Well, this is my first post here on SportsTalk920 in almost 2 years and this is my proposed changes to NASCAR that I have been talking about since Jimmie Johnson hoisted his 6th trophy last November. I am going to post the first part of my list today and continue with the list for the rest of the week. So after being long overdue here it is:
Number 11-
Move the last race of the season from Homestead to Las Vegas. Since the awards banquet is in Las Vegas why not have the finale there as well? Homestead will still be on the schedule just be put at a different date which I will discuss later in this list.
10-
Get rid of the "Chase" concept. I had this much higher on my list, actually at number 3 but since I'm writing this list in sections I want everyone to know that any changes I come up is with no Chase in mind. Go back to pre-2004 when like in all other forms of stock car racing an entire season decides a champion, not 10 races, or the new ridiculous system that NASCAR came up with last week. If you look at the Chase years only 4 men have been champions, Johnson(6), Stewart(3), Busch(1), and Brad K(1). A few of those championships were what I consider to be flukes but since its done and over with I'm not going to argue with the past this is all about the future. Finally since the Chase ratings and attendance are down so lets go back to what stock car and NASCAR should be about, deciding a champion based on the entire season.
These next two on the list are what I would do from a promotion point of view
9-
Lower Ticket Prices. Unfortunately for NASCAR they need to bring their fans back to the races and one way of doing that is by lowering ticket prices. They need to make it affordable again so everyday fans like myself can go or so its affordable for a family to go to the races again. Lately a lot of the fans that do go are the "corporate" crowd fans that honestly I'm not even sure know what they are watching. The tracks don't need to make huge slashes but a 10-15% cut would go a long ways in bringing back fans that right now just can not afford to go.
8-
Fan Giveaways. The NBA, NHL, and mainly the MLB have offered fan giveaways over the past couple of years. One of the hot and most cherished giveaways is the bobblehead. Now in NASCAR a bobblehead wouldn't be the most popular giveaway but diecast cars would go over tremendously. Every die hard NASCAR fan has some type of diecast car collection and this would be a great way for those fans to expand on that collection or to get new fans or collectors involved in that sort of thing. It wouldn't be hard either to come up with ideas, each track could do race replica of a past winner, such as if you're Atlanta a 1992 Hooters 500 replica of Alan Kulwicki's championship would be pretty cool. Other examples would be for Daytona a 1998 replica of Dale Earnhard'ts historic win, Charlotte a 1994 Coca Cola 600 replica of Jeff Gordon's first win, or Martinsville one of Jimmy Johnson's many wins at that track. In addition to lowering ticket prices and offering these fan giveaways not only are you saving fans money but offering them a great collectible as well. Finally if you are a family man bringing your kids to a race why not offer kids a free hot dog and soda, I see this at alot of baseball games and it really brings out the family to those games. This way you are increasing traffic to concessions and if you get people to concessions chances are they will spend more money with the idea in mind that they are already saving money on tickets, the giveaway collectible, and a free meal for the kids, its a win win for everyone and really simple economics.
I will continue the post the rest of my list during the week and for a sneak peek of what I got coming changes will include what I do to fix the Nationwide series, taking power away from Brian France and Bruton Smith, and schedule changes are just a few of the things I will be talking about.
