Ideas for IndyCar

Since I started this blog in 2005 (with race notes from a fuel mileage race at Motegi, of all places) I've offered a plethora (if not a passel) of ideas for improving IndyCar. Clearly, some of them have sucked. But the quantity has been there.

Of course some of the response was "Shut your cake hole and be happy! Enjoy the racing! Negative Nellys like you are ruining it for everyone! It's perfect as is. Just give IndyCar your money and shut up." Some of the regular commenters here have joined in a thoughtful, best-intentions discussion of ideas, however, and I greatly greatly appreciate that.

Given the events of late, I thought I'd recap a few ideas, if only to avoid "you negative bastard bloggers ... all you do is bitch and complain!" First, we bitch and complain, but that's not all we do. Second, the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. And I'm sliding toward indifference where IndyCar is concerned. I would not be greatly shocked to find myself attending the race at Iowa next year, catch the Indy 500 on TV and call it good for my IndyCar viewing.

So maybe this is a swan song, maybe not, but here goes...

pressdog® Ideas for Improving IndyCar, Part 219

All of these are going to focus on building relationships with customers (otherwise known as fans), because customer focus is the only way IndyCar succeeds. Here ends pressdog® Harping on the Importance of Fan Relationships Part 391. I have also suggested all of these previously.

Do research -- If I was in charge of IndyCar, on day one I'd set in motion a plan to do real, scientific research that answers the question "Why don't fans watch or attend IndyCar races?" The findings of that research would guide my professional life forever. Research gives you some fact-based intelligence as to why people stay away, and from there you can proceed to address the issues. Everything below is just based on my suppositions as to why people stay away.

Don't just put the lack of success down to "poor promotion" -- "Promotion" has become synonymous with "advertising" with a lot of people and poor promotion has become the favorite scapegoat of many as well. There are big problems with saying "we just need to advertise more." First, traditional mass media advertising is very expensive. So when you see the bill for the kind of advertising barrage a lot of people think will cure all IndyCar's ills, it's going to be about $15 million. We don't have that kind of cash, so that gives us an excuse to throw up our hands and say "welp, we can't fix it then." Wrong.

The right kind of traditional advertising can be important, but it's not the whole of "promotion." IndyCar is not Nike or Coke who markets to anyone drinks or wears shoes. Massive, zillion-dollar national advertising is the false panacea. It's the little things done consistently that build the most valuable kind of marketing -- media coverage and fan word of mouth. Assuming IndyCar will embark on an intelligent advertising program, here are some other, less-than-a-zillion-dollar ideas.

Make the Indy 500 a weekend event and bring it into the 21st Century -- The Indy 500 is the good and the bad of IndyCar. On the one hand, it's easily the meal ticket, household name, most famous race, source of entertainment and joy for hundreds of thousands of customers. Yay! On the other hand it's apparently the one-and-done of IndyCar with many fans. It can also appear to fans outside of Indiana to be the only race IndyCar really cares about. Everything else -- filler. (Rightly or wrongly, that is a strong perception among those of us outside greater Indy.)

The Indy 500 has been living on its history and lore for too long. I hope the new guy, Mark Miles, who led the fan-focused Indianapolis Super Bowl fest last year, will feel free to bust out of the dogma that I believe limits the Indy 500. I know, BLASPHEMY! It's a fine line to walk. On the one hand, hundreds the locals especially love the lore and traditions like Jim Nabors singing "Back Home Again in Indiana." So you don't want to piss them off, but you do want to pull the 500 into the 21st Century.

My suggestion is to dramatically beef up the fan attractions at IMS -- Super Bowl Fan Village, anyone? -- and use the Saturday before the 500 more effectively. Create a two-day weekend that gives people a better reason to go to the time and expense of traveling to Indy for the race. A beefed up Fan Zone inside IMS helps here, as would a day-long music festival, etc.Then focus on showing the love to the non-IMS events ...

Beef up the Fan Zone at non-Indy races -- Ramp up the non-race elements of the non-Indy 500 races. Increase investments in the Fan Zone that goes to every race. Create more fan activities, get more drivers to the fan zone beyond the all-driver autograph session. I find it difficult to believe that every driver is busy every minute of race weekend and can't squeeze in 30 minutes to meet-and-greet or do a Q&A at the fan zone. Ed Carpenter and his sponsor, Fuzzy's Vodka, manage to hit the fan zone every week with a putting contest that gives away pace car rides. Bravo. Think what would happen if five other drivers did that too?

