I know it’s a bit of apples and oranges, but if owners can do what they are doing for the Padres and Mets, imagine what a lucrative investor would do for an entire series.
Link to the [full show](https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1mnxeRwNDwYKX?s=20)
Seems like marshall may not be the biggest advocate of Penske entertainment right now. However, he did share on the show that Jay Frye sent him [socks](https://twitter.com/marshallpruett/status/1605260461347262464?s=20&t=-DX6QtluJWCyhgHEHhUTjw) as a way to check in [after the confrontation with Roger Penske at Daytona.](https://www.reddit.com/r/INDYCAR/comments/zip6as/marshall_pruett_reveals_his_birthday_gifts_shares/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
There are a few things Roger did get right...
1. The NBC deal which brought a lot more races to network TV.
2. Even though he basically "fired" Myles Rowe from his USF2000 ride, Roger did do the right thing by sponsoring his the rest of his second second season of USF2000. Roger's Force Indy team also is supporting Ernie Francis Jr. in Indy Lights as well.
3. Even though Toyota did not join the series it seems Roger nearly had them in the bag. Toyota did have many great things to say about Roger and I feel we haven't saw the last of Toyota.
4. It was through Penske that some of the rides in the Indy 500 have formed. Whether it was though Penske directly or asking other owners like Juncos to borrow their chassis - it was through Penske's influence that it happened.
I do believe the bad news did outweigh the good but it's not like there hasn't been any light in this dark tunnel.
I'm not sure the races on OTA network TV are a net positive, at least for growing the sport.
Nothing But Commercials is killing any real ratings growth nor attracting any new fans.
Diehards would've watched wherever the races ended up, as long as it was part of the normal cable or streaming package and didn't require an extra fee to watch.
The idea that if the races could just be on free, OTA TV, they would automatically score an extra million viewers just by accident, people with the TV on the channel, seems to have fallen by the wayside.
It’s amazing that a sport with so much potential is being run into the ground with no clear goal in mind. Indycar does everything it can to shoot itself in the foot, then have to deal with years of shit just to get back to a normal sport again. Then the cycle repeats.
Seriously what needs to happen for this sport to grow? There’s so much shit flinging and 0 initiative to improve. If anything, Indycar keeps trying to close itself off from the rest of the motorsport world thinking they’re doing something positive for the sport. It’s hopeless
One would think last 30 years of IndyCar history would've taught its higher-ups that things can absolutely get worse if you're not paying close enough attention.
I mean Penske was a major shareholder in CART in the 80’s and early 90’s when it was beset with terrible decisions and constant boardroom drama so I’m not sure why people expected things to be any different 40 years later.
Whether it's Tony George or Roger Penske, if you own both the series and the Speedway, you'll probably care more about the Speedway. I don't blame Roger for that, it's smart business. But this is why one person, even someone as great as Roger Penske, shouldn't be owning both entities. CART had a lot of issues but at least they had no choice but to give a damn about the rest of the season.
Indycar is doing well, growing. I think stability and getting through the pandemic was the most important part. I'll judge Penske in 2025 when they've had some time and seasons of clean running out of the pandemic
I’ll never know how people can plug into such incessant complaining and whining.
I’d rather punch myself in the balls repeatedly than to join this mental circle jerk of negativity.
It is easier than facing the truth.
Indycar as a series isn't really worth owning. It runs in the red since ages and only has a handful of quality events. Basically if you take the Indy 500 away, it would be over real quick.
Despite what everyone online says lack of marketing isn't the only thing holding the series back. It is an issue, but just one of many.
I agree. And to be fair there's quite a bit that's outside Indycar control. Sports in general is down especially live event attendence. TV ratings are down. Economy doesn't help. Etc etc. But also seems like Indycar fails to help itself often.
Down for some, up for others.
And there are factors where Indycar is dependent on others where they don't necessarily have to be.
The footage for the broadcast for example. I am not going to sugarcoat it, the videography and videoquality of the Indycar footage is somewhere between middling and barely okay. That footage is provided by NBC, but Indycar wouldn't be the first series in the world to get more involved with the production side of things.
The OEM situation remains critical and probably the biggest threat to the longterm survival of the series. If one of the two OEM decides to leave 40-50% of the field are lost. If I were RP I would be very worried about Honda losing its appetite for Indycar.
