IndyCAR Leader Circle Matrix/TEAM Money Froth

IndyCar declared some winners and losers yesterday, kids, based on some PowerPoint presentations.

NO, that's not fair, there may or may not have been PowerPoint presentations involved, but IndyCar did decide who won (got $1.2 million) and who lost (did not get $1.2 million).

And, on the whole, based on what I know, I think it was a good thing.

OK, here's the deal, as far as I can discern. IndyCar has what's called TEAM (Team Enhancement and Allocation Matrix) money. Essentially the money is payments from the league to each team based on points from the previous year. In December 2010, IndyCar announced it would give $1.2 million to each of the top 22 entrants based on final points standings from the previous year. Previously it had been the top 24 teams. Given the IndyCar car count from then, 24 teams pretty much meant all teams.

The idea seemed clearly aimed at weeding out the alleged posers in the league. *Cough ... Milka Duno ... *cough *cough. Kind of aimed at preventing IndyCar's version of NASCAR's Start-N-Park drivers who start, go two laps, park and collect the minimum purse amount. IndyCar's version would be teams that go to every race, just kind of half-ass it around the track and collect the $1.2 million. Nobody was accused of doing that, but the measure was, to me, aimed at preventing it.

On January 6, Marshall Pruett posted a story (that I completely overlooked at the time) on the new criteria for getting TEAM money, now renamed Leader Circle. Read it HERE. Essentially Randy Bernard said every team had to make a presentation to IndyCar about their plans for the year, how they will help the league grow and thrive, etc. etc. The top 20 teams get their money no matter what, so I guess they could enter the IndyCar presentation area, sit down, crack open a beer, light a cigarette and say "any questions?" BAM $1.2 million.

Actually, Bernard told Pruett that the goal was a great one: communication. IndyCar officials would learn more about each team through the presentation and then IndyCar would make an hour-long presentation to each team to tell the team what the league was up to.

I am very very very happy to hear that, because communication and cooperation are key in any successful relationship, business or personal. So full marks for getting each team in a room with your series officials and disclosing and discussing. More of that is needed. I assume fans will see some form of IndyCar's coming year presentation during the big state-of-the-series meeting Monday.

The teams outside the top 20, were competing with each other for the two remaining Leader Circle awards of $1.2 million each. As a veteran of many advertising agency pitches, I bet there was theatrical smoke and sky divers involved in some of those pitches, not to mention actual livestock and ... of course ... holograms.

Bernard told Pruett: “If you don’t have a Leader Circle contract and you want one, we’re going to give them to the people who are going to do the most for our sport,” said Bernard. “Whoever’s going to give back the most to the sport. The ones who can show us that you are going to make a difference to our sport are the ones who will win the contracts.” Read it all here.

Money from the last two spots will be combined and given to the teams that didn't make the 22-team cut throughout the year to encourage them to compete. Again, makes sense to me. If you've shown yourself on the track (top 20) then there's less pressure on you than if you are brand new or were outside top 20 last year.There needs to be some criteria, even informal, for deciding who gets the cash, and that should be based on a proposal as to what the team will do, why the team is good for IndyCar, etc. etc.

End of the day, Ed Carpenter Racing and Dragon Racing ... both, coincidentally, favorites of the pdog ... won the lotto and several others did not. Insert a Festival of Howling here. Robin Miller has a round up of the "WE GOT SCREWED" reactions here.

I read through them and they all had some element of "deserved it." Unfortunately, the only people who can say the "deserved it" are the people in the top 20 who deserve it based on performance, not based on reputation. Bryan Herta was pissed because they won the Indy 500 with Dan Wheldon and that should count for something.

Prepare for blasphemy --> given IndyCar's worship of the 500 and history and tradition, I can see why Herta may think that, but to me it's one race. Eric Bachelart seemed to think he should get it based on his rep. Others thought Mike Shank should get the cash because it would put long-suffering Paul Tracy into the series. And, OF COURSE, immediately I heard that Ed Carpenter got it because he's of the Hulman-George clan.

Piffle and rot, I say. Reputations can play some small part in the process. More important to me are solid, supportive sponsors with activation plans, innovative ideas on how to get FANS involved ... you remember fans? The ultimate source of ALL revenue in IndyCar? With all due respect to the non-winners, fans aren't going to show up because your team principal is a big dog or won tons of stuff 20 years ago. Fans show up (with their ticket money and ratings points) because of what you're going to do for THEM.

So I support this approach. Someone has to decide, and outside the top 20 it should be based on what you will do, not what you have done.

Comments

[GForcePaul]

Prepare for blasphemy is so true, Dog. I knew the moment I read Miller's lead line that a connection between Ed and Tony would needlessly be mentioned. Who actually slayed the Death Star at Kentucky, anyway??? The Fuzzy brand is going to be great for the sport!

[redcar]

It's too bad they can't just post some lucrative prize money at each venue and let them fight for it, but then they may only have ten or twelve teams left to fight. So if they have to allocate money, I guess this is the best way--eliminating the start and parkers is a good thing. Why couldn't they have some sort of graduated scale, so after the top twenty you get some smaller amount of shared money?