Bryan Herta Autosport also does a fabulous job of having a tweet up at every race. These are the models for fan interaction. This stuff creates word of mouth among race fans. More of this, please.

Market your backstage access -- IndyCar has a natural advantage over NASCAR and other sports in that it's relatively easy to go backstage. The IndyCar paddock is far more accessible than NASCAR's garage because IndyCars are pushed out to the grid, while NASCAR cars drive in and out of the garage. Therefore, for safety purposes, the number of garage passes is limited in NASCAR. The number of passes available in IndyCar is much higher. Promote this. Sell garage passes. Offer ticket-and-pass deals while supplies last. Emphasize that you can go backstage at IndyCar. Of course you have to limit paddock passes to whatever is reasonable and safe, but that's no different than a venue having limited seating. Say you figure out you can sell 5000 paddock passes. Fine. Price them affordably and market them as "LIMITED QUANTITY AVAILABLE." Work it.

Drivers need to make paddock passes magical by, as my buddy Meesh Beer says, "getting off your scooters." Again, if customers are the priority, drivers will take a few minutes here and there outside their haulers, etc. to meet and greet. I again reject the idea that drivers are so busy 24/7 at tracks they can't spend a few 15-minute sessions mingling with fans in the paddock on weekends? You like to drive race cars? Then mingle with fans. Simple as that.

Four minutes with a 10-year-old fan can make him or her a fan for life. Pretty good investment. If you have a driver to root for, your interest is carried beyond the Indy 500. That's exactly how it went for me. I had no idea there were races beyond the Indy 500 20 years ago, then I discovered Sarah Fisher, became a fan, and started watching every race just to cheer for her, which led directly to the creation of this blog.

Create a Fan Council --The fact that IndyCar does not have this (as far as I know) is embarrassing and inexcusable in today's hyper-wired world. IndyCar needs to establish a Fan Council made up of real fans -- not us bloggers -- and get their ideas and honest opinions weekly. NASCAR does this, because NASCAR is pretty smart. Get their opinions and take them seriously. Be very regular in your outreach to members of the council. The worst possible thing to do is establish a Fan Council and then don't contact them for weeks at a time. Of course you don't just say "majority rules!" and let the council make your decisions for you. But you give their opinions serious consideration in your decision-making process. And make the council big. Multiple hundreds of people.

Encourage fan input -- Related to the above, but IndyCar needs a CEO who encourages -- AND RESPONDS TO -- fan input. This was one of Randy Bernard's huge strengths. He encouraged fan input and responded to it. That simple process makes fans feel connected to the series and delivers a stream of ideas for improvement. As with all streams of ideas, some or even most will suck or be impractical, etc. But you'll get some that make you say "Wow, that's a good idea." There is no downside here. As long as you ask fans to talk to you and you talk back, which is key, then you build fan loyalty and you get free ideas. The only way to screw this up is to ask for input and then never respond. That actually does more harm than good. The responses don't have to be long or elaborate. Just sincere. Like:

"Thanks for your email. Your idea, A, would be difficult because of B, C and D, but I like the idea of E. The reason we don't do F is G, but I'll look into H. It's an interesting approach. It's possible we could incorporate some of I into our existing J program. I appreciate you taking the time to offer this input. I discuss fan input and ideas with my staff every week. Always feel free to drop me a line if you have an idea or issue."

Make IndyCar.com relevant to fans -- IndyCar.com needs to be the first place fans go for information on IndyCar. Honestly, for me it's the last place. Take a jog over to NASCAR.com. Across the top: top stories and clips (along with an indication of how many comments on each), next race dates for Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Trucks, complete with TV info. News right there on the side, features below. NASCAR NATION fan stuff right there. Forums. TONS of video.

I've never been a fan of the current IndyCar.com design. Too much valuable real estate sucked up by the huge central image. Not enough easy linkage from the front page. Lot of scrolling going on. NASCAR.com is far from perfect, but as a fan I can go right there and get a lot of stuff easily. This is not high art Web design, but it does give people a ton of info. Of course NASCAR's online staff is probably 10 or 20x IndyCar's, but it's a good investment in my view, especially with the world going virtual. NASCAR seems to agree as they are pouring resources into their online channel. The biggest omission on IndyCar.com is a top level link to IndyCar Nation. In fact, I see no link to it, except waaaay at the bottom. And the understaffing shows what kind of priority this really is for the league. 

