NASCAR to get 440 million dollars /year from NBC

[bugeyedgomer]

The IRL is stuck at 6. Thanks Tony, you visionary leader you.

[DBell]

With the their .2something ratings, IndyCar is lucky to be getting paid anything. When the contract is up, unless things change drastically, paying for TV time will most likely the only option IndyCar will have to be on TV. Outside of Indy and maybe a couple of other races, that is.

I agree that Tony's vision sure was something, like a bad 60's acid trip that never ends.

[bugeyedgomer]

With the their .2something ratings, IndyCar is lucky to be getting paid anything. When the contract is up, unless things change drastically, paying for TV time will most likely the only option IndyCar will have to be on TV. Outside of Indy and maybe a couple of other races, that is.

I agree that Tony's vision sure was something, like a bad 60's acid trip that never ends.

With the snail doing so well in the theater, the IRL should have pay per view at the local theater as well.
After all, the League did tie Hunt for Big Fish for 12th place one weekend

[Mark in Oshawa]

Basically when the patient is dead or near dead, it take a miracle. NASCAR will push Indycar aside with NBCSN.....Indycar will be a niche sport if it survives...and then one day....people will wake up and realize there is a good series to be had here....but god knows the best and brightest cant fix it right now. Thank you Tony George....you couldn't have done a better job of killing this thing if Brian France paid you to...

[call_me_andrew]

You're not one of those people who think WNBA players should get paid as much as NBA players, are you?

[Jag_Warrior]

You're not one of those people who think WNBA players should get paid as much as NBA players, are you?

Hey, there's another sport ol' Tony Boy can fix! Give him a pad of papers that he can write (over & over & over) "I see no reason to change anything we're doing" on and within 5 years, the gals will be buying their own uniforms and paying the refs out of their own pockets. He's just that good.

NBC has clearly gotten serious about motorsports. And any series that haven't (yet) been able to carry their own water, might get left behind.

[Alfa Fan]

With 43 cars which provide much better sponsor exposure (how much easier is to see sponsors on a NASCAR compared to an Indycar?) then it was inevitable NASCAR would dominate. The question should really be what were NASCAR doing wrong for so long to not always be crushing IndyCar.

[Jag_Warrior]

It's not so much what NASCAR was doing wrong, but what the (CART) Indy Car World Series was doing right in the late 80's through the mid 90's. Without eyeballs watching the TV set, it doesn't really matter how big the decals are. And right now, there just aren't that many eyeballs watching these races.

Except for the Daytona 500 vs Indy 500 (Indy didn't start losing that battle until the mid 90's when the IRL was formed), NASCAR always had the viewership advantage. It's just that now, NASCAR beats the Indy 500 with the Coke 600, the Daytona 500, and probably some other regular season races, in the ratings. And where open wheel formula car races used to average in the high 1's to low 2's in the Nielsens, they now average what, .3 to .4... maybe?

[bugeyedgomer]

It's not so much what NASCAR was doing wrong, but what the (CART) Indy Car World Series was doing right in the late 80's through the mid 90's. Without eyeballs watching the TV set, it doesn't really matter how big the decals are. And right now, there just aren't that many eyeballs watching these races.

Except for the Daytona 500 vs Indy 500 (Indy didn't start losing that battle until the mid 90's when the IRL was formed), NASCAR always had the viewership advantage. It's just that now, NASCAR beats the Indy 500 with the Coke 600, the Daytona 500, and probably some other regular season races, in the ratings. And where open wheel formula car races used to average in the high 1's to low 2's in the Nielsens, they now average what, .3 to .4... maybe?

BY400 3.6 on cable vs Indy500 3.7 on broadcast

[bugeyedgomer]

NASCAR completed its $8.2 billion television package Thursday by adding two years to its deal with Fox Sports and setting a schedule that gives the network the first 16 Sprint Cup races beginning in 2015.

NBC Sports paid $4.4 billion for its rights, which begin in 2015, and the Fox Sports deal is now worth $3.8 billion with Thursday's additions. It puts NASCAR at $820 million a year for the length of the 10-year contracts.


"The NASCAR Nationwide Series is second only to NASCAR Sprint Cup as the most-watched form of auto racing in the country. Fox Sports now owns the sport every weekend from Speedweeks and the Daytona 500 through June, and we expect these events to provide significant viewership for FOX Sports 1," they said. "The addition of Nationwide to the 1,100 hours of original motorsports programming already scheduled clearly puts FOX Sports at the front of the race to serve motorsports fans in the U.S."

[Mark in Oshawa]

It is NASCAR's world, and Indycar now plays in a corner of it apparently. It still doesn't change the reality that Indycar actually is a very interesting series now in terms of its depth and the level of competition. I enjoy Indycar more often than not, and I cannot say that about NASCAR. The problem is, this is now about perception....and once you lose that, you take decades maybe to get it back...so TV is going to play a role in all of this, and they will put all their eggs in the NASCAR basket until some upstart sports net or existing one trying to get back into racing will decide they will make Indycar work for them and maybe...just maybe that lightening will be caught in a bottle again...

[call_me_andrew]

Robin Miller said something I haven't seen repeated here: "NBC pursued Formula 1 and NASCAR; they inherited IndyCar."

[Starter]

Robin Miller said something I haven't seen repeated here: "NBC pursued Formula 1 and NASCAR; they inherited IndyCar."
All true. Would they have pursued IndyCar also if it hadn't come with Verses? Who knows.

[Jag_Warrior]

As best anyone seems to know, if Anton hadn't taken the Vice Versa deal (that everybody wearing an IRL jersey was bragging and howling about just a few, short years ago :dozey :) , they'd have gotten about squat plus $1 from ABC/ESPN to continue there... or they'd have been paying the rent-a-channel game starting years ago.

NBC went after the Kentucky Derby pretty hard. And once they got it in 2001 or so, they helped reverse the ratings decline the Derby had been experiencing for years. But I'm not aware that NBC made any serious attempt to to get the Indy 500, and I never heard anything about them wanting the IRL regular season races. For those who still enjoy it, I'd say just enjoy the fact that it now has a good home with a broadcaster that is at least making an honest effort. Could be buying time on ESPN2, like the NHRA apparently has to do. They just need to fix this silliness before their contract gets too old - especially since Speed is dead now, about the only other place that *might* pay them to be on TV is some relatively obscure auto & racing channel like Velocity.

[bugeyedgomer]

As best anyone seems to know, if Anton hadn't taken the Vice Versa deal (that everybody wearing an IRL jersey was bragging and howling about just a few, short years ago :dozey :) , they'd have gotten about squat plus $1 from ABC/ESPN to continue there... or they'd have been paying the rent-a-channel game starting years ago.

NBC went after the Kentucky Derby pretty hard. And once they got it in 2001 or so, they helped reverse the ratings decline the Derby had been experiencing for years. But I'm not aware that NBC made any serious attempt to to get the Indy 500, and I never heard anything about them wanting the IRL regular season races. For those who still enjoy it, I'd say just enjoy the fact that it now has a good home with a broadcaster that is at least making an honest effort. Could be buying time on ESPN2, like the NHRA apparently has to do. They just need to fix this silliness before their contract gets too old - especially since Speed is dead now, about the only other place that *might* pay them to be on TV is some relatively obscure auto & racing channel like Velocity.

NBC said they didn't go after the IRL500 because they didn't know if they could make room in their schedule for it

[Blancvino]

All true. Would they have pursued IndyCar also if it hadn't come with Verses? Who knows.

What does your gut say? My skeptical gut says no.

[Starter]

What does your gut say? My skeptical gut says no.
I think they would have. But not for the same $$$s by a long ways.