Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitch Johnson
Even if he did purchase IHRA, what would he have? It would still be a 2nd tier racing series......no offense intended.....to the "Big Show". He's got tons of money, but I don't think he would put himself in that position. He's having too much fun runnin' all these cars. Sooooo many things would have to happen (TV package, expanded fields, etc.) for the big show cars to defect to the other side. Just my .02..........
Late................Mitch
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You are right...Evan Knoll HAS tons of money....How did he get it? Making VERY smart decisions, for sure....
While it is obvious that Even is a huge fan of the sport, I would venture to guess that he wouldn't purchase the IHRA because it was "fun." While that may be true, I would say that he has a very, very aggressive and quite significant plan for it...
On the TV side, I know that many folks and especially casual fans may not realize the innerworkings of TV deals...Maybe I can shed a bit of light on that for everyone...I have touched on it before a bit, but I will try to get more in depth for you..
20 Years ago, cable TV was just catching on and the "Big 4" OTA (over-the-air) newtorks, NBC, CBS, ABC, and "then new" FOX, had a very, very strong hold on domestic television viewership. Cable started to eat into that little by little as their household penetration started to grow in small increments, as well as the fact that new cable networks started to pop-up from time-to-time as well...If you remember back 20 years ago, there were hundreds of cable operators...You may have had a small cable operator that was owned by someone local in your community that only had 5000-10,000 subscribers, and there were a series of these in one metropolitan are, let alone the country. Then what happened next, started the cable boom. All of a sudden, cable TV providers started selling to a few of the major players, and now, there might be 20 cable operators in the country, instead of 2000, right? Well, these cable operators started to really dig into the viewership of the OTA networks because they started launching their OWN national networks because they had the national footprints to do it in, and/or they made deals with OTHER national or large scale regional operators to carry each OTHERS networks, and so on...
So, now you have literally, over 100 networks available, and while the number of available networks has quadrupled in the last 20 years, the number of TV viewers has not. This has created an incredible abount of competition for viewers, but also for programming.
The point to all of this is simple. All of this availability crerated what is now referred to in the industry as "time-buy" deals. As long as you can afford it, and your programming is produced with high production values, you can literally ALWAYS find a network that will run it for you, if you pay them. A perfect example of this is how the NHRA is paying ESPN to run the drag races for them. In turn for paying ESPN approximately $90,000-$95,000 per hour of airtime, the NHRA receives all of the "network" airtime to control. THis means that the NHRA gets approximately 11 minutes per hour (22 :30 second spots), plus all of the "billboards (Brought to you by....etc), and creative content within the body of the broadcast (Lucas Oil Ladder, Valvoline Tech Tip, etc...) that they can sell and keep 100% of the revenue for...In a perfect world, you would sell enough to just break-even, or get as close as you can...
Now that you understand the business model of the TV "time-buy," I will give you some real life numbers on the costs to produce a show that is of broadcast quality, as well as approximate costs for airtime, as well...
To produce a "live" or "live look" motorsports event, you will have to hire a third-party production company to "produce" the telecast for you. THis is onclusive of cameras, trucks, switches, graphix generators, slo-mo, etc.....It also includes your personnell requirements as well...By the way, these are real numbers that are based on a piece of sports programming that I am considering producing for one of the "Big 4" OTA networks next year.
Live and/or "look live" broadcast quality HD production with (10) stationary cameras, (4) roaming cameras, and (12) "on-board" cameras, including use of a 53' production truck, and all necessary personnel (approximately 30 people)... - $100,000 per event + Hotels, Meals, and Flights for all.
Airtime on the network (either ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox) - $250,000-$275,000/per hour.
So, as you can see, you can easily spend $650,000-$800,000 on a 2 hour event in total. Now, in 2 hours, you have (44) :30 second spots to sell, so if you can average $15,000-$20,000 each as part of a sponsorship package, then you are golden! If you do it right, then it is VERY attainable.
Now, on the flip side, IHRA and their deal with SPEED Channel is more like this:
Production with "live look" but not as many cameras, personnell, and LOTS of time to edit to a "live look" after shooting, I would venture to guess that their production budget could be in the $30,000-$35,000 range per show, but again, that is an educated guess. Based on the quality that I see in their telecasts, I would strongly doubt that it is even that much, to be frank with you.
Airtime on SPEED CHannel: Approximately $40,000 per hour, with a re-run or two in there as well...
So, you can see that there is a wide range of airtime and production options available.
The bottom line, now that you understand the very basics of TV sports programming and its costs, if Evan bought the IHRA, and put all 12 events on an OTA network, it would cost approximately $8,000,000 to do it, however, much if not all of that could be offset with sponsorships, etc...
BUT, if he ran 2 Friday night and one Saturday early afternoon qualifying sessions, then he could run a 1-hour qualifying show on Saturday late afternoon (after allowing 2-3 hours of "buffer" time to allow for schedule overruns from oil downs, etc...) and then ran Saturday afternoon/night eliminations, you could run that on the network on Sunday afternoon, and now you have a monsterous TV deal and the IHRA would surpass the NHRA in about 5 minutes...OK, well, maybe it would take a full season, but you get my point...
NO QUESTION that Evan could pull this off...The networks would love it, too!
And if he was to double the purse or something close, I'd bet that ALL of the Pro Teams would show up! More money & a more than double TV audience for their sponsors would almost certainly guarantee large, full fields as well as more sponsors for the teams...
)...and when you show a program 5 times a day, 3 or so days a week, even a small number of viewers per show adds up to "impressive" total numbers