PLEASE please please add features like the driver scanner that NASCAR offers. I pay $30 a year for access to the Sprint Cup scanner through NASCAR.com and it definitely enhances my viewing. I would pay for a reliable version in IndyCar as well. Please make this a priority. If NASCAR can do it with its millions of fans, I think IndyCar can find a vendor to get it done for its hundreds of thousands of fans.It also helps build fans of drivers. Listening in to your driver's conversations with his or her pits during the races makes you a bigger fan of that driver. I listen to Women of pressdog® Johanna Long and Danica Patrick often, but also sometimes tune in to Brad Keselowski or Jimmie Johnson. All have different personalities on their in-car radios. It makes it easier to watch a race and keep track of your favorite driver if he or she is back in the pack and doesn't get much TV air time. It all adds a ton of entertainment value to my viewing.

Make better use of Twitter -- This is kind of iffy, I know, because some drivers have the personality for the Twitter and some don't. But it seems to me we could take better advantage of Twitter. I read (on Twitter, of course) that if you're just talking to people on Twitter and not talking with people you're doing it wrong. I strongly agree. There's too much "I'm flying to (destination)" statements from IndyCar drivers and not enough dialog with fans. Again, 45 minutes a week invested in actually interacting with fans via Twitter would dramatically raise any driver's profile. There are some drivers who do a fine job of this, like James Hinchcliffe (@Hinchtown) and Pippa Mann (@PippaMann) and a few others. For others it's an opportunity to interact with fans that they're just squandering. 

Treat tracks as partners -- This may or may not already be happening, I don't know. But IndyCar needs to adopt the attitude that if the tracks we race at don't succeed, we don't succeed. In other words, the only way IndyCar grows and thrives and makes money is if they do everything they can to help the tracks harvest cash off IndyCar races. IndyCar needs more tracks that are willing to pay to get them there. I believe that NASCAR tracks pretty much break even if nobody shows up thanks to the piece of NASCAR's TV package they get just for hosting. Not so for IndyCar.

Therefore, the league should adopt the attitude that we need to do whatever we can to help these tracks put butts in the seats. I'm not saying do it all, but I am saying collaborate closely, treat the tracks as valued partners, get their ideas, treat them with respect, say nice things about them in public. Again, this may or may not be going on now. It's clear that Bruton Smith has cooled toward IndyCar and International Speedway Corporation (owned by NASCAR) is not real interested in hosting IndyCar races. (Insert claims that ISC hates IndyCar here.) So maybe track relations could be better. Bottom line: InyCar needs places to race, and it has to generate profit for the tracks. If it does that, then more tracks will be interested, since tracks like to make money. Sounds like a great case for cooperation to me.

Say "fans" out loud and in public -- I'm continually amazed at how infrequently leadership talks about fans. Randy Bernard used the f-word ("fans") a lot. Haven't heard it much at all from the new guys. I hear your reaction -- who cares what they say? Fans care (even if they claim they don't). The rank-and-file like to hear from The Man or Woman that they are valued. They like to hear him or her say it out loud. Everyone likes to be thanked and fawned over a little bit. When drivers in victory lane immediately thank the fans for showing up, that matters. That gets an immediate reaction on my Twitter feed. Every time Jeff Belskus or Mark Miles talks, there should be plenty of "fans" peppered in what they say. We're about the fans. We care about fans. We love fans. Fans matter. We're working to make things great for fans. Not hard, but important.

Put it this way: what does it hurt to thank fans? Fans who don't need to be thanked will angry if they are? It's a 90-second, zero-dollar investment in fan relations that has more impact that you think.

Be media friendly -- Here I am NOT talking about bloggers. I am talking about real media. Like the Associated Press and USA Today and ESPN.com and SPEED.com and the existing do-this-for-a-living racing publications and websites. I'm going to sound all lecture-y here, but I was a real reporter for nine years and I work in marketing today, so ... stop making it so hard for big-deal media to cover you, IndyCar. The announcement of Miles was a perfect example. Giving 90 minutes of notice for a press conference and then not letting real media as questions via phone patch or whatever just pisses them off. Give them a couple days notice and have phone-in capabilities, at least. Maybe instead of a 250-word cursory story in AP you get a 1000-word story that way.

