"The walk-up business is not that good on race day and hasn't been for a number of years," Gappens states. "I think there is an assumption by the people that are on the fence that the event is probably sold out. Buying a ticket to a Cup event is a significant enough investment that I think most people plan ahead. On race day, you might have 2,000 to 3,000 that walk up and buy a ticket, but it's not like the old days where you relied on the walk-up crowd to put you over the top."
In the case of the Chase, it appears the bonus of seeing a NASCAR playoff event didn't move additional fans toward the turnstiles. That's something both NASCAR and the racetracks will have to consider when pitching the concept to the ticket-buying public in year two of the experiment.
SponsorshipOf all the groups standing in line hoping to benefit from the Chase for the Championship, team sponsors should have been anticipating the biggest rewards. With the prospect of more fan interest and media exposure, sponsors should have been at the head table gorging themselves on the bounty of impressions and financial rewards of the Chase buffet.
That didn't happen, according to Joyce Julius & Associates, the firm that monitors sponsorship values in NASCAR. In October, Joyce Julius indicated the Chase for the Championship didn't yield any financial rewards for the sponsors this year. Based on its television screen time ratings, the firm also indicated there were no significant differences between this year's Chase-fueled sponsorship values and those of the past.
Driver Ricky Rudd didn't need a report to see exposure was down, especially for teams outside the Top 10 and not in the Chase.
"At Dover, we ran inside the Top 10 quite a bit, and granted that's not leading races, but compared to where our team has been, TV wouldn't have even known we were there," Rudd said in the media center at Talladega Superspeedway. "But that's almost to be expected. This is part of the new NASCAR that we're going to have to deal with."
Rudd's frustration amplified what many in the garage had been saying for months-once the final 10 races of the Chase started, few outside the golden group were going to get any significant television coverage. Forget the fact that media interest could draw upwards of 1,000 media requests for the Chase event at Charlotte in October, or that NASCAR distributed millions of inserts highlighting the Chase in newspapers such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times throughout the year. To team sponsors and drivers, television exposure during the races is the number one priority. Without it, everything else is just chaff.
"It's black and white," Rudd says. "Don't let the TV turn around and build a script out of this thing and cut out the guys that need attention and deserve attention. It's not so much the Top 10 format; it's what NASCAR has allowed the television network to do. And that's all I'm going to say."
When the Chase for the Championship format (with 26 "regular season" races and 10 playoff events) was announced, many like Rudd questioned how sponsors would react to the plan. The garage buzz throughout the year ranged from sponsors pulling out altogether if their team and driver fail to make the final cut of 10, to sponsors renegotiating their deals to guarantee the first 26 races and then funding the team at a higher (or lower) level depending on whether or not their teams are in the Chase. Whatever the scenario, any concept, especially one that doesn't seem to fulfill sponsor goals, is bound to have the garage area in an uproar.
"The network needs to take care of all the people out there," says Joe Nemechek, who got plenty of TV time when he won the Chase race at Kansas. "If you're in the Top 10 or out of the Top 10, and your sponsor is going to change because of that depending on how they fund your team, then maybe you only run 26 races a year if you don't make it. That's not good for the sport. The coverage needs to be right. Every sponsor here is spending a lot of money to be on these cars. You've got to have a big group to keep all the fans in the stands."
Dale Jarrett, another driver who didn't make the cut for the Chase, says a lack of television coverage for those outside the Top 10 could send sponsors elsewhere."I'm all for whatever is best for our sport, but what is also good for our sport is that we have plenty of sponsors and plenty of teams out here," Jarrett said after the Dover event where he finished Fourth but received minimal television coverage. "If people who are having good runs, other than those 10, aren't talked about and these sponsors aren't given some of their due, then they might find another place to spend their dollars. That's what concerns me."
With the television exposure numbers showing no increase and drivers complaining about fair and impartial coverage of the events, this issue will move to the top of the discussion list during the off-season. After all, without the team sponsors, there is no NASCAR.
"This isn't a personal issue," says Jarrett. "This is about what's best for my race team and for my sponsors and what's best for this sport in general. If the other 33 of us didn't show up and you had a 10-car race, I'm not sure you all would get very excited about that."
Whether or not the NASCAR Chase for the Championship remains a viable commodity in the future will, in large part, be determined by how it benefits everyone involved. A success on many levels in its first year, the concept still has a number of issues that need to be worked out. That's especially true at the television and team sponsorship levels, both paramount to the overall success of NASCAR. All the other major sports entities kept their eye on the ball and developed their playoff formats into huge financial and cultural success stories. It will be interesting to see if NASCAR can do the same.