NASCAR facing big decision on when to race
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The virtual racing has been cute and kept everyone entertained but NASCAR needs to get back to the real thing, quickly, for the financial and mental health of the sport.
NASCAR — really, almost all levels of professional racing — is not built to withstand a shutdown of any sort. Team owners are on their own to figure out how to pay the bills. If someone wants to race, they find whatever sponsorship they can and try to spread it over the longest season in sports at nearly 11 months.
NASCAR does have a 10-year, $8.2 billion television deal with Fox and NBC Sports, but the teams get just 25% of that money and the checks come only after a race is completed.
There hasn’t been a race since March 8.
Eight events have postponed so far because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A lot of sponsors are withholding payments until their logos are again shown at the track.
Here is the desperate truth: Nobody is making any money right now and the longer NASCAR
is shuttered, the deeper the financial hit will be for an industry already battling a slew of challenges.
Every metric worth caring about has been in nearly a decade-long decline. Team owners bought themselves some security three years ago via charters with NASCAR, but they are sold at market rate. The market, FYI, hasn’t been so great.
NASCAR has already made pay cuts and a round of staff layoffs. It’s a privately owned company primarily by Jim France and his niece Lesa France Kennedy. The family last October paid $2 billion to swallow its publiclyowned sister company, International Speedway Corp., in a move NASCAR President Steve Phelps has argued proved the France commitment to the 72-year-old stock car series.
What the Frances do and how they choose to spend their money is of no say to the car owners, who must figure out how long they can keep the lights on at the shop without any income. They can exist on borrowed time or they can fold.
Some team owners are still paying employees, others have issued pay cuts. And some organizations have gone with layoffs
Drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., left, and Jimmie Johnson talk before qualifying for the NASCAR Sprint Cup at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich. The mind-boggling success of virtual racing has put motorsports out front in the race to create competition during the sports shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. and furloughs. Coca-cola 600 at Charlotte Motor
In the end, no member of the Speedway on May 24 without NASCAR industry will not be fans. affected. “Allowing NASCAR to return
Teams, primarily based in the Memorial Day weekend without greater Charlotte area, are shutfans would not only benefit an industry tered under North Carolina’s that calls our state home, stay-at-home order and local it would mark a new beginning politicians have recognized the for North Carolina’s tourism, entertainment urgency in their financial plights. and service industries Five North Carolina Republican that are desperate to open senators asked Gov. Roy Cooper for business,” House Speaker to allow NASCAR to hold the Tim Moore said Monday.