Chip Ganassi's theory of media coverage, which postulates that the goal should be to be "equitable" with coverage, is wrong. Sports media coverage is reader driven. In other words, the sports with the most fans get the most ink. It has been this way forever, because the news business is a business, and smart businesses deliver what their customers want, especially in sports. So IndyCar, with its 300,000 fans, is in no position to demand "equitable" media coverage since there is no downside for big-deal media to not cover you. If they do an extra NASCAR story that gets massive hits instead of an IndyCar story that attracts far less readership, they will not be in trouble with their bosses or readers.

So maybe go out of your way to be nice to these reporters and try to get them to write about you, since they could (an do, for the most part) ignore you without peril.  Yeah, you actually do want Jenna Fryer of the AP writing about you, even if she has some negative things to say, because one Fryer article appears in 150 papers and websites that reach millions of people. Some inside IndyCar get this, some do not. Everyone needs to get on board.

Pull a Randy Bernard and have media availability at every race -- One of several things Randy Bernard did right was to make himself available to the media at every race. This was not driven by some personal goal of Randy's to make himself a "rock star." Coffee spew. This was Randy being smart enough to know that if he met with the media, it would create stories in the media, and that was always a good thing. I mean, duh.

This was always informal with Bernard. Typically IndyCar's PR director, Amy Konrath, would send out an email early in the weekend letting everyone know when Randy would be available in the media center. Randy would pop in, hold an informal scrum-like news conference (he stands there, everyone sticks their recorders in his face, he answers questions). That was it. KEEP DOING THAT. It keeps IndyCar in the news. It keeps fans informed of what's going on. It gives hard-cores like us stuff to debate and discuss. THERE IS NO DOWNSIDE TO THIS provided the IndyCar leader doesn't use the f-word or talk about legalizing rape. As long as he or she uses some modest media relations skills, it's all positive.

Well the only downside is that drivers/teams may get jealous of the media the CEO generates. They  need to get over it and see the bigger picture.

Don't bawl about NBC Sports Network -- End of the day, you're stuck with them. Play nice. Go to work trying to improve the relationship. Make the most of what you got. Never say anything negative out loud about NBC Sports Network. Treat them as a partner. Use your PR apparatus to make sure fans know where the stations are on cable and satellite. If NBC Sports Network moves to a lower tier on a satellite provider, make sure everyone knows that. If more people watch the show on NBC Sports Network, everyone wins, the network, the league, the teams, the fans. The alternative to NBC Sports Network is buying your own air time. ESPN/ABC isn't interested in more races. There were no other bidders. There's no where else to go that I can see, unless you are willing to buy air time and have IMS Productions put out the show. I would think that would be hugely more expensive. So I'd say put some effort into saving the marriage.

Grow new fans using the Mazda Road to Indy --Even if IndyCar gets to its goal of a 50/50 oval and non-oval schedule, it needs more non-oval race fans. I don't think you are going to poach fans from other oval-dominated racing series like NASCAR and turn them into non-oval fans. IndyCar should embark on a program that builds fans for the youngsters in the Mazada Road to Indy. Then when these drivers move up into IndyCar, they bring their non-oval fans with them. This is definitely a long-term strategy for building the fan base that should be ongoing for the next decade. Helping promote the races and drivers can move the fan base beyond friends and family.

Sell it to your internal audiences --In an organization like IndyCar, with a lot of different internal constituencies, etc., it's critical that you work the internal PR. Communication is key. Politics are just part of it (I wish it wasn't so, but it is). So it's important to get internal people on board with your initiatives. Have them all over for beverages and sell everyone in how critical growing the fan base is. Talk about why sponsors walk away and about what more fans does for everyone. Lay out your plans and rationale. Deploy the PowerPoint!

If IndyCar can get everyone (teams, drivers, league employees, Hulman George family members, etc.) working toward the goal of increasing fan numbers, that's when the magic can happen. You're probably never going to convince 100%, and you're not exactly asking for permission. But you are creating  awareness and asking for opinions, ideas and reactions to plans. Nothing you do should be a surprise to teams, drivers, family members or league employees.

