it’s a decent little flare.
The RTA has hired a marketing agency to “explore domestic and international exhibition racing opportunities,” according to a report last week in Sports Business Journal, a popular institution in the sports world.
The request was deemed “highly investigative”.
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And it’s very interesting, given what it shows.
NASCAR’s current network TV deal (the cash outlet that fuels much of the parade) will run until 2024, and the big teams say the old way, which is also the way it is now, is no longer the only way. increase.
The long-standing television funding split is 65% for trucks, 25% for teams, and 10% for NASCAR.
This 25% never paid most of the overhead for teams that have always had large gaps filled by corporate sponsorships from big companies. and some small ones. They say 60-80% of their racing budget comes from beating these bushes.
Racing doesn’t come cheap. It’s not that cheap if you want to compete up front. You want to race front-line on America’s biggest stages, but you’re talking about an eight-figure budget per car.
So RTA leaders have been talking to NASCAR about changing the division so they don’t have to spend a lot of time acting like congressmen. Instead of offering favorable laws, it puts the logo on the fender and offers to meet Joe his racer at the company’s next wellness retreat.
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In summary, the team does it themselves. No one forced him to open a new engineer’s can, add another 10,000 square feet to the store, or find an upgraded hauler so he bought three. They can have a TV and money in their wallet and live within their income.
But there is actually a scoreboard and it costs more to be on the north end of that board instead of the south end. And it costs more to go there. Cubic dollar is an old term.
When negotiations with NASCAR were not progressing at the desired pace, some RTA leaders (including current Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman Jeff Gordon) went to the media to discuss their concerns. .
Apparently, the commonalities are still elusive, leading to this latest talk of a potential exhibition race aside from NASCAR.
At first, you might want to say, “Good luck with your work.” There’s so much involved in making a major league auto race that it’s hard to imagine it being profitable.
Doesn’t Tony Stewart’s SRX already show that it’s possible?
However, he discovers that a non-NASCAR organization already exists: Superstar Racing Experience (SRX). The organization has run a network televised series of six races each in the last two summers and bears the name of the big league.
And one of the owners of the SRX series is Tony Stewart, co-owner of the NASCAR team and part of the Race Team Alliance. Additionally, Tony spent much of this past season in NASCAR (hopefully) personally reeling.
When a team is fined $300,000 within a week, animosity escalates, regardless of the legitimacy of that deterrent.
If exploratory findings prompt the RTA to pursue an off-season racing venture, its pit crew should include a lawyer or three.
So far, NASCAR has been working to cut costs to ease the burden on the teams. The team says that’s not enough and they need more TV funding.
My guess here is that the compromises would include some kind of soft spending cap along with a more team-friendly TV split.
Men like Tony Stewart and Roger Penske have spent much of their lives in the Midwest. They know where to find the walking wounded (hollow-eyed, angry, or both) who didn’t quite survive the 1990s IndyCar wars.
Indeed, there are still enough memories left to compel sane people to avoid repeating that history.
— Ken Willis can be reached at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com