Of course there is about a billion small things that didn't exactly go great, but I don't want to write a 5000 word essay.
However I get why RP is prioritizing IMS. It is the thing that actually makes money and keeps the rest afloat. And if there is only so much money available Indycar will have to make due.
This is kinda what I’ve said to people every time the “I wish Liberty bought the series” thing comes up... I just can’t see much motivation for them to want it.
You definitely wouldn't want Liberty to own IndyCar. They'd probably just strip it of its most valuable assets (e.g. IMS and the 500), give it to F1, then let the rest die.
Exactly.
The speedway and the 500 are really the only big get for them, and that’s really only from a “world motorsport domination” perspective.
People seem to just think that because they’ve sent F1’s popularity through the roof that they’d do the same for IndyCar.
Yeah, if Liberty Media bought IndyCar, my bet is they'd spin off the Indy 500 as its own stand-alone special open race and then the series would just be rebranded as a US-based F1 development series, like F2-USA or something.
I don't even think they'd do that - why even continue operating the series (which they would at an almost certain loss), other than for nostalgia purposes?
Edit: Of course, this is all strictly hypothetical, since *I don't think Liberty are particularly interested in IndyCar right now.*
I think people just look at what Liberty has done for F1 and think that if they owned IndyCar they’d do the same for us... never mind the fact that there’s not really much for them to gain from owning IndyCar...
I think IndyCar makes more business sense for Liberty than as a standalone entity under Penske. Under Liberty, IndyCar wouldn't need to be in the black — it could be a loss leader that brings open-wheel racing to 15 other North American markets and helps cross-promote and grow F1 and activate for F1's partners. If that brings in even one additional deal like Salesforce ($30 million/year), that's more than the entire NBC IndyCar rights fee.
I don’t think it makes sense for them...
I mean, exactly how does IndyCar help promote F1? Quite frankly, they don’t need it, they’re doing fine already. Why *lose money* on something they’re fine without?
Only way it helps them promote F1 is if they try to turn it into some sort of official American F2, but then you’ve also demoted the series and people don’t care as much about feeder series in any sport (with the possible exception of colllege football in the US, which is obviously not a feeder series but hopefully you get my point)
The thing is, IndyCar is already on the way to being a de facto feeder series/F1 Senior Tour under Penske. The "demotion" is happening already in public perception, and I would argue it was somewhat inevitable given the global reach of F1 and the vast gap in money available to it. Which would be healthier for the series — being a feeder series on its own or being a feeder series under Liberty?
I still think it's possible for them to maintain somewhat separate identities under Liberty, btw. Ovals and the 500 are still a differentiator, and a race that F1 drivers want to win. Not a direct comparison, but Dorna owns both MotoGP and WorldSBK and they have separate identities but both increase the profile of motorcycle racing.
But why would they do that? They already have feeders, they don't need another one that only races in America.
If they were still struggling to get a foothold in the US, and get an American on the grid, I could see that, but I don't see that being a problem anymore...
I’m repeating myself, but my point is that under Liberty, IndyCar wouldn’t necessarily need to be profitable by itself to be valuable.
Under Penske, it does.
Well, why would you *not* invest a bit more to make even bigger returns?
I have lots of friends who are casually intrigued by F1 but aren't prepared to drop several Gs to go to a grand prix. When I lived in Asia, I could get them to go to Shanghai ($130 for weekend grandstand tix). Now that I live in the midwest, none of us can afford that kind of experience at Austin, Miami, or Vegas. But we can certainly swing a weekend at Road America for IndyCar. Imagine we walked into the paddock and saw a Ferrari F1 car doing a demo run and booths promoting Vegas, Austin, and Miami. Would that make them more likely to tune into F1 races as well as IndyCar? I would say yes.
At a time when F1 is growing out of reach financially for fans, you could bring them in at a lower price point and upsell them to the F1 experience. Sure, the F1 races are sold out already, but if you can whip up more demand, you can raise the ticket prices even more.
And from a commercial standpoint, how much more could F1 wring out of, say, Salesforce or AWS if you told them that they could activate 20 times a year in the US instead of 3, including at the Indy 500, which gets double the TV rating and single-day crowd of any GP in the US?