So that's 3500 words of ideas, take it or leave it. Frankly, I'm OK either way. Most of these ideas are recycled from previous ranting. Some probably suck.  But, as I said, it's quantity of ideas that you're after. Feel free to add your own below. At the end of the day, the best ideas will come from research of non-fans and from encouraging a constant dialog and flow ideas from current fans. Neither of which IndyCar does well (that I am aware of). Simply tapping into those two resources would go a long way toward creating an action plan for building the fan base, which remains the only thing that can save IndyCar. My request is to avoid diving right down to specifics, as in "if the fan zone is beefed up, where will IndyCar get the extra haulers required?" Really? Right to the haulers? Maybe focus on big ideas first, then go to execution.

If you go at ideas with the attitude of trying to figure out why they WON'T work, you're screwed and you should just close your business ahead of your eventual bankruptcy. If you approach the stream of ideas with a "how can we make this work" attitude or as a starting points for other ideas, or general topics that may warrant more thought or investigation, then you're on the right track.

Comments

[redcar]

I agree about the Fan Fest thing in Indy, only not at the track but downtown. The people going to the track will go anyway. If I'm flying into Indy a vibrant downtown scene would be more attractive than a ferris wheel in the infield.

As far as reducing the 500 to one weekend, I'm not on board with that. The 500 is the only race most average Joes could even name in the Indycar series and it's the only one that can attract nation-wide or even world-wide interest. This one race support the entire series, as it is. The "month" has already been reduced to 2 + weeks. Why would you want to downgrade the biggest attraction on the schedule or tinker too much with--historically--one of the biggest sporting events of all time?

[Ted Wolfram]

Enjoyed your comments, and I agree in part with most of the ideas, but may I suggest one thing that I think is absolutely necessary to re-build fan appeal.

Pick up any book about open wheel racing and look at the pictures.....they are all about the CARS. Spend time on line looking at books about Indy and what you see is CARS with the drivers who drove them, men tuned them, and people owned them.

Auto racing is not about men (now women as well)it is about men/women driving RACE CARS, and the CARS have as much appeal, if not more than the drivers.

I bet you can't tell me about who tried to drive the Smokey Yunick's side-car at Indy, but I bet you have seen the car.

My point....BRING BACK INNOVATION...even if it takes a "junk" formula to get it.

NASCAR is kicking COT into the ditch...and bringing back stock looking cars...to try to re-ignite Ford, Chevy, Toyota lovers. IndyCar has a butt ugly, over designed piece of crap that look exactly like the next piece of crap.

I ask my family (5 generations) what is their favorite race car, and driver? Each one can tell me what the cars look like....Except the young ones and they mention only the driver.

BRING BACK WHAT WORKED...I'd rather have cars that were different, and had personal touches, and had what ever engine they could BUY within a formula (perhaps limited to 700 HP). It worked for years, and going back to the future in this case might just work.

[WF1G]

mmmm, IndyCar scanner !!!
Where do I send my check?

Jp

[SlipryNoodle]

Bernard blew many of us away at Sonoma. During the IndycarNation event he came, he spoke and then he met and shook hands with every fan in the room. Granted, Sonoma brings out a limited number of fans making this a doable proposition. But he made an impact, especially with the guests that we rabid fans dragged to the event. Solid points above!

[DZ]

Thanks for continuing to push these fan-centric ideas.

I also appreciate that you're willing to unflinchingly promote these ideas multiple times per year in hopes those in places of decision-making will see them.

They have been and continue to be solid, well-reasoned, and seemingly quite feasible solutions to assisting the promotion of Indycar to the existing and potential fanbase.

[Jim Gallo]

I love it and it all needs to be tried and tried again. Now, have you sent this word by word to the so called "powers to be"? Either in the recent past or since the latest turnover? Would love to hear if any responses were given back to you.
Thank you.

[elephino]

Some good ideas in there, Mr Dog.

redcar, pretty sure the 2 day Indy 500 thing is not to reduce the event to 2 days but rather make the race weekend more than just the race on Sunday. Support races, fan village, concerts, general festivities in the track and in town (a mini-superbowl area I would assume).

