My Divisional Experience This Weekend
We had an interesting weekend in Spokane for a Divisional race. Due to management changes the race was added only in the last month or two. But despite that, Friday and Saturday evenings were packed. Largest crowds I've seen at a divisional, ever. We had a hard time finding a place to sit. Clearly the management had done some promo and it worked.
And it was an enthusiastic crowd cheering and standing on every pass. Mostly families with young kids. All had brought or bought food and were there for the duration.
But it was also quite telling to me. It was qualifying. They were cheering and arguing with each other about who would "win" each pair. In bracket classes (like TD and TS). They didn't understand a second of it. They eagerly watched the Super classes, but were completely confused. And never once did the announcer explain anything. He just announced cars and times, and oohed and aahed over the pretty cars.
In the pits we were inundated with people wanting to understand. We had two dozen interactions with people teaching them bracket/index racing. Several returned the next day, and clearly appreciated what they had seen, and offered their support and encouragement. They just needed to understand, and no one was helping them.
The "Old Boy's Network"
This is a very long way to get around to saying: NHRA is an "old boy's network", in many senses of the phrase:
- The prime audience is graying, and it doesn't seem like anyone is reaching out to the younger audience. I don't personally like rice burners, but I'm in my 50s. 90% of kids today have/had them as their first cars. We have to embrace them. They enjoy racing them on the street, we have to embrace them racing on the strip.
- The management is the poster-child of an "old boy's network". The board is gray and grayer, filled with old-time insiders who have zero accountability to anyone but each other. Time to open it up, either make it elected or at least shine a light on it and blow in at least 50% new blood.
- It's a complex sport, where you seem to just have to know what's going on. That's OK in baseball or football where everyone learns it in preschool, but it's not OK in a fringe sport. And it's a confusing sport with dozens of classes and formats. Every race announcer should have evangelism and education as their number one priority. And NHRA should provide them with scripts, and the track with free promotional literature, explaining the sport in detail. NHRA is and should be about promoting the sport first, the sponsors will follow soon enough.
- It's a closed network. It's just not clear to anyone how to get involved. We decided we wanted to race, and after we pushed our way in the door, we were welcomed with open arms. But no one was saying "come on in, the water's fine!" Instead, to the fan NHRA racing looks like a bunch of people doing this very wild car show, and it's not clear how they would take part.
Participation is Growth
Participation is what makes sports big. Every child in America knows how to play baseball, has an opportunity to play, and knows how to get from their little league team to college to the minors to the pros. Golf is huge, with numbers that are staggering, in participation and fan involvement. Soccer is massive worldwide because anyone/everyone can play. The World Cup is the largest viewed event on the planet. NASCAR got big because the cars looked just like Bubba's daily driver, and Bubba could imagine rubbing fenders with Dale. In Europe auto racing is huge because there are classes that you can start taking your daily driver out in, and work up from there. And those numbers bring money and advertisers.
Sport is about competition, sure, but it's much more about "hell, I could do that". Anyone can play baseball, basketball, golf, tennis, and so on. But it's not clear to anyone I know how you do drag racing. How you get from driving your new-old Camaro to running Comp Eliminator? Most don't know. Heck, I don't think I do...
A significant part of NHRA should be promoting participation, and helping people climb the ladder from "get off the street at a grudge night" to "race your street car in some street legal class" to "build a dedicated race car for some faster class" and once on that path up through those classes to alky to the pros and so on. Junior dragsters are cool, and were a great idea. But many kids don't get into cars until they're 16 and can drive. By then, JRs just look like toys.
It's about "The Customer"
NHRA started life as a way to get people doing it, legally and safely. The "customer" was the participant. Somewhere along the line it got converted into a way to make money. And the "customer" became the fan. Now today, the "customer" is the sponsor. As anyone with a business will tell you, if your number one goal is making money, you don't. Your number one goal has to be satisfying customers, from whom you make money.
Sponsors don't want to be NHRA's customers, they want access to NHRA's customer. And that requires NHRA to understand who its customers are. In a world with a million media/entertainment choices, trying to get "fans" is silly and futile. The best fans are the participants and their friends/family. Make more participants, you make a bigger market. Even if that participation is only the rooting on of friends/family, or even simply the faint hope that I could/would do it some day.
The Circus vs. The Sport
The HD Partners acquisition was on the right track. Separate the traveling circus from the real sport. MLB is not baseball, there are only 30 organizations in the world doing baseball at that level. But there are millions of people who own a glove and play catch. Same is true for the PGA vs. the bulk of the golf market. Or FIA and soccer. Or...
NHRA needs to be about the sport. Not about the traveling circus. The circus is just the top echelon. The meat is down in the middle of the sport with the 30,000+ licensed drivers.
Take a cue from baseball. There is an organization (MLB) that runs and promotes the professional game. There are organizations that manage and run the next level down (minors/college). And then there is Little League, that is all about safe, fun participation in the sport.
I don't care if the name "NHRA" follows through to the circus (because it has name recognition) or if it goes back to its roots. But it's clear the organization that is NHRA today doesn't understand how to both run the circus and promote the sport. It was never clearer to me than to watch, in person, Mark Niver die and have the NHRA completely frozen for hours. Unable to say anything to the crowd or on TV because it was running the entertainment business, but also unable to tell the family and the racers anything for hours because it was no longer the racer safety organization.
Let Compton and crew run the circus. But give the sport back to the participants. Where it can be fed and grow. And create the real "next generation" of racers, for generations to come.
A Clear Vision
I've managed huge organizations, and taught others how to do it. It all starts with a clear, simple, well understood, and extremely well communicated vision. NHRA needs a new, clear vision. I propose:
To promote the safe participation in the fastest motorsport in the world.
And drive everything toward that end. Get more people involved, teach them from day one how it works and how to be successful, and make sure they can do it safely. Hire people with that goal, fire people who don't make that happen, and make every decision with these objectives in mind.
That's my plan. Pretty simple. Decide on a direction and go there.