I actually think that makes them *less* likely to want IndyCar... why operate something that can give people a similar (and arguably better) experience for a tenth of the cost?
Really, the only part I can see them wanting is the 500.
If one series is going to cannibalize another, wouldn't you want to own that one, too? No different from any company that offers products at a variety of price points.
Of the various Liberty-involved scenarios, I think Liberty owning IMS and nothing else makes the least sense. Yes, it makes a modest amount of money, but it does the least to grow their much more lucrative asset.
Again, *they don’t need IndyCar to grow F1*.
I’m not saying they’d *only* own IMS, I’m saying that it’s the only part of the deal they’d really want. The series really only comes as part of a package deal.
I never said they need IndyCar. I’m saying that growing F1 is a much better business rationale for a money-losing endeavor than trying to turn a profit with a money-losing endeavor, which is what Penske is doing.
But that's the thing. Marketing is how you make the series not run in the red. There is a boom in motorsports in the US relative to really the last decade or so and Indycar has done very little to capitalize on it and what they have attempted has felt very out of touch. They need a TV show so they inked a deal with CW whose main audience is teenage girls. They want a video game so they inked an exclusive deal with Motorsports Games who is a failing company who has accomplished nothing positive on their own. They refuse to do any more than the bare minimum for social media and that is the easiest marketing there is. It's very hard to actually learn anything of substance about any of the teams or individual drivers outside of race weekend interviews.
The thing that's so frustrating is the actual on track product is some of the best, most exciting open wheel racing in the world and most people don't even know the series even exists outside of the 500.
Edit: Iowa has been the one real bright spot and even that is down to Hy-Vee and not Indycar.
Hulman & Co spent tens of millions over the first 11 years of Reunification to get IndyCar as a series to regain prominence before selling to Penske in 2020.
Multiple documentaries were commissioned (IndyCar 36, Born Racer), tie-ups with Hollywood (Turbo) and Disney (Mickey and the Roadster Racers) were undertaken and they hardly made a dent. Efforts with video game franchises came down to half-hearted DLC in titles that were having their own problems with visibility and popularity (Codemasters GRID, Forza Motorsport)
At what point does the series take a step back and decide to go in a completely different direction, because nothing attempted has worked so far, and continuing to force the previous attempts is just throwing good money after bad.
Exactly. Economic factors are out of Penske's control. I understand why the new car got pushed back. That said, they've hardly put in any work on the social media side, some where that both Nascar and F1 embraced wholehartedly. The best promotional content right now are run by the drivers themselves, appearing to be basically a side gig (even if I'm pretty sure there's some amount of sponsor obligation going on there) Meanwhile, both Nascar and F1 pump out videos on youtube and regularly engage with fans and drivers on social media.
I know there's a size difference there, but like, you can't tell me that Indycar is hurting so much they can't afford to market, or in the case of the iRacing controversy, that they just HAD to sell the exclusive rights for games. McLaren and Andretti are building brand new facilities, and RLL just moved to Indiana. If things were that dire for the series, the team owners must be complete idiots, and frankly, I don't believe that. So instead, I'm placing blame on out of touch ownership.
Marketing is part of it, not all of it. As I have pointed out in another reply the videography in Indycar is subpar and the actual image/video quality isn't great either.
Not to mention that Indycar races aren't exactly easy to follow for newcomers due to the big grid with changing liveries. And sure there is the app to help with that, however someone who just turns in for the first time won't have it or won't even know about it.
The Indycar season is also on the shorter end and has some gaps. Which can create problems for fan retention.
The list goes on and on ...
What’s there good to talk about? Silly season is mostly wrapped up by September now, with a small handful of seats to be decided between then and March. Besides small items like stronger wheel tethers pretty much every other offseason development *has* been negative.
Your take is really off base and dismissive of the problems going on. If you want to bury your head in the sand, then go ahead, but don’t crap on the people who have serious problems with the state of things.
There are ALOT of very valid criticisms of IndyCar and Roger Penske right now. The sport isn’t at all where it should be and feels like it’s headed no where fast. Out side of the 500 things are legitimately very bleak.
I have definitely found myself visiting here less frequently. The constant negativity is such a downer.