I don't know how good fan access is to drivers at IndyCar events (my last was a ChampCar - Surfers Paradise race) but I was actually disappointed as to what was available to NASCAR fans at Phoenix a few weeks ago. The fan garage pass gave them two platforms to stand on, the pre-race pass let them stand near the cars at least and in front of the driver intro stage but few of the drivers actually interacted with the fans (Danica was one of the best, in spite of the efforts of some of her cohort). Outside of the driver intros, I (with media access) only saw one driver not in a press conference. Because they can hide in the haulers, then walk to their cars (with almost no fans around) they are only seen at autograph sessions. To quote from the article above - "I find it difficult to believe that every driver is busy every minute of race weekend."

Funnily enough, the weekend felt like a normal V8 Supercar weekend in the media centre, sorry center. Of course the so-called poor quality media facilities had something to do with that. It wasn't until I saw the building at LVMS that I realised why people were complaining about Phoenix - to me, it was better than what you get at many Aus tracks. Food was much better at Phoenix than home tracks :)

One thing to add, which crosses over a few of the above ideas, IndyCar should be working with the team sponsors more. The efforts that some put in even for individual fans is amazing and needs to be replicated by more. The people at Fuzzys tried quite hard to get me a bottle of vodka to take home (foiled in the end by a surprisingly efficient Delta Airlines), including an offer of driving 1 hour to LAX to drop off a couple of bottles (luggage was checked through, unfortunately so couldn't do this). 4 people at some point tried to help. For two of them it was only a few minutes out of their day, for the others it would have been an hour or two or more over a few days in trying to help. That's a lot of effort to sell one or two bottles of $25 vodka to someone who is normally outside of their market with no access to their product. Of course the ROI is in things like this where I speak positively about their efforts - Fuzzys get it, I'm not sure why others don't and IndyCar needs to ensure they get it too because it's as important for them as it is for any sponsor.

[John]

Pressdog

I agree very much about indycar.com being mostly useless for IndyCar news. I can't remember the last time I went there for news. I always go to your site, SPEED, IndyStar, Trackforum or other for news. IndyCar needs to also avoid updating their website (when I rarely check it) and there Facebook page and the team's Facebook pages with qualifying results before they air on tape delay on NBC Sports. The best way to get me not to watch their tape delay broadcast is to tell me what already happened. I complained about this before and people told me to completely avoid the internet and Facebook the entire day and I always inform them of the current year we live in and this may not always be possible. This is another "fan" thing you can talk about. Don't make it easy to skip your qualifying TV coverage.

[Rumblestrip]

I'll add one more, and that's sponsor cross promotion. There should be a group of people inside IndyCar, who's job it is to help the sponsors leverage their brand, and their marketing budgets to help sell the show.

As an example as a Verizon customer, I never see any signage, in the stores, or info in my bills that they are involved in the sport, where is Tony Kanaan in all these GEICO commercials, has Hinchcliffe been in any GoDaddy commercials?

Maybe they are during the race, but outside of the race, zip, zero, zilch, nada, hashtag fail.

One of the things that F1 and NASCAR do well, is that the sponsors promote the drivers and the stars with off track signage, advertising etc, if IndyCar wants to get something more than a .1 TV rating, then people need to be made aware that the series still exists.

[Ted Wolfram]

I have read all the comments, and each has some merit....but, until and unless, IndyCar gets a better on track visual, audio, and interesting product....everything external to the race will be a waste of money.

"You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear"...seems like an appropriate comment for IndyCar as it exists today.

[chiefswon]

All good points PDog! I know it won't suprise you when I say I like the backstage idea the most. There is little danger in the garage area since it's not hot. Let us take our kids and our grandkids behind the scenes. They just might me someone they may call a hero someday.

[Former Editor of Hobbson]

I commented on most of this before so maybe this is boring old news to you. However good points on the indycar.com aspect and awareness of how off ganassi is about media (which I never knew he said - how could someone been so off?). I think the .com issues is inherent in the digital sports marketing world. Generally it's uroborus. They all came from some place from 4-5 years ago. NBC sports guys were abc before that and espn before that and usa today before that all with their little groups. The new blood is low level kids who they can burn out for little wages. The old guard stay at the top and things remain the same as they spent big money on huge tv contractors from places like Comcast. Take this example: kevin monagahan who runs nbcsports.com is a biz development guy. He literally had no web experience yet he runs their website which was only built in 2005 the same year at this blog starting! Personally I had a job building websites before him yet I'm out in the cold - tell me how that works out. Their site sucks though and it's reflective of poor leadership and run as a business profit. Indycar.com has some issues but they've had some changes in leadership. In fact just under a year ago there was an opening I applied for but didn't get. Shame because....

