How Big Is Too Big?

NASCAR's Brian France pontificated to the Race-Stream Media before the Firecracker 400 weekend, expounding on mainstream media coverage of the sport, the COT, and other subjects. Brian France seemed to take particular issue with mainstream news coverage of the sport, blaming it for opposition to ISC track proposals in Kitsap, WA and New York City.

"This is the most under-covered sport in the country," France stated, a curious assertion given that one can hardly escape NASCAR coverage nowadays. It is certainly true that some newspapers have started cutting coverage, but France's assertion that resistance to covering NASCAR is responsible for opposition to proposed New York and Seattle tracks really doesn't wash; it constitutes denial that there are good reasons not to build new speedways in the Seattle and New York City areas.

France repeats the cliche that there are 75 million NASCAR fans in the US. I'm at a loss to figure out where this statistic came from because for a full quarter of the US population to be NASCAR fans is implausible on its face. I've never seen even the NFL, the clear king of pro sports in the US, make a claim this sweeping. The size of the sport is certainly vast, but overstating the size of the sport does no one any good.

Brian France states that NASCAR will "work as closely as we can with the motorsports media" and also look into emerging media such as the Internet, and working "to have more information, more rich content available" and "we're going to do some clever hard-working things to tell out story better and get this sport the proper coverage."

This is the promoter in Brain France speaking. The sport doesn't need more coverage, it needs to step back and ponder whether it has gotten too big for its own good. It has to ask - what good will new tracks in Seattle and New York City do when NASCAR is still largely ignored in San Francisco (despite 18 seasons at Sears Point), Chicago, and the other big markets that tracks have sprung up near?

Moreover, what more can NASCAR provide in terms of information and "rich content" that will make the sport better? How much more do we really need to know about drivers, crew chiefs, etc.? And how will that make a case for Seattle and New York tracks?

This sport has serious issues of costs, an economic structure that hasn't made any sense for a long time now - I have to laugh at Brian France's boast that ABC/ESPN's exclusive coverage of BGN in 2007 will mean the series will be "treated like it's never been treated before" because there has been no effort at defeating the Buschwacking that has effectively bankrupted the division - and an increasingly closed loop of participants disturbingly similar to the structure of F1 that helped lead to the infamous 2005 USGP fiasco - a closed loop that David Gilliland's BGN win at Kentucky will do nothing to open despite Brian France's boast about that race.

This sport has to ask itself whether it's time to throttle back on growth and focus instead on improving the structure of the sport.