08 March 2010

It's Happening

I was getting ready for work this morning when I heard it.  On ESPN, no less.

It was one of those tangible moments when you realize that having a title sponsor who is willing to pour money into the promotion of the sport really helps.  I knew this after watching the AFC and NFC Championship games, when both featured flashy ads for the Izod IndyCar Series.

And this morning, I was reminded as to why Izod is such a good partner for the IndyCar Series (along with the merchandising potential).  A 1-minute (well, it seemed like a minute; it easily could have been 30 seconds) commercial for the
Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

The ad contained the usual Izod flashiness, but also continued to assert a fact that I believe to be critical to the future success of the IndyCar Series: that IndyCar racing contains the fastest, most exciting racing on earth.

Yes, it is nice to have the race on ABC, where it no doubt will receive more publicity on ESPN than races on Versus.

But with Izod standing alongside it, the IndyCar Series is in a much better position to reach a wide-ranging audience, and continues to demonstrate that they want to work with and promote the Izod IndyCar Series.

5 comments:

  1. "Fastest, most exciting racing on earth?"


    A nice little marketing slogan.... but watch the first 4 Indy Car races this year, and this will be proven to be a lie.

    If you are going to market speed and excitement, street racing is not going to cut it.

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  2. It's all in the eye of the beholder. Sreet and road course racing is BY FAR the most exciting racing on the planet. I honestly don't know if I've ever been able to manage to stay awake during on oval race. Everyone says the passing on an oval is exciting, but I think it's all pointless. When there is so much passing going on from lap to lap it loses excitment. It's not even real racing. It's just following another car so you can use the aero and sneak past someone else. The thing that makes IICS so great (even though I HATE ovals) is the diversity of the schedule. The series has everything and it's great! It's too bad the "fan" base won't come together and realize some people prefer ovals and some people prefer road/street courses!

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  3. To Anon from above...

    When you market your sport as being the "fastest" on earth and use 220 MPH speeds in your commericals, starting your season with 110 MPH 1 lane parades, where the only passing will likely occur either on Lap 1 or in the pitlane, it means you are FIBBING to your public.

    If you want to market the sport to be about excitement and danger and SPEED, running more street races and fewer and fewer ovals, make your spiel more and more out-of-touch.

    Facts are, that NASCAR's races are faster and their average speeds faster, then the average Indy Car race in 2010.

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  4. ^^ haha

    Give me one nascar race last year which averaged over 200mph ;) There were a couple Indycar races which did.

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  5. The 2009 Miami Indy 300 was one of the fastest races of the world in years, so the IndyCar is the fastest circuit racing series of the world.

    And I don't know whether better aerodynamics and metallic discs give drivers more room and time to manoeuver or drivers are just more aggressive, but IndyCar races in left-right courses are much more entertaining than F1 GPs.

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