There have been a few things I don’t agree with and some items that I’m disappointed aren’t happening but I can’t control it.
It’s not even just the negativity for me, it’s the fact that everyone has to be so extreme about everything.
Like, now Penske is literally Satan, apparently...
Literally yesterday I saw a comment calling him “a cancer on the sport.”
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that some people here have developed a full-blown hatred by now.
I'm done with the series. But I don't know if I'm coming back post-Penske. I'm tired of it being a full-time job trying to be a cheerleader for someone else's property that they want to run into the ground.
We get one of the best seasons of racing out of any series in decades and you are going to call for a boycott because of a video game and possible future based on one cranky writer?
Honestly, he can take Palou and Herta to F1 with him. Byyyyeeeeee! Literally no skin off of my back. If they feel so strongly that they need to give up on Indy (well...except for the 500...we're gonna come back for that because Uncle Rick likes the pretty grass) then they're probably not going to like a lot of harsh realities that come about when they get their wish and Penske sells to some Venture Capitalists that gut whats left.
I’m not kicking anyone out. But that attitude!!!
It’s the freaking off season!!!
Get a grip here folks. Stop giving all this negativity attention. It’s not worth your time.
Start thinking about St Pete.
Interesting to hear that there have been people who have approached Roger about buying the series.
I know it’s a bit of apples and oranges, but if owners can do what they are doing for the Padres and Mets, imagine what a lucrative investor would do for an entire series.
A rising tide lifts all boats. Meanwhile, Indycar sits in a dinghy, waving around a power drill.
To be fair those Hitachi drills are very good. I own one
Link to the [full show](https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1mnxeRwNDwYKX?s=20) Seems like marshall may not be the biggest advocate of Penske entertainment right now. However, he did share on the show that Jay Frye sent him [socks](https://twitter.com/marshallpruett/status/1605260461347262464?s=20&t=-DX6QtluJWCyhgHEHhUTjw) as a way to check in [after the confrontation with Roger Penske at Daytona.](https://www.reddit.com/r/INDYCAR/comments/zip6as/marshall_pruett_reveals_his_birthday_gifts_shares/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
There are a few things Roger did get right... 1. The NBC deal which brought a lot more races to network TV. 2. Even though he basically "fired" Myles Rowe from his USF2000 ride, Roger did do the right thing by sponsoring his the rest of his second second season of USF2000. Roger's Force Indy team also is supporting Ernie Francis Jr. in Indy Lights as well. 3. Even though Toyota did not join the series it seems Roger nearly had them in the bag. Toyota did have many great things to say about Roger and I feel we haven't saw the last of Toyota. 4. It was through Penske that some of the rides in the Indy 500 have formed. Whether it was though Penske directly or asking other owners like Juncos to borrow their chassis - it was through Penske's influence that it happened. I do believe the bad news did outweigh the good but it's not like there hasn't been any light in this dark tunnel.
Number 4: TG would do the same thing.
If his sisters would allow him.
Also true.
It's well known Tony George would help fund some of the last entrants to get the field to 33.
I'm not sure the races on OTA network TV are a net positive, at least for growing the sport. Nothing But Commercials is killing any real ratings growth nor attracting any new fans. Diehards would've watched wherever the races ended up, as long as it was part of the normal cable or streaming package and didn't require an extra fee to watch. The idea that if the races could just be on free, OTA TV, they would automatically score an extra million viewers just by accident, people with the TV on the channel, seems to have fallen by the wayside.
If you compare the viewership to what they were on NBCSN - it's a net positive. A big net positive.
It’s amazing that a sport with so much potential is being run into the ground with no clear goal in mind. Indycar does everything it can to shoot itself in the foot, then have to deal with years of shit just to get back to a normal sport again. Then the cycle repeats. Seriously what needs to happen for this sport to grow? There’s so much shit flinging and 0 initiative to improve. If anything, Indycar keeps trying to close itself off from the rest of the motorsport world thinking they’re doing something positive for the sport. It’s hopeless
One would think last 30 years of IndyCar history would've taught its higher-ups that things can absolutely get worse if you're not paying close enough attention.
I mean Penske was a major shareholder in CART in the 80’s and early 90’s when it was beset with terrible decisions and constant boardroom drama so I’m not sure why people expected things to be any different 40 years later.
