Enough with the NASCAR analogy!
Posted on 15. May, 2008 in Bike Racing, Sports Business
The Pro Cycling Tour has announced the teams for their Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling. The roster includes a handful of marquee teams with US ties – High Road, Slipstream, CSC – plus a few random foreign teams (Sparkasse?) and then all the domestic teams down to DLP Racing. It’s not the Tour of California start list but if PCT president Dave Chauner can generate enough local revenue with this mish-mash of a lineup, then why pay all the expenses and start money to bring the Big Names over? The loftily titled Philadelphia International Championships is a big deal in Philly with or without, say, Tom Boonen.
Anyways, the press release also quotes Chauner as describing his races as “NASCAR on bicycles” and adds, “just like NASCAR, all three events will garner expanded live television coverage”.
Please. NASCAR sets a good model for cycling as a business model, but not as an entertainment. NASCAR’s appeal is about speed, noise, crashes, and the drivers’ nerves of steel. Cycling is about the riders’ endurance and effort, and how the races are embedded in the local landscape. The two are completely different products.
Cycling has its own set of unique and compelling selling points, but “NASCAR on bicycles” isn’t one of them. It doesn’t sound big; it just sounds like a crappy version of “NASCAR in race cars”.
via press release