At Versus.com I fought a lot to get anything on the homepage but the fact is no one gave a shit about indycar. With that said I talked to a bunch of fan sites and got feedback on what they wanted and generally optimized the experience for them. People devoured the video's we had and loved that we could provide an outlet for lindy and hobbson. Check out this stat: More people viewed (on average) indycar clips than the NHL. Only cycling beat it out. Pageviews and uniques went up by 100% despite a 500,000 market traffic push that was lost. To me there obviously was an audience even if it wasn't the largest. Furthermore you make good points on the real writers. It's why I tossed aside the blowhard Bruce Martin who no one fucking likes and brought on Jeff Olson. I love his attitude and his style. I paid for Graham to talk about the elephants in the room because you need to say SOMETHING non-race related sometimes. Mostly people bitched back which I think is a problem though. And we all know the train wreck of hobbson. Who is fucking genius but literally hated by the NBC guys. Speaking of....

As for the nbc sports network. I personally don't think any of the big networks would pick up the series which is terribly sad so you're stuck with someone who doesn't like you - which they don't as told by the previous .com team I worked with.

I realize most of that is bitching/patting on the back stuff so I'd like to make an off the wall suggestion because I refuse to be an internet shitposter.

This is an off the wall idea but if you start biting away at the smaller obtainable crowd - think using paid search on bing rather than google - you might see some better numbers. One idea is I think the series needs to go after the app crowd on appletv. The install base is a decent amount and only growing. There are already sports leagues there and as a front runner to apps you might pick up some new fans. Run free races for half a season and then keep the cost really low for a season pass. Something so cheap it's like 9.99$. Only downside to my pie in the sky thought is I'm not aware of the install cost of an ap like that. Considering roku had 500 channels it might just be apple being picky. Regardless I think the idea stands: get your videos out there to as many people as possible while being smart with your limited funds......

I think that idea of going out and doing that huge 15 million marketing advertising push to solve problems is out of touch old guy thinking . It mostly doesn't work unless you get really lucky. I'm sure we could put many examples out there of brands spending huge amounts and getting zero in return - 3/4's of the superbowl add's (Do you remember ANY of those hashtag insane promotions). Or more recently about the hilariously pathetic ratings numbers on nbc sports network. They thought they would have this huge post olympics push because of all the damn advertising/events on there and look at them now. From guys who are obsessed with money how much did they lose by spending on all that "air time" to look at less than 100,000 viewers?

It's defeatist but guys like that stay in power because they have it. And if they're gone they the new one will be the same. Meet the new boss..same as the old boss.

[Sandy]

Love the scanner idea. I'd pay for it in a heartbeat.

I would also LOVE if IndyCar radio would do more with that SiriusXM channel! I hate seeing it on my radio sitting dead most of the time. Last season they started broadcasting qualifying, which I thought was a good first step, but they used to have the Andretti/Green Report (and other content from teams) on every week and they need to get back to that kind of thing. Hell, have a blogger host a 1-hour call-in show. Get some of the new brass on there to talk to fans. It can't be THAT difficult...

[Lisa Weber]

Thank you so much for posting these. I enjoy reading logical, well thought out opinions about *anything*, but since I've grown to love motorsports its especially nice.

I preface this by saying that I personally felt welcomed by long-terms fans on sites like Trackforum when I was active on there. But to me, the elephant in the room is the disconnect between long term fans who (rightfully!) want to be rewarded for their years of loyalty/heartache and new fans like me who don't have personal ties to the past. Unless IndyCar is willing to limit itself to past fans who've left the sport, it needs to be understand that you can't force new people to accept your own experiences on face value.

It feels like just when I start to get really excited about some aspect of the sport I see a bunch of people complain how its a shell of the past, its dumbed down, and people like me must therefore be morons for actually having a good time. Its a huge turn-off. The suggestions in this post sound like really good ones and there's a way to incorporate change while still respecting the parts of the sport that have worked for so long.

I am guilty of being an eternal optimist:)