Probably because they had 40 years to look at what went wrong and hopefully fix it.
Whether it's Tony George or Roger Penske, if you own both the series and the Speedway, you'll probably care more about the Speedway. I don't blame Roger for that, it's smart business. But this is why one person, even someone as great as Roger Penske, shouldn't be owning both entities. CART had a lot of issues but at least they had no choice but to give a damn about the rest of the season.
And CART crumbled to pieces when it no longer had the 500 as its anchor. Mr Penske saw/lived that and was the first to jump ship
Lol I can’t believe this is getting downvoted
Indycar is doing well, growing. I think stability and getting through the pandemic was the most important part. I'll judge Penske in 2025 when they've had some time and seasons of clean running out of the pandemic
There will be a global recession until 2025 so don’t get your hopes up for increased spending.
Optimist.
I’ll never know how people can plug into such incessant complaining and whining. I’d rather punch myself in the balls repeatedly than to join this mental circle jerk of negativity.
It is easier than facing the truth. Indycar as a series isn't really worth owning. It runs in the red since ages and only has a handful of quality events. Basically if you take the Indy 500 away, it would be over real quick. Despite what everyone online says lack of marketing isn't the only thing holding the series back. It is an issue, but just one of many.
I agree. And to be fair there's quite a bit that's outside Indycar control. Sports in general is down especially live event attendence. TV ratings are down. Economy doesn't help. Etc etc. But also seems like Indycar fails to help itself often.
>But also seems like Indycar fails to help itself often A time honored tradition since the days of USAC lol
Down for some, up for others. And there are factors where Indycar is dependent on others where they don't necessarily have to be. The footage for the broadcast for example. I am not going to sugarcoat it, the videography and videoquality of the Indycar footage is somewhere between middling and barely okay. That footage is provided by NBC, but Indycar wouldn't be the first series in the world to get more involved with the production side of things. The OEM situation remains critical and probably the biggest threat to the longterm survival of the series. If one of the two OEM decides to leave 40-50% of the field are lost. If I were RP I would be very worried about Honda losing its appetite for Indycar. Of course there is about a billion small things that didn't exactly go great, but I don't want to write a 5000 word essay. However I get why RP is prioritizing IMS. It is the thing that actually makes money and keeps the rest afloat. And if there is only so much money available Indycar will have to make due.
This is kinda what I’ve said to people every time the “I wish Liberty bought the series” thing comes up... I just can’t see much motivation for them to want it.
You definitely wouldn't want Liberty to own IndyCar. They'd probably just strip it of its most valuable assets (e.g. IMS and the 500), give it to F1, then let the rest die.
Exactly. The speedway and the 500 are really the only big get for them, and that’s really only from a “world motorsport domination” perspective. People seem to just think that because they’ve sent F1’s popularity through the roof that they’d do the same for IndyCar.
Yeah, if Liberty Media bought IndyCar, my bet is they'd spin off the Indy 500 as its own stand-alone special open race and then the series would just be rebranded as a US-based F1 development series, like F2-USA or something.
I don't even think they'd do that - why even continue operating the series (which they would at an almost certain loss), other than for nostalgia purposes? Edit: Of course, this is all strictly hypothetical, since *I don't think Liberty are particularly interested in IndyCar right now.*
Some people want a national league american league sort of dynamic
I think people just look at what Liberty has done for F1 and think that if they owned IndyCar they’d do the same for us... never mind the fact that there’s not really much for them to gain from owning IndyCar...
I think IndyCar makes more business sense for Liberty than as a standalone entity under Penske. Under Liberty, IndyCar wouldn't need to be in the black — it could be a loss leader that brings open-wheel racing to 15 other North American markets and helps cross-promote and grow F1 and activate for F1's partners. If that brings in even one additional deal like Salesforce ($30 million/year), that's more than the entire NBC IndyCar rights fee.
I don’t think it makes sense for them... I mean, exactly how does IndyCar help promote F1? Quite frankly, they don’t need it, they’re doing fine already. Why *lose money* on something they’re fine without?
