Tickets for next year’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway went on sale today, and the race track has cut prices on more than 40,000 tickets. The bottom end of tickets are now 35 dollars, and this is yet another sign of the times. The tough economy forces sporting venues to drastically reduce their ticket prices.
In the case of NASCAR at large and Darlington in particular it is yet another sign of what may be wrong with NASCAR. Tickets at Darlington use to be among the hardest to get for NASCAR fans. Fans would line up, and pay top dollar for the Old Southern 500 held annually on Labor Day Weekend.
Due to NASCAR realignment in the early part of the 2000’s Darlington lost its race date on Labor Day. Since then NASCAR has tired to establish a new Labor Day tradition in California, and this year in Atlanta.
Darlington lost its traditional Labor Day date in a lawsuit filed by owners of the Texas Motor Speedway. This date was moved to the Texas Motor Speedway and the schedule was realigned.
We could argue that all of the schedule realignments are what is the cause of the weak NASCAR market, and some of the fan disinterest. Bruton Smith, Chairman of SMI has bought up many tracks moving their dates to his cookie cutter race tracks.
Beyond losing the Labor Day Southern 500, the Sprint Cup series has lost races at Rockingham, and North Wilkesboro. While those tracks offered great racing, we are now left with far too many 1.5 mile cookie cutter tracks.
Since the Kansas Speedway and the Kentucky Speedway are both looking to get additional cup dates, this seems to be the continuing trend in NASCAR. To eliminate signature tracks and events and replace them with cookie cutter tracks that dilute the NASCAR action.
The Cup schedule needs more variety, not more of the same unless NASCAR is ok with its weak TV numbers, and track owners are ok to continue to cut their ticket prices.
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