INDYCAR – Don’t Look to the Olympics

Yesterday the Indianapolis Business Journal released an article in their sports section where it was opined that NBC’s recent win for the next few Olympic installments would help INDYCAR/Versus ratings. An assessment that I believe is a little bit of a stretch and probably wishful thinking at best. No disrespect to the author obviously, but I just don’t see how this is going to help anything. The Olympic Games is a massive television draw that is usually spread out over a number of networks. Swimming on one channel and track…

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IndyCar – Indy 500 Parting Shot

The banquet is over, the teams have packed up and everybody is gearing up for Milwaukee this weekend. Helio climbed the fence on Sunday, ending an idyllic month of May for himself and for Team Penske. It tends to be a bit of a surprise when the strongest car all month actually goes on to get the milk bath, but Penske didn’t put a foot wrong in preparation for the May classic and their detailed preparation payed off. This year saw a noticeable increase in attendance (from my vantage point),…

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IndyCar – Attendance and Ratings

Attendance figures have been released for the Long Beach Grand Prix with a weekend total of 175,000. This is up from last years 170,000 for the Champ Car World Series finale. On the surface, a bump of 5,000 doesn’t seem to carry much significance, but with the stagnant economy, the numbers should be read as a win for the race promoters. But the numbers only tell part of the story. This event’s headline act is far more stable than CART or CCWS was in their last few visits here. The…

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