Hello! Hello! Is Anyone There?
This quote from Robin Miller's year-end ESPN racing round-up gives you some idea of what CART is up against ...
"Besides acquiring Penske, IRL founder George wound up with CART's longtime television partners ABC and ESPN. While viewership for both series hovers around a paltry 1.0 rating for most races, Indy still commands decent numbers for advertisers and it's the only race with any true market value. CART is buying time for a maximum of seven shows on CBS in 2002 and the rest of its events will be aired on SpeedVision -- which currently offers approximately 50 million fewer homes than ESPN or ESPN2."
Along the same lines of Robert Zimmerman's great philosophical statement, "You don't hafta be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows ..." I suggest you need no more math skills than a typical 8th grader to understand that kind of exposure ain't gonna cut it for the multi-million dollar sponsors that pump the life blood -- m o n e y -- into the teams that make up the series.
CART's configured itself as a private corporation that pays to have its product (sports entertainment) broadcast?
When's the last time you heard of a NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball team pay to have its game telecast? Hey, the networks are even handing out plenty of pesos to college football and basketball teams for telecast and broadcast rights.
Something ain't right here, gang.
Count me among the dinosaurs who remember when big-time open wheel racing was a rich man's hobby and a poor man's passion. But the world changes, like it or not. Today the open wheel cars (and crew uniforms, for that matter) are advertising billboards. Today you have companies like Target (an upscale Wally World) handing a guy like Chip Ganassi eight figures to run a race team that's supposed to help sell imported clothing, hand tools, costume jewelry, and detergents.
Okay, that's the way things have shaken out circa 2002. I may not like it. You may not like it. But it's the realities of 21st Century global economy. Global? You bet. Don't forget all those Brazilian drivers and Hollywood cigarettes.
Now you tell me how CART finds itself in the position of paying to have a mere one-third of its races telecast to the majority of its fans. Why do I say "majority?" Think about it. Isn't the fan base almost entirely developed and sustained through the media? Take CART's biggest race, and grant a quarter of a million in attendance. A nice crowd, sure. But not every CART fan is able to attend every CART race.
