Officials for Allstate today announced they are ending their sponsorship of the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race after five years.
The timing comes after a 20 percent attendance drop from last year, though Allstate officials said that had nothing to do with their decision.
“When we looked at all of our business results, they were just stronger in the other properties,” said Allstate Director of Sponsorships and Promotions Pam Hollander in a statement.
Despite an attendance drop to 180,000, IMS officials said they were pleased with the turnout. Sports business experts said since many of the tickets were discounted, revenue from the event was likely off 30 percent or more.
The attendance decline, sports marketers said, is related to three things; a swooning economy, waning interest in NASCAR and the tire problems that plagued last year’s race.
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The race will no longer be run. The next announcement will be NASCAR and IMS ending the event.
For everyone else, their are many drivers that hold this place to be hallowed ground (from a racing perspective) and would cherish the opportunity to win here nearly as much as Daytona. Just ask Juan Pablo.
Remember, everyone - this is still NASCAR's highest attendance race. The reason the stands look less full is that we have the most seats of any of these venues.
Same cars, different names. Bring back the Hudson's, Oldsmobile's, and Mercury's.
Someone else will step into this opportunity.
I made two comments, the first is in agreement with you about the importance of the event, its significance (especially to the drivers). My implication there is to its survival.
My second post has to do with NASCAR's stupid decisions, the COT (sic) and the lack of competition and their having too many cars on the track. Lastly, IRL cars have a control feature prventing them from speeding in the pits. So Juan Pablo gets a speeding ticket and fades to 14? Huh, it's a race and it wouldn't have mattered he was so far ahead. Think those guys could come up with something creative. Much of what they've done was copied from open wheel only they like to take credit for it. (hello safer barrier)
Long live the Brickyard 400 - one more in the line of historic events.
The Hickyard for-hunnert: nobody wants that either. :lol:
NASCAR back at Indy...in the fall? Stock cars might return this fall. IMS officials have discussed staging an exhibition on the road course with NASCAR and Grand Am's sports cars. The road course will begin to be installed next week for the Aug. 28-30 motorcycle event, the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix.(Indianapolis Star)(7-27-2009)
“When we looked at all of our business results, they were just stronger in the other properties,” Allstate Director of Sponsorships & Promotions Pam Hollander said in a prepared statement.
How could any property be stronger than the track with the one race? How could it be?
http://indybooks.net/images/ims.jpg
In 2009, the race was advertised on ESPN as Brickyard 400 broadcast presented by Golden Corral. The differing name is due to a standing policy by the network since 2007 to not use the race's title sponsor on-air unless an advertising premium is paid to the network.
IMS: We can (and will) ruin any business deal you give us!
You just cannot make this crap up!
into the ground?
mayor Ballard: Even dumber than TG. :lol:
If you knew who I really was, you would drop to bended knee and in silent awe, shaking ever so slightly perhaps, hand forth a Sharpie and in a timid, quivering voice, request that I sign your hat-pin laden Indy 500 cap, then softly whisper thank you sir. Then you would humbly remoe yourself from my presence so that I may continue to my race car unimpeded. For this you would be appreciated, yet never understood. Suffice to say I must come to terms with the vague notion, in my world, that some choose to live vicariously, while others, such as myself, choose to chart our own daring course.
Maybe 150,000 showed up, the humblest gathering I've ever seen for an oval-track race here -- smaller even than the Formula One crowds the first year or two on the road-oval course. Your grandfather used to draw bigger crowds than this for Indy 500 time trials.
Thanks Indyman, keep up the good work
My father told me about this song from the '70s Burn baby burn, disco inferno burn baby burn
Sunday, 2:15
3.6 (2.8 million)
The comparison: Down 14% from last year's race, which was frequently delayed by faulty tires.
The spin on the spin: It's not looking good for NASCAR as ratings this season keep drooping. NASCAR better rev up ratings before the football tsunami hits.
A look inside the numbers for selected weekend events. One rating point equals 1% of the USA's 77 million overnight TV homes in Nielsen Media Research's 56 selected major markets. Cable rating converted to broadcast equivalent. Sources: CBS, ESPN, NBC, ABC, Nielsen Media Research:
Why be so jealous? I am sure you are a success in your own small part of the world. Maybe not famous like I am with lost of money and a chance to live a cool life. Plus, the female companionship that comes naturally with my success. But still, to each their own.
I report the inside facts, like Miller does on his end, for the sheer joy of needle-pricking my contemporaries in the sport and raising the ire of self-important, smug forum fanatics that think they know stuff and do not.
And no, I am not Parco Handmessy. I am older, much wiser, much more handsome, much wealthier, much more successful behind the wheel, and behind the babes.
Deal with it.
Thanks for playing along Sporting if not entertaining. I bow to your greatness.
Seriously, folks, I don't know what race you were watching. The old superspeedway boys just don't know what to do at Indy, and so no, they can't pass. Johnson, Stewart, Biffle, Montoya, Edwards, Gordon and Logano didn't seem to have too much trouble passing.
Just because there aren't lead changes doesn't mean there isn't racing. The best racing at the Brickyard 400 has almost always been in positions 3-20 anyway.
remember what mayor ballard said the place can run itsself
...into the GROUND. :(
Count, Out.