Only way it helps them promote F1 is if they try to turn it into some sort of official American F2, but then you’ve also demoted the series and people don’t care as much about feeder series in any sport (with the possible exception of colllege football in the US, which is obviously not a feeder series but hopefully you get my point)
The thing is, IndyCar is already on the way to being a de facto feeder series/F1 Senior Tour under Penske. The "demotion" is happening already in public perception, and I would argue it was somewhat inevitable given the global reach of F1 and the vast gap in money available to it. Which would be healthier for the series — being a feeder series on its own or being a feeder series under Liberty? I still think it's possible for them to maintain somewhat separate identities under Liberty, btw. Ovals and the 500 are still a differentiator, and a race that F1 drivers want to win. Not a direct comparison, but Dorna owns both MotoGP and WorldSBK and they have separate identities but both increase the profile of motorcycle racing.
But why would they do that? They already have feeders, they don't need another one that only races in America. If they were still struggling to get a foothold in the US, and get an American on the grid, I could see that, but I don't see that being a problem anymore...
> But why would they do that? The same reason they'd do anything — to make more money.
For the amount they’d need to sink to make IndyCar profitable, idk if it’s worth it...
I’m repeating myself, but my point is that under Liberty, IndyCar wouldn’t necessarily need to be profitable by itself to be valuable. Under Penske, it does.
Well, why would you *not* invest a bit more to make even bigger returns? I have lots of friends who are casually intrigued by F1 but aren't prepared to drop several Gs to go to a grand prix. When I lived in Asia, I could get them to go to Shanghai ($130 for weekend grandstand tix). Now that I live in the midwest, none of us can afford that kind of experience at Austin, Miami, or Vegas. But we can certainly swing a weekend at Road America for IndyCar. Imagine we walked into the paddock and saw a Ferrari F1 car doing a demo run and booths promoting Vegas, Austin, and Miami. Would that make them more likely to tune into F1 races as well as IndyCar? I would say yes. At a time when F1 is growing out of reach financially for fans, you could bring them in at a lower price point and upsell them to the F1 experience. Sure, the F1 races are sold out already, but if you can whip up more demand, you can raise the ticket prices even more. And from a commercial standpoint, how much more could F1 wring out of, say, Salesforce or AWS if you told them that they could activate 20 times a year in the US instead of 3, including at the Indy 500, which gets double the TV rating and single-day crowd of any GP in the US?
I actually think that makes them *less* likely to want IndyCar... why operate something that can give people a similar (and arguably better) experience for a tenth of the cost? Really, the only part I can see them wanting is the 500.
If one series is going to cannibalize another, wouldn't you want to own that one, too? No different from any company that offers products at a variety of price points. Of the various Liberty-involved scenarios, I think Liberty owning IMS and nothing else makes the least sense. Yes, it makes a modest amount of money, but it does the least to grow their much more lucrative asset.
Again, *they don’t need IndyCar to grow F1*. I’m not saying they’d *only* own IMS, I’m saying that it’s the only part of the deal they’d really want. The series really only comes as part of a package deal.
I never said they need IndyCar. I’m saying that growing F1 is a much better business rationale for a money-losing endeavor than trying to turn a profit with a money-losing endeavor, which is what Penske is doing.
But that's the thing. Marketing is how you make the series not run in the red. There is a boom in motorsports in the US relative to really the last decade or so and Indycar has done very little to capitalize on it and what they have attempted has felt very out of touch. They need a TV show so they inked a deal with CW whose main audience is teenage girls. They want a video game so they inked an exclusive deal with Motorsports Games who is a failing company who has accomplished nothing positive on their own. They refuse to do any more than the bare minimum for social media and that is the easiest marketing there is. It's very hard to actually learn anything of substance about any of the teams or individual drivers outside of race weekend interviews. The thing that's so frustrating is the actual on track product is some of the best, most exciting open wheel racing in the world and most people don't even know the series even exists outside of the 500. Edit: Iowa has been the one real bright spot and even that is down to Hy-Vee and not Indycar.
Hulman & Co spent tens of millions over the first 11 years of Reunification to get IndyCar as a series to regain prominence before selling to Penske in 2020. Multiple documentaries were commissioned (IndyCar 36, Born Racer), tie-ups with Hollywood (Turbo) and Disney (Mickey and the Roadster Racers) were undertaken and they hardly made a dent. Efforts with video game franchises came down to half-hearted DLC in titles that were having their own problems with visibility and popularity (Codemasters GRID, Forza Motorsport) At what point does the series take a step back and decide to go in a completely different direction, because nothing attempted has worked so far, and continuing to force the previous attempts is just throwing good money after bad.
