The Indy Racing League TV ratings took a step back at Kansas this past Sunday. After posting TV viewership gains for the
Long Beach race April 19, the IRL earned a .15 rating nationally (.3 share) for the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 at Kansas Speedway
on April 26.
The race that began airing at 4 p.m. (actually pre-race at 4 p.m. and race at 4:45 p.m.) drew viewership from 171,000 households nationwide. The race, the IRL’s third this season and first oval race, fared much better in the Indianapolis market, earning a 1.0 rating (2 percent share), or about 11,000 households.
The rating at Kansas paled compared to the .5 (388,864 households) the IRL race at Long Beach earned. The season opener at St. Petersburg on April 5 earned a .3 rating (233,000 households). The NASCAR Nextel Cup race overlapped the IRL race Sunday. The week before, the NASCAR race ran on the Satruday before the Sunday Long Beach race, and likely helped boost the ratings there.
Bolstered by Danica Patrick's victory a week earlier in Japan, the 2008 IRL race in Kansas earned a .74 rating on ESPN2, which means about 740,000 households tuned in.
After airing its first three races this season on Versus—the league’s new TV partner—the next two races, Indianapolis (May 24) and Milwaukee (May 31), will air on ABC. Versus will cover qualifications and Carb Day at Indianapolis.
Though Kansas Speedway and league officials did not release any attendance numbers, several team executives said it looked like the size of the crowd at this year’s race was down in Kansas due to windy conditions that made racing difficult and the threat of rain.
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IRL: Easy to make fun of
As for the site attendance, the truck race on Saturday, when the weather was worse, drew about the same, probably a little more, than the 'league'.
Y'all that are always moaning about me and the others here for having our intense dislike of the earl need to understand that there's a lot of valid reasons for it, and clearly we're not the minority. You can cheerlead for Inheritor Boi and his paid shills all you want but it ain't gonna help. Might as well take off your blinders and realize nothing is going to change until he and his rotten 'league' are out of the picture completely.
Is that effin Anton mad at Nascar for trademark infringement with Carl Edwards gratering? :lol:
Not good ratings, but I think most expected a drop, especially going up against Talladega. The big hope is that the Vs. coverage gets a lot of publicity during May. It takes a lot of time to build viewership for a channel like Vs. Hoepfully the IRL can pull it off.
i have NEVER seen such apologozing for the EARL. What next? Blame the 500's crappy ratings on Swine Flu? You KNOW it will be mentioned....
Again, IRL officials and the like are cleverly working to get this whole Versus thing dropped so the league can get on the Comedy Channel.
Not a bad start.
Since I'm not a revisionist I do have to say ... gee, thanks Dan Gurney.
Re-Versus will get better ratings for the up coming Tour de Lance!
Paging Berwickgirl and Mindyboi!
Coverage is good, product is ok, the channel is unknown. It does not get surfed very often. It is 603 on DirecTV, not somewhere someone is just surfing thru.
Who's smoking the crack pipe? CART couldn't even manage to buy live television coverage, let alone attract it. The merger was never about that. It was about uniting the two series to build a stronger series and get rid of the divisiveness that had butchered the following for both. Unfortunately, it took them 13 years to get there and that may have been too little too late.
Unfortunately, the merger doesn't seem to have resulted in a bigger league or a much different schedule, due to the costs involved and pre-existing contracts with the tracks. The autoracing industry in general is hurting right now and with Nascar races not even selling out I very much doubt that Indy can expect to build its attendance or following at this point in time.
I admit that I'm a fan, but I also admit that the IRL seems to be its own worst enemy.
And so now with IRL version 09.2 you have the worst of CART, the worst of the IRL, and now its just the worst racing out there at the moment. quit making excuses for their crappy performance. It sucks now, has always sucked, and will forever suck as long as it is under the direction of Tony.
Tony's IRL: Making the same dumb mistakes over and over and over...
I'm not a cynical TG or ICS hater (see all of my other posts), but races like this last one at Kansas do not help build a following. The only silver lining is that momentum can be gained at Indy, provided certain stories play out.
BTW...on the flip side, the Lights race was entertaining to watch (mini crapwagons as some call them). Some great racing up front, for the majority of the race even. Sure they are spec wagons, but it was good racing. A lot of good driver/team stories in FIL this year.
Anthony, is it possible to get total package viewing numbers for the IRL? Quals, ICS Race, Lights Race, & ICS Race replay?
There definitely is a distribution issue with Vs. As much as I hate to say it. As Vs. grows, they need to be in packages that don't require additional investment (at least at this stage in the game).
Seriously - I have thought that one thru many many times. I understand that Tony controls all of this, and he is insulated from the masses by a faitful loyal, well paid crew of yes-men that give him the Bagdad Bob feedback, telling him what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear. So, Tony ain't going away any time soon, unfortunately. If this were a publicly traded company, which it isn't, he'd been fired many many years ago. Remember, Fred Nation told us they have wasted over 100 MILLION on the IRL since its inception.
