Iowa Double Dip? Whither Milwaukee?

Nots of sparks still flying after the magnificent show at Iowa Speedway in front of an announced crowd of 35,000.

Doubleheader at Iowa? One thing that came up almost immediately is the possibility of a doubleheader at Iowa in the near future. This is kind of under the "if some is good, more must be better" category. Personally, I'd be leery of a double dip in Iowa. As others have said, I'd rather have one spectacular event at Iowa than two mediocre ones.

It may be worth a try, I guess, but if you sell 25,000 for each race (a total of 50,000 over the doubleheader) people would bemoan the lack of attendance. Even though 50,000 is bigger than 35,000, it doesn't LOOK as good on TV. And fans at home and TV people CLEARLY love a packed house. Versus set a new record during their broadcasts for crowd shots and everyone seems to love seeing full stands in the background of TV.

Also, if you do a double dip I think it has to be something like a Saturday night, Sunday morning race to make it work for the league and the track. Iowa Speedway only has a limited number of weekends -- from early May to maybe early October. They already have four weekends -- IndyCar, two NASCAR Nationwide weekends and an ARCA/Truck weekend. So there's scheduling challenges plus exense of having teams schlep to Iowa twice. Plus there is a local group here that is on a mission to get a NASCAR CUP race here. That could suck all the oxygen and cash out of the market in a hurry.

Also for a doubleheader, the first race might feature sandbagging, cautious driving, etc. and therefore be a lower-quality item. Still, Randy Bernard is interested, as Robin Miller points out here. You'll see Randy say "this could be a way we maintain our balance of oval and road races."

Maybe, but that tells me Randy is concerned about that balance, which also tells me he doesn't have ovals crawling all over him demanding a race. Not so good. There seems to be no end to street races that want on the schedule, however.

Personally, I think a double dip would be iffy at Iowa. I think the reason Iowa works is it's kind of the big event for race fans in the area as well as the Iowa Corn Growers sponsor. They gear up all year for the show and put on hospitality for their members (basically every farmer who raises corn). Having a two-day deal may dilute the product. UNLESS you could find another sponsor for the second race. That might work. The Corn Growers are a big reason why Iowa works so well. Not only do they bring their members or give them a discount on tickets, they market the crap out of the race to the rural areas and that brings a lot of other ticket buyers.

I'm just leery of a double dip because I've seen a lot of great events get ruined because someone tried to scale them up.

Lay off Milwaukee. Lot of people are unfortunately dissing Milwaukee (intentionally or unintentionally) by comparing it to Iowa. That's unfortunate. Milwaukee and Iowa are two different markets, six hours apart. Iowa has momentum (Drink, ye BASTARDS) going from several IndyCar races in a row, Milwaukee was shut down last year and starting over now. Milwaukee also has some logistical disadvantages to Iowa. The list is long. Certainly Milwaukee has some promotional issues, but I thought the racing there was great. I was there in person in 2009 and it looked pretty good on TV in 2011.

Milwaukee also has the issue of being owned by a governmental group (not exactly exclusively profit-motivated) and NO luxury boxes. Promoters are not lining up to promote this race, which tells me the numbers are dicey.

There's also this myth floating around that if a race is just promoted "properly" it will sell out. False. So many factors go into it. The Iowa race is not heavily promoted in the Des Moines metro market because tickets sell without promotion. "Better promotion" is the too-easy, too-simplistic answer to Milwaukee's issues. If you dump $150,000 into promotion to make an extra $100,000 on ticket sales, your both stupid and bankrupt. The prospects need to be there for your marketing to generate ROI. Patrick from TSO posted a few good ideas to improve Milwaukee here.

Unless they take look at it and the numbers just aren't there, I hope IndyCar gives Milwaukee another shot. The first race at Iowa (2007) was plagued with shitty traffic problems and the race itself was a parade. As the track seasoned and the management learned from their mistakes (and made some key personnel changes) it got better and better. This year everything was smooth as silk off the track and the racing was insanely awesome on it. Now the race itself has become the biggest promoter of the next one. And the Iowa Speedway track management GETS IT. Theye know their success is spelled "F-A-N-S." I hope Milwaukee can start to rebuild their race in a similar fashion.

 

Comments

[Kevin]

I couldn't agree with you more about a double dip. I'm a huge fan and not sure I would definetely go on both Saturday and Sunday. I would rather see 2 short Saturday night races rather than a Saturday and Sunday race.

[Deke]

I don't like doing another twin-race (unless Texas disappears) but wouldn't mind two weekends at Iowa if the scheduling works.

[BR]

It seems to me like Randy is taking the good oval races such as Iowa and Texas and trying something gimmicky. The Texas races weren't nearly as good as the full length races of the past couple of years. I'd be concerned with the same happening to Iowa with the double header concept.

I'd like the league to suck it up and self-promote some oval races at new venues before going back to the twin race or double header concept to artificially inflate the oval count. If they want to do the twin race concept again do it on an oval that doesn't typically have great races rather than one that does.

Milwaukee should be given at least another year or two before they give up on it.

Wouldn't it be kind of interesting if the league worked with the tracks to try and sell a season pass to all of the oval races? I know each promoter has their specific needs but as only Iowa has fully sold out this year there seems to be some excess capacity that could be used to provide an oval season ticket package. You may see some folks in the Midwest travel to a couple of more races if they can get an affordable ticket.

[B-man]

The race at Iowa this year was really good. I wouldn't go with a double-header for many reasons. Foremost, it's kind of gimicky. Even in baseball it's gimicky. You do it just to log more games. I hope the powers that be don't see this as a way to better balance oval vs. road races. The double-header at Texas didn't impress me. But, I would add another 50 or even a 100 laps to the Iowa race. Heck, seemingly half the laps were under the yellow flag this year, so what's a few dozen more laps anyway?

[Brian McKay]

"If you dump $150,000 into promotion to make an extra $100,000 on ticket sales" ...
But what if $100,000 spent on promotion drew $100,000 more revenue for tickets?
What if filling the stands means that the promoter can sell trackside signage to be seen by fans in the stands and the event looks good on TV so that TV viewers think that they ought to pay to attend in the next year?
And promotion can be unpaid.
And though Milwaukee Mile has hosted races for decades, it apparently doesn't know how to treat its guests and invite repeat business.

[Ron Ford]

Thank you so very much for your comments about Milwaukee Bill. If given another opportunity in 2012 I am quite sure we can prove Brian and other doubters dead wrong.

[Leigh O'Gorman]

"Doubleheader at Iowa?"

The old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it comes to mind.