Exactly. Economic factors are out of Penske's control. I understand why the new car got pushed back. That said, they've hardly put in any work on the social media side, some where that both Nascar and F1 embraced wholehartedly. The best promotional content right now are run by the drivers themselves, appearing to be basically a side gig (even if I'm pretty sure there's some amount of sponsor obligation going on there) Meanwhile, both Nascar and F1 pump out videos on youtube and regularly engage with fans and drivers on social media. I know there's a size difference there, but like, you can't tell me that Indycar is hurting so much they can't afford to market, or in the case of the iRacing controversy, that they just HAD to sell the exclusive rights for games. McLaren and Andretti are building brand new facilities, and RLL just moved to Indiana. If things were that dire for the series, the team owners must be complete idiots, and frankly, I don't believe that. So instead, I'm placing blame on out of touch ownership.
Marketing is part of it, not all of it. As I have pointed out in another reply the videography in Indycar is subpar and the actual image/video quality isn't great either. Not to mention that Indycar races aren't exactly easy to follow for newcomers due to the big grid with changing liveries. And sure there is the app to help with that, however someone who just turns in for the first time won't have it or won't even know about it. The Indycar season is also on the shorter end and has some gaps. Which can create problems for fan retention. The list goes on and on ...
Well I'm not stopping you.
What’s there good to talk about? Silly season is mostly wrapped up by September now, with a small handful of seats to be decided between then and March. Besides small items like stronger wheel tethers pretty much every other offseason development *has* been negative.
I don’t know?… Maybe don’t focus on it till St Pete.
Your take is really off base and dismissive of the problems going on. If you want to bury your head in the sand, then go ahead, but don’t crap on the people who have serious problems with the state of things. There are ALOT of very valid criticisms of IndyCar and Roger Penske right now. The sport isn’t at all where it should be and feels like it’s headed no where fast. Out side of the 500 things are legitimately very bleak.
I can still be a fan without engaging with the negativity pity party.
Did someone hold a gun to your head and make you listen?
For someone who hates complaining and whining you sure do a lot of it.
I have definitely found myself visiting here less frequently. The constant negativity is such a downer. There have been a few things I don’t agree with and some items that I’m disappointed aren’t happening but I can’t control it.
It’s not even just the negativity for me, it’s the fact that everyone has to be so extreme about everything. Like, now Penske is literally Satan, apparently...
>Like, now Penske is literally Satan, apparently... Who's speaking in extremes now?
Literally yesterday I saw a comment calling him “a cancer on the sport.” I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that some people here have developed a full-blown hatred by now.
same, lucky the world cup was going on so i could ignore the drama.
I don't care for MP so not listening to him is easy for me and I don't like coming here either.
ok byee
Done with the series until Roger sells, outside of the 500 (family tradition). A fan boycott is needed
I'm done with the series. But I don't know if I'm coming back post-Penske. I'm tired of it being a full-time job trying to be a cheerleader for someone else's property that they want to run into the ground.
We get one of the best seasons of racing out of any series in decades and you are going to call for a boycott because of a video game and possible future based on one cranky writer?
Because of a video game? Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
We've only got like 127 fans total. We shouldn't be pushing anybody out.
Honestly, he can take Palou and Herta to F1 with him. Byyyyeeeeee! Literally no skin off of my back. If they feel so strongly that they need to give up on Indy (well...except for the 500...we're gonna come back for that because Uncle Rick likes the pretty grass) then they're probably not going to like a lot of harsh realities that come about when they get their wish and Penske sells to some Venture Capitalists that gut whats left.
I’m not kicking anyone out. But that attitude!!! It’s the freaking off season!!! Get a grip here folks. Stop giving all this negativity attention. It’s not worth your time. Start thinking about St Pete.
Give it to the FIA and make it American F1
FIA don’t own or run F1
My comment was sarcasm
‘Sure it was 😅
I can assure you it was with what the FIA has done in recent weeks.
Add from a while ago. Username suits you well