Business of NASCAR: Three tracks use banners to cover empty seats

Business of NASCAR: Three tracks use banners to cover empty seats


By Tripp Mickle
Special to the Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
(May 10, 2011)
NASCAR fans first saw banners covering seats at Auto Club Speedway in late March, they saw them again at Talladega Superspeedway in April, and they’ll see them for a third time this weekend at Dover.
The banners are the manifestation of a sport wrestling with attendance woes following the recent recession. Soft attendance for those Sprint Cup races compelled the three tracks to cover several thousand of their seats. Dover first covered seats four years ago. Auto Club and Talladega followed suit this year. The coverings amount to less than 10 percent of the track’s total capacity. As of now, no other tracks have plans to follow suit.
The tracks’ motivation was designed to reduce operational costs, tighten ticket supply and, in some cases, create inventory for new or existing sponsors. By eliminating a section of seating, they were able to cut the costs of ushers, security and cleaning services. They also could sell or give sponsors logo exposure on the banners that cover the seats as both Dover and Auto Club Speedway have done, respectively.
“It’s been a challenge to figure out ways to reduce expenses and keep the facilities as comfortable as possible without raising ticket prices,” said Gillian Zucker, Auto Club Speedway’s president. “If you’re not filling seats, you don’t have to staff that section. You can quickly recognize operational savings.”
The tracks preferred to cover the seats so that fans couldn’t move into the sections and didn’t have to look at an area of empty seats.
“The good thing about banners is you can put them up and when demand comes back you can take them down,” said Grant Lynch, Talladega’s chairman. “If you remove seats, you have to spend capital to put them back up.”
Only Dover has made a concerted effort to convert its coverings into revenue. It turned approximately 10,000 covered seats into the track’s largest billboards and began selling them to sponsors. The 12-by-20-foot coverings are visible on TV and were sold to Best Buy and Sunoco for a race weekend and were included in sales packages for title partners like Heluva Good.
Mark Rossi, Dover’s vice president of sales and marketing, compared the move to turning “lemons into lemonade,” adding, “I don’t want the grandstands to turn into signage. Any of us would rather have butts in seats.”
Rossi declined to say what advertisers paid to be featured on the banner, but implied it was less than the low- to mid-six figures the track would make by selling the tickets to several thousand paying customers who also likely would buy drinks, food and merchandise.
Auto Club Speedway’s approach to its banners for its March race underscored the speedway’s collective preference for selling tickets. The track initially planned to cover 9,000 seats at its March race and give its naming-rights partner, Auto Club, signage on the coverings. But Zucker said they decided not to tell Auto Club executives of those plans in case demand for the race rose and the track had to release more seats. Weeks before the race, ticket demand increased, and the track released additional tickets each time the number of tickets available in a section dropped to 100 tickets. As a result, it wound up covering approximately 4,000 seats, half of what it initially planned, and put Auto Club’s logo only on banners in the track’s first turn.
Talladega made a very different decision with its covered seats. Because it covered 12,000 seats in its upper towers out of TV camera view, the track decided to use the coverings to market the track’s legacy. It featured images of famous moments at the track for drivers Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr.
International Speedway Corp., which owns 12 tracks that host Sprint Cup races, developed the idea for covering seats and asked tracks if they were interested in participating. Daryl Wolfe, ISC’s chief marketer, said only Auto Club and Talladega have opted to put up banners. Talladega will have them up for its fall race, he said, but no other ISC tracks are expected to put them up this season.
“We hope it doesn’t last long,” Wolfe said. “Those seats are there for a reason. We want to sell them and we want to see demand back up to historical levels.”
Fans sometimes argue that rather than cover seats, tracks should just lower ticket prices, Rossi said, but tracks have already reduced ticket prices considerably and doing so doesn’t guarantee increased attendance. He’s optimistic that as the economy improves, Dover will be able to reduce the number of seats it covers.
“Our ultimate goal is to sell tickets,” Rossi said. “I don’t want people to lose sight of that.”
Tripp Mickle is a reporter with SportsBusiness Journal.

Charlotte Motor Speedway Applauds N.C. Senate Ruling To Establish Stock


Car Racing as the Official State Sport



CONCORD, N.C. (April 28, 2011) - The North Carolina Senate voted

yesterday to establish stock car racing as the "official state sport" by

a margin of 46-3 and as the largest motorsports facility in the state,

Charlotte Motor Speedway is celebrating the Senate's ruling.

"North Carolina is truly the world capital of motorsports and we

applaud the decision of the North Carolina Senate and its leadership to

establish stock car racing as the official state sport," said Marcus

Smith, president and general manager of Charlotte Motor Speedway.

"Motorsports in general, and more specifically Charlotte Motor

Speedway, has such an enormous impact on the state's economy. This

includes money generated through fan support, by motorsports facilities

and through permanent and seasonal jobs not just at the speedway, but at

the race teams and countless other motorsports-related organizations."

According to the latest economic impact study, Charlotte's

motorsports megaplex that includes the famed 1.5-mile superspeedway,

zMAX Dragway and the Dirt Track at Charlotte, brings in more than $400

million annually to the state's economy and will employ as many as 6,000

people during race events. Much of that impact will be felt in May

during the facility's two weeks of racing, highlighted by the NASCAR

Sprint All-Star Race on May 21 and the Coca-Cola 600 on May 29.

