Behold, the next "star" of the IZOD IndyCar Series! He is Bertrand Baguette, and according to Curt Cavin of the Indianapolis Star, he has signed-on for 15 races in 2010 with Eric Bachelart's Conquest Rent-a-Ride Racing.
This rates as the most exciting thing to hit the IndyCar scene since Montagny-mania!
Randy Bernard, this is a symptom of the problems that you have inherited. You are not envied here, sir.
Bertrand Baguette might be a fine racer. However, he does nothing to increase consumer appeal of IndyCar racing in the United States, where it must compete with myriad sports entertainment operations for ticket buyers, television ratings, and corporate sponsorship dollars.
I have no doubt that this move is very good for Conquest Rent-a-Ride Racing team owner Eric Bachelart, who must be very pleased to have signed a financier, er, driver from his native Belgium.
I shall say it again. That which is good for IndyCar is not necessarily good for its suppliers of racing teams, and vice verse. An economist would call this a misalignment of incentives.
I call it yet another step toward complete anonymity and irrelevance for a once great institution, the Indianapolis 500.
Please help, Mr. Bernard!
Roggespierre
Tell me, how EXACTLY do you know that Bertrand Baguette won't excite American audiences? You don't! YOU aren't excited, and that's perfectly fine. But please, don't assume that YOUR feelings can be automatically extrapolated to everyone else.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteI concede your point on its face. There is no evidence that my personal preferences are representative of anything at all.
Except, well, there is plenty of evidence in that regard. I suggest that you take a look at my post regarding the correlation between U.S. driver participation and attendance at the IRL races at Chicagoland, Kansas and Kentucky. The data suggest that the correlation is strong indeed.
You might also check out the economic gap between NASCAR and IndyCar. Don't get me wrong - I am no fan of NASCAR racing. But NASCAR doesn't have to give away $15 tickets to publicly-subsidized races. That's what IndyCar is doing at Barber Motorsports Park.
If there were no other sports entertainment options in the United States, then we might reasonably expect U.S. sports fans to embrace Bertrand Baguette and the current roster of IndyCar "stars".
Unfortunately, ample competition exists. Baguette & Co are not the only choice. Historically, management of U.S. open wheel racing marketing rights holders have neglected to notice.
The available data - some of which is available on various pages here - would seem to strongly support that assertion.
Approaching the question from a different perspective, I would like to know if you believe that American audiences will be excited by the addition of Baguette. If so, then why?
Roggespierre
Baguette??? Isn't that a french dinner roll?? This has about as much excitement as watching paint dry. For Americans, I don't see them rushing to buy tickets because he part of the program. Most won't even know his name.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteHere are a few of the relevant post Roggespierre might be referring to:
A chart of U.S. driver participation at select events over the last decade.
Note that a comment on that post provides the television ratings list for ALL IRL events 1996-2009.
Here are three graphs of IRL yearly TV ratings:
1. Indy 500
2. all network TV events
3. all cable TV events
Whether or not you agree with his positions, I think a brief survey of this blog will convince you that RP's analyses based, when possible, on quantitative data, and when not, on solid reasoning.
If you really want to dig into it, this blog has a TON of interesting insight on the state of IndyCar that you won't find elsewhere.
Just one example:
Case study of highly successful foreign driver in IRL.