TBK-Light.com

No, I believe the drivers cried it sucked.

Good news. Expect the same crappy results for the next two years.

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/arti...s-through-2011/

- Honda re-ups through 2011. May pull the plug after 2011 if competitor doesn't join the series. They had originally signed contract in April 2008 to remain in the series through 2013.
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/racing/in ... id=3410001


http://www.versus.com/nw/article/view/8 ... martin.tpl

- 2012 Engine/chassis announcement expected by Thanksgiving
- Brazil city announcement expected within 10 days, either Salvador or Rio, all funding in place for race
- IMS CEO Jeff Belskus said he's big fan of the Versus TV deal. As Tony George would say, "Cocaine is helluva drug."

http://www.indystar.com/article/2009092 ... Car+Series

-Danica has signed three year contract with AGR.
-According to Talkin' Terry, the IRL is close to signing title sponsor. Apparently it's Izod. A sponsor they already have.

And once again, IRL has addressed that. So what are you bitching about now exactly? Ah yes. Anything you can.

I'm getting pretty sick and tired of the etc. etc. CART ain't coming back, you can't magically expect them to suddenly be back to the glory days, it'll take time.

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

There are other factors that mean that CART will not come back. For a start, CART @ Texas showed that the hi-tech angle hit a true limit speed wise, at least if you want to race ovals without wearing G-suits.

For another, the auto industry as a whole is seriously hurting. Many consumers are shifting towards smaller practical cars -- would the auto industry want to spend a lot of cash on a very expensive racing program as a result?

The IRL granted could go much further by opening up manufacturers and chassis. But it still wouldn't be CART.

(One way I can think of to go back to a different kind of glory days is to hold races based on new technology, such as electric vehicle races. But I wonder if such a series would capture today's racing fan. It would not be like CART at all, or any of the pseudo-spec series currently around today. I understand there's an electric bike series in the works, but nothing for autos yet...)

Indycar's been HD for a while, it was when it was on ABC / ESPN. Didn't help.

But, yeah, it really sucks watching the crappy F1 feed after seeing any American racing series broadcast in HD. Even minor stock car series on Speed often get the HD treatment, but not F1.

you really can't compare IRL and F1 broadcasts in terms of quality and broadcasting. Most f the US Series are being covered by National TV Stations (FOX, ESPN, abc, SPEED, etc) while F1 is being produced as Worldfeed. And getting all the HD equipment around the world costs a shitload of money extra.

Also, HD still isn't that popular over here since Standard TV (PAL) also offers a great picture quality, NTSC on the other side looks like crap.

/OT

With the general feeling ITT, there might as well be a clock in the first post counting down to the press conference where they announce the Indycar Series folding.

Ratings for last 3 races have been found:

Sonoma: .25
Chicago: .24
Japan: .14

The ratings average for 11 races on Versus fell from .26 to .24.


http://www.ibj.com/the-score/2009/09/25 ... /post/7271

I'll agree with you that something needs to be done urgently about this Versus crap, they have good pre and post race coverage but it's useless if no one is watching it, they need to get IRL onto a major channel without adverts, then the interest will surely grow again, and with that will come money.

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

Not only have ratings dropped severely. It also took them 51 more hours of coverage to beat ESPN 25.9 million viewers for 11 races last season. A struggling series plus struggling network doesn't equal growth.

http://www.indystar.com/article/2009092 ... ar+efforts

It's not as if Versus is doing badly, look at the ratings for the last couple of WECs:

WEC 34: 1.4
WEC 35: 0.5
WEC 36: 0.5
WEC 37: 0.5
WEC 38: 0.65
WEC 39: 0.6
WEC 40: N/A
WEC 41: 1.1
WEC 42: 0.6

The IRL can't even reach half of those figures. The reasons why the WEC have those type of numbers are they have a good product and they have the marketing thanks to Zuffa, the people who own the WEC. All the IRL needs is some good marketing behind them, but they had once hired Gene Simmons to do that for them.

I'm curious to see what WEC could pull on ESPN or ESPN2. The ratings you posted were about same as the IRL pulled on ESPN or ESPN2. Besides WEC and IRL on Versus. College Football average rating is .3 and NHL regular season games pull .3. The Tour de France averaged 479,800 viewers this past July.

I agree IndyCar needs good marketing behind them. But being on Versus will continue be achilles heel for them.

Maybe if Comcast (they own Versus) could actually make it part of every basic cable/satellite package...maybe we would see ratings that rival the NASCAR Busch Series on ESPN?*

*Yeah, I know, I'm stretching it.

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Ducks Angels Sounders Spurs

The Nationwide series can actually get 1.0 ratings. You are more than just stretching.

How much of Versus' viewership comes from Directv subscribers?

Versus was available in 75 million homes. 6+ million subscribers of DirecTV have Versus.

http://twitcam.com/2v4m

Livestream provided by Antonio Pizzonia, who's in a hotelroom in Las Vegas right now with Tony Kanaan and JP de Oliviera. Too bad I do not understand a word of it, looks like they have a lot of fun!

They were even replying to some tweets that I posted Those guys are living THE life! The drive the fastest cars in the world and they see a lot of places on this planet!

Aparently Toyota when aproached by IRL about re-entering the series mentioned the possibility of using Subaru rather then Toyota to do so.

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If you screw up while skydiving, you have the rest of your life to figure out how to fix it.