rec.autos.simulators

   I'm just using Nascar as a point of reference.  Open wheel racing in the
USA is sooooo pitiful that NEITHER CCWS nor IRL have any business claiming
to be a premier ANYTHING.  So going back to my foggy first post, I'd say
that World of Outlaws or other USA openwheel series have just as much claim
to the word premier.  IRL sucks and so does CCWS, at least on the Telly.
  Attendance-wise,  Champcar was 2nd behind nascar in per event attendance
and the irl was just ahead of WoO in 6th and 7th place.  

Take out Indy and WoO kills irl when comparing butts in the seats.

You want to hear a funny stat, a Dirt Late Model race televised on a

received a higher NR than the CART race that was televised LIVE on a Sunday
afternoon on CB, maybe?  Hell, the 30 minute BMW paid programming slot
televised before it received a higher NR!  As low as the IRL ratings may be,
they are still the *premier* open wheel racing series in the US.

  No  "I" disagree with it.  THerefore it is WRONG.  :)
Don't try logic on me.  Facts are only as solid as the lawyer defending
them.

dave henrie
I'll nominate Paul Tracey's Las Vegas Kart league before the irl.

If you put CART and IRL on the same station (say ESPN or ABC) I don't
think there's any question which is going to get the heavier draw.

You wouldn't happen to have stats on how well the Brand's Indy race on
ABC drew compared to the IRL races on ABC would you?

Jason

  I would 'guess' they would both be fairly low(although much better than
Spike's first airing).  I think CBS carried 3 or 4 races last year.  
Probably SOMEBODY with inititative could dig up the numbers.  :)

-----------
So that would have put it neck and neck with the Phoenix IRL event from
2004.  But as the article shows, the previous CART event at Portland
received lower ratings.  Chicago was hardly one of CART premier events,
but it shows that the same basic audience (oval/openwheel) was watching.  
It shows CART, at least last year that is, could compete evenly with the
IRL on National Television.  It also shows the mainly Cable only
broadcasts that have been the staple of CART for several years are a
limiting factor.
  If CBS or NBC broadcast all the CART events, and promoted them like NBC
did several years ago when they had the ALMS races.  THen I would suspect
the numbers would grow.  
   I guess the final analysis of whether the Long Beach event on SpikeTV
was a sucess would be to compare the anemic ratings to other Sunday fare
on SpikeTV.  If the Champcar World Series is noticably lower than Spike's
reruns etc then you would call it a failure.  If CCWS maintained Spike's
normal ratings, then it would be a small sucess.
  However, getting back to the original theory.  I still say that both
the irl and ccws cannot rightfully claim being the PREMIER open wheel
series in the USA when they both do rather poorly on TV.  
   The LongBeach attendance numbers can be somewhat understood by several
factors.  Saturday was raining heavily.  The fact that CCWS would even
show up was not certain until the very week of the event.  Surely this
uncertainty limited advance ticket sales.
    So lets all watch OWRS try and save Champcars, lets agree TG is
slime, and lets agree that neither series would exist except for deep
pockets by their owners.  And lets agree this saddens me.  I grew up
learning about the 'American Way,' a method of sucess that said ANYONE
could suceed.  Just build a better product and you will make it.  
Unfortunately TG didn't set out to build a better product.  He had to
find a way to sell an inferior(at the time of the irl's inception) and
thus used financial blackmail{by limiting access to the Indy 500} to
create his series.  

Equalize the cars(I know almost impossible) and let the Champ teams bring
their stuff.  Let the IRS teams use their hardware.   Properly promoted,
you'd at least triple the ratings.  Anyone who saw the Nascar fans
throwing garbage at Jeff Gordon at today's Talladega event can see the
fans love rivalries.
  Heck you could even cordon off each grandstand section and split it
50/50 between irl fan tickets and ccws fans.  Then even the crowds
attending the event would be part of the rivalry.
  Dave Henrie
Motorsports Consultant
(I wonder how much cash I can siphon from TG and the 3 stooges)

    Heck I spent quite a-lot of time trying to find comparison numbers for
the Irl and CCWS without much luck.  Suddenly I've found myself on some
racing email list and look what dropped into my inbox.

  From Auto Racing Daily:

Champ Car tests at Porland; TV ratings small for Long Beach
Long Beach drew a .23 Nielsen rating Sunday afternoon, with something less
than 200,000 households tuning in. On the one hand, Champ Car doubled the
IRL, which drew a .1 for its Motegi race in its established spot on ESPN2.
On the other, both series' ratings fell somewhere below miniscule. The
NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Martinsville topped all weekend sports broadcasts
with a 5.4 share on Fox. The NBA playoff game between Dallas and Sacramento
drew 3.0 on ABC, and the Purina Dog Chow Dog Challenge drew a .3 on PAX.

  So by this measure we can CLEARLY see that CCWS is the real Premier Open
Wheel Series.  Yet BOTH the IRL and CCWS are DOGS.  

dave henrie

NASCAR does a better job of marketing, I'm afraid.  Even people who are non
fans can probably name 5-7 NASCAR drivers.  With the current open wheel
situation, there are two problems I see.  One, there aren't really any
'superstars' that non-fans can relate to.  No AJ, Mario, Rick Mears, etc.  Two,
the drivers no longer stay with one team for very long like they used to.  With
few long-term contracts, it's hard to build name recognition.  That translates
to fewer fans, viewers, and consumers of the sponsors' products.

Pun intended? :-)

Eldred
--
http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
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