[Zachary]

I agree, pdog. Well, except Indy isn’t just one race in my eyes, but your larger point is taken. These teams had to put together a presentation in terms of activation for the Series. If you weren’t picked, do what you have to do on the track, finish in the top 20, and get the TEAM money slot for next year.

[DZ]

I take the viewpoint that since I was not in the presentations, I have no way of knowing who deserved the spots or not, so I'll keep my yap shut about it.

[BR]

Personally, I think Herta has a legitimate beef with the decision...I think the argument can be made for them over both Dragon and Ed Carpenter Racing. It would be nice to know a bit more about what the actual deciding factors were. Herta has been working and supporting IndyCar for awhile in Lights and one-off efforts in the Indy500, etc...not to mention being the test team of the new chassis. The problem with the new ambiguous criteria is that it is perceived to be more about who the best salesman is rather than who/what may actually be the best for the series (it could be both but the process seems to be weighted to who has the best story since there are no results to back anything up).

[Dylan]

I dislike how Indycar hands out it's TEAM money. The teams that need it the most have the hardest time getting it while Penske and Ganassi, who have over 10 million dollars in sponsors, get another injection from the series on top of that. If the point of TEAM money is to strengthen the weaker teams it's failing pretty badly. Worse, TEAM money isn't enough to keep teams like Newman Haas or the 4th Andretti car going. I do like the caveat about marketing and activation only because that allows the series some leverage against teams hiring random ride buyers (Jakes/Saadera) because they can then cut them off of TEAM money. I'd like to see them expand the number of teams that get money, not contract it. One of the things for Indycar to consider is that NASCAR get's it's prize money from contingency sponsors. If Indycar could do that without canalization of sponsors from teams then that would be a good place to start so that they can expand TEAM money instead of contract it.

[sejarzo]

Problem is that Pruett's story of January 6 clearly states that RB said that *20* guaranteed LC shares would be awarded based on 2011 results, and the remaining two would be awarded based on presentations/plans/etc. But in the end, only 18 teams received guaranteed shares based on 2011 results, with two being awarded based on the presentation. Seems to me that if RB had thought this through, based on the info at that time, he's have been better off to have said that only 18 guaranteed shares would be awarded and the balance of the LC funding would be split on what amounts to a purse basis to those outside the 18 lucky ones. As it stands, this is just another piece of evidence that all too often, IndyCar says "here's our plan" and almost immediately changes course.

[S0CSeven]

I have to agree with Dylan.

When and if the good old days return, this makes sense. Otherwise you're feeding the top 3 teams & penalizing the guys who are trying to break in, part-timers & people hanging on by their finger nails........ you know them ....... all those people who keep each & every race from having just 8 cars.

[the american mutt]

I didn't see the presentations, and can't reasonably comment on them, but im going to say those two teams are the right choice. However, there's very little way to spin away from the fact that they chose roger penske and tony georges sons. Right or wrong, that's how it s bound to look to the average fan...at least the couple thousand hardcorp fans who are even going to know about it come race day.

[the american mutt]

For the record, im not suggesting nepotism played any part in the selection. I believe they are the best fit.

[FTHurley]

I've seen some reactions on Twitter that make it seem like IndyCar is hand-selecting who they want to pay and suddenly nothing is guaranteed. This is not true, as Pressdog pointed out. The top 20 entries from the prior year get their money, which is basically the prize money for finishing in the top twenty. Great, no problem with that, and it helps ensure continuity by bridging any budget gaps a top-20 team might have, without being enough for them to say to hell with finding sponsors. It can help a team like D&R take their hard-won sponsor bucks and buff them out into a full budget. Continuity - it's important, and this helps with it.

As for the other spots, it's two entrants. Yes, IndyCar is selecting who gets that money, and we probably won't all agree with the criteria, but in the end, it's less than 10% of the field, and it is by definition going to teams that weren't good enough (or didn't exist) the year before, and thus aren't locked in. If you're going to hand a team $1.2 million that they didn't win the old-fashioned way (by WINNING it), then you bloody well get to set some criteria for that cash, and set them in a way that benefits you as a series.

Basically, any argument against the decision that starts with "but my guy didn't get it" is a non-starter. It's not about specific drivers. It's about having the strongest 22 efforts forming the backbone of the series, and also offering incentives for additional efforts to still show up and win their way into money. And the system seems to accomplish that goal quite well.

[The Speedgeek]

I've got no problem with how they executed the whole Leader Circle program. The fact of the matter is that none of the teams in question earned their way in through performance last year, so really, that excess cash is up to IndyCar to distribute the way they see most fit. They found two teams (Ed's and Jay's) with solid programs (Jay has an engine deal and we now know that Ed had a deal lined up or almost lined up when this announcement came out last week) and solid, activiating sponsors, and told the rest of the teams in question, "hey, instead of getting $1.1 million guaranteed in quarterly chunks, you're competing against each other at each race for smaller pieces of the pie (this is the $80k to win in the "non-Circle" class, $53 for 2nd or whatever it is, on back through 5th in class thing that a lot of people conveniently missed in the release). Put up or shut up. Oh, and if you're good enough, you're in the Circle for 2013." I dunno. Sounds like a pretty good way to do the whole thing to me.