With that said, and to answer your question: there should be a board in place. some racing people, some lawyers, some ad/promo people and some tech folks. Draw up your wish list, like someone said affordable cars, run what ya brung, with a seduction for technology and manufacturer participation. A bit like what F1 does, but a broader board of members. One thing you CANNOT have is track owners or team owners or suppliers (like Haas selling parts or Penske selling engines) on the board. That is what F'd it up and what contunies to F it up. CART died because of it. So then you need to hire someone with clearly defined responsibilities to police it and promote it and admin it, and it will fly. You'd be looking for someone with superior negotiating, management, promotion and leadership skills. Someone you might think of as an Athletic Director at a major University. A turn around artist from the Corporate world, or maybe someone who has run long term successful marketing campaigns - you get the drift. You need one guy at the top, where the buck stops. And Tony hasn't shown much hope in that dept. Anthony, I hav every confidence in the world that YOU or ME or even that dodo brain Berwick guy could do a better job.
The only thing missing was the Canadian fella, what's his bucket...Tags? Race fans across America love him too. Had he been there the ratings would have gone well past .4 to almost .5. You gotta think it.
And had someone the smarts to sign Enrique Bernoldi this year, then the IRL would be in the catbirds seat.
You do realize that there are several factors in play here, don't you? Perhaps you didn't realize that we are in the midst of what many economists are calling a RECESSION? (Or, perhaps you've been unemployed for the past few years and HADN'T noticed... who knows). Perhaps you forgot that the majority of IRL television coverage is on a channel that only a relatively small fraction of households even get? TRUE open-wheel fans have been clamoring for this unification for years. Now that it's here, either get behind the IRL and support it or jump on your tractors and head over to NASCAR, 'cause one thing is certain - CART is dead. It's dead... gone.... bankrupt.... finito..... kicked the bucket.... went bye-bye. The IRL is here...to...stay.
The coverage was the best I have ever seen on an IRL race in recent years.
There is no doubt the race probably lost viewers due to the threat of rain. Even those in Kansas were uncertain of the possibility of the race even starting due to weather concerns.
Even as I watched the race I was monitoring the radar on my cell phone to see if it would be a rain out.
Versus is doing a GrEAT job of covering the races and commentary.
However, where I live Versus is not available on basic cable channels. It is only accessable through dish or expanded packages. This I believe limits fans ablity to view the races.
I wonder if the veiwer numbers takes into account the people that watch the race in public venues, i.e. bars. Where I was watching the race there were about 20 people watching IRL… Not NASCAR..
Improved over last years 16 car race finale for the bankrupt CCWS? And how a bout a link to the Long Beach police quote? Or is that information you can't share.... LOL What does this have to do with Kansas other than deflection? The fact of the matter is that no one is watching or attending irl races. CART is gone. _TG has had 14 years to perfect his league and the best he can do is run a spec series on the former Outdoor Life Network with his step son, 3 girls and AJ Foyt's illegitimate Grandson. That's why no one is watching.
Again, in regards to TELEVISION ratings.... what is it that you people don't understand about the limited availability of the VERSUS network? ESPN is available on most ANY basic cable package. VERSUS - far from it! Far less TV's with access = less viewers. What moron can't make that equation? I swear, you IRL hater's have severely limited logic capabilities when it comes to making your arguments. It's almost laughable... almost.
Don't forget a car that looks like a birth control device mated to an anal probe.
I thought it was the evil CART who made up 3 day attendance numbers? I'm sure you have already read this living in Long Beach but heres the link.:
http://www.presstelegram.com/ci_12188090
So you cannot even answer Anthony without denigrating the people in the sport. Sad. I was hoping a straight up question would receive a straight up answer.
That said, the whole board thing is a large part of what killed cart/ccws/owrs. What major racing series is run by a board? Not F1, not NASCAR, not NHRA. They all have one strong entity that controls it. Decisions are not made by committee.
Sure, the Versus deal is no way to get eyeballs, but save for football, sports attendance and viewing is down everywhere. Yep, the Kansas race was boring, and Indy car racing is watered down. Major duh! NASCAR? It's like watching pro-wrestling on wheels for 4-5 incredibly boring hours. I don't bitch, I don't watch, but them hillbillies keep goin' around in circles anyway. You go girls!
Go to a movie, go to a play, bike, paint, fix the faucet, or volunteer. If you don't like something, move on. Y'all are stuck in a rut, just like the IRL. And what's with the foreigner-bashing, as if Anglo-named winners like Buddy Lazier and Eddie Cheever turned the IRL around?!
Get over it already, move over, or move on.
I don't know what they're going to do with the Indianapolis 500 but without a reasonably-healthy Indy Car series I can't see it lasting. The whole situation is pathetic.
YOU just wate, its bout MAy. THe whole month of MAy. JUSt the way its sposed to be.
And Indyman, yes, I deniGRATER all them Hulmanista loads of chum. They deserves it fer ruinating the sport.
Kick him in the balls, yes i wood. :D
So you are comparing an international series without a US race with the IRL? Why not do a better comparison, another major mostly all US racing series? NASCAR is feeling the affects of the recession as well. They have lost sponsors, they have lost viewers and they have lost spectators. Even before the recession, you saw a lot more advertising tickets for NASCAR events. You see a lot more empty seats at their venues.
So I took your bait on an earlier post and you must have missed it. What does dahooey mean?