The state sport bill was brought to the North Carolina General

Assembly in February, 2011, by a group of fifth graders at Lake Norman

Elementary School in Mooresville, N.C. In proposing the legislation, the

students pointed to motorsports' $6 billion annual economic impact to

North Carolina and noted that Charlotte, N.C., and the surrounding

region is home to Charlotte Motor Speedway, the NASCAR Hall of Fame and

more than 90 percent of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock-car race

teams. More than 200 businesses in Cabarrus County support the

motorsports industry, which employs nearly 20,000 people in the region.

"We also applaud the efforts of these industrious students at

Mooresville Elementary and congratulate them on their hard work toward

getting this legislation through the government," Smith said.

The measure now moves on to the North Carolina House. If passed,

North Carolina will join other U.S. states with an official state sport,

including Alaska (dog mushing); Colorado (snowboarding and skiing);

Massachusetts (basketball); Minnesota (hockey); and South Dakota, Texas

and Wyoming (rodeo).

The two biggest weeks in all of sports kicks-off this May in

Charlotte with the NASCAR Rev'd Up Concert on May 18 with Gary Allan and

Josh Kelley at 4:00 p.m., at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Additional events

include:



- May 19 - NASCAR Pit Crew Challenge, 7:00 p.m., Time Warner Cable

Arena

- May 20 - NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race Qualifying/N.C. Education Lottery

200, 8:00 p.m., Charlotte Motor Speedway

- May 21 - Dierks Bentley Pre-Race Concert presented by Budweiser, 2:30

p.m., Charlotte Motor Speedway Infield

- May 21 - Pennzoil Ultra Victory Challenge, 6:20 p.m., Charlotte Motor

Speedway

- May 21 - Sprint Showdown, 7:45 p.m., Charlotte Motor Speedway

- May 21 - NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, 9:00 p.m., Charlotte Motor

Speedway

- May 23 - NASCAR Hall of Fame 2011 Induction Ceremony, 7:00 p.m.,

NASCAR Hall of Fame

- May 26 - Windstream Pole Night, 7:10 p.m., Charlotte Motor Speedway

- May 27 - Coca-Cola Family Cookout & Track Walk, Noon, Charlotte Motor

Speedway Infield

- May 27 - Circle K NOS Energy Outlaw Showdown, 7:15 p.m., The Dirt

Track at Charlotte

- May 28 - Top Gear 300, 2:30 p.m., Charlotte Motor Speedway

- May 29 - Coca-Cola 600, 6:00 p.m. Charlotte Motor Speedway



A full list of activities taking place in Charlotte during

Charlotte Motor Speedway's May race weeks is available at

www.charlottemotorspeedway.com/fans/fan_guide_to_fun/

Tickets for all May races at Charlotte Motor Speedway can be

purchased online at www.charlottemotorspeedway.com or by calling the

speedway ticket office at 1-800-455-FANS (3267). Frontstretch tickets

with the best views of the world's largest HD video board, debuting at

the speedway in May, start at just $49 for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star

Race on May 21. Fans can also purchase two frontstretch tickets for

just $99 to the Coca-Cola 600 on May 29.

For daily updates on May race activities, connect with Charlotte

Motor Speedway by following on Twitter at www.twitter.com/CLTMotorSpdwy

or become a Facebook fan at www.facebook.com/charlottemotorspeedway.

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Darlington Raceway:

Darlington Raceway:


History

· Built as a 1.25-mile paved superspeedway in 1949-50, Darlington Raceway hosted the first 500-mile race in NASCAR history and the first on asphalt on Sept. 4, 1950.
· The track was re-measured to 1.375 miles in 1953.
· The track was re-configured to 1.366 miles following the spring race in 1970.
· The track was repaved in 1995.
· The 2005 race was the first Saturday night race at Darlington.
· The track was repaved again prior to the 2008 season.

Notebook

· There have been 107 NASCAR Sprint Cup races at Darlington Raceway since the track opened in 1950.
· There was one race per year in 1950, 1951, from 1953-1959, and again every year since 2005. Darlington held two races a season in all other years.
· Curtis Turner won the first pole, in 1950.
· Johnny Mantz won the first race, in 1950.
· 47 drivers have posted poles at Darlington.
· David Pearson leads all drivers with 12 poles at Darlington.
· 44 drivers have won races at Darlington; 25 drivers have won more than once there.
· David Pearson leads all drivers with 10 victories, followed by Dale Earnhardt with nine.
· Jeff Gordon is third overall and leads all active drivers, with seven victories.
· Hendrick Motorsports has won 13 races at Darlington, more than any other organization.
· 19 races at Darlington have been won from the pole, the most productive starting position.
· The deepest in the field that a race winner has started was 43rd, in the track’s inaugural race in 1950 by Johnny Mantz. That race had a 75-car field.
· Darlington is the site of one of the closest race finishes in NASCAR history. Ricky Craven edged Kurt Busch by 0.002 seconds on March 16, 2003 – which is tied with Talladega (April 17, 2011) as the closest margin of victory since NASCAR instituted electronic timing in 1993.

NASCAR in South Carolina
There have been 217 NASCAR Sprint Cup races in South Carolina.
133 NASCAR drivers (all-time) have their home state recorded as South Carolina.
There have been 11 race winners from South Carolina in NASCAR’s three national series: