NASCAR's Founding Family Is Looking Into Options On Selling Its Stake: Report

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Jalopnik

NASCAR's Founding Family Is Looking Into Options On Selling Its Stake: Report

Alanis King 30 minutes ago

The France family has been in control of NASCAR since Bill France Sr. founded it in 1947, staying in power so long that they're still known as the "first family." But just over a week after NASCAR acquired another major racing series, Reuters (1) reports that the family is in talks of potentially selling its stake in the sport.

Reuters' report is short, citing only unnamed sources in saying that the France family is looking into options for its stake in NASCAR--one of those options being a sale of the family's entire stake. The report said the Frances are working with investment bank Goldman Sachs on a potential deal, but the sources, who asked not to be identified by Reuters because discussions are confidential, said the talks are at the "exploratory stage and no agreement of any kind is certain."
....

The Frances have been in charge of NASCAR since founder Bill France Sr., who was president from 1947 to 1972. Bill France Sr. also started the International Speedway Corporation, which owns and/or operates a dozen of the tracks on the schedule in NASCAR's top series. Bill France Jr. took over as president after Bill France Sr., from 1972 until 2003. Brian France, his son, became Chairman and CEO of NASCAR that year, and is still acting as both.
....

But it's also no secret that NASCAR isn't nearly as popular as it was during its big boom in the 2000s. It's had trouble securing title sponsorship for its top series, the Cup Series, with Monster Energy renewing a deal for 2019 after multiple delays on its decision. ... Monster's also reportedly paying way less than previous sponsor Sprint did for those rights. SB Nation (2) reported in April that Monster likely won't stay around after next year, and that NASCAR's considering changing its title sponsor "into a package that would include its television partners" from that point forward.

(1) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nascar-m-a-exclusive/exclusive-majority-owners-explore-sale-of-nascar-sources-idUSKBN1I825P

(2) https://www.sbnation.com/nascar/2018/4/10/17171224/monster-energy-contract-extension-cup-series-entitlement-sponsor

Read more: https://jalopnik.com/nascars-founding-family-is-looking-into-options-on-sell-1825834049

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Please do me a favor and do NOT use this thread as an excuse to remind me of your favorite stereotypes of Southerners.

Thank you.

[stonecutter357]

1. good

[Crowman2009]

2. They are talking with Goldman Sachs?!?!

Well then kiss NASCAR goodbye then! Not that I'll miss it.

[Norbert]

7. Goldman Sachs must need a huge tax write off

Lately NASCAR races haven't been drawing flies thanks to the idiot grandson.

[SergeStorms]

22. I think they're using Goldman Sachs.....

to ascertain a dollar value for the France family to ask for their entire share. It has to be at least a billion they'll be asking. NASCAR and the France family got very greedy. They started building tracks all over the nation (usually of the same length and configuration) and they closed the tracks where NASCAR got it's roots. North Wilkesboro, Martinsville, and other short tracks were shit-canned because they didn't have the "luxury boxes" for the high-rollers and sponsors. It became very expensive to put one car on the track every week (upwards of $20 million a year), and many of the smaller teams fell by the wayside. They couldn't find sponsors who were willing to pony up that kind of money for advertising (especially if their car wrecked on the first lap). The big name/big money teams with multiple cars took over, and that's why they're where they are today.

The 1990s and early 2000s were the "up" times for NASCAR, but then the France family got greedy and stupid. Now they don't want to make the changes that need to be made to recover. A family of four can't go to the track for less than $500, and that's just too much money for the fans that made NASCAR as successful as it used to be.

[MichMan]

30. Lots of mis statements

1) Martinsville, Bristol & Richmond still have 2 races per year as short tracks

2) North Wilkesboro was dropped when attendance declined. A private track owner (not NASCAR) bought it and moved the date to a different track he bought.

2) Tickets at my local NASCAR track sell for under $50 ea. They have a family 4 pack deal with 4 tickets and $20 voucher for concessions for sale for $179. NOT $500 like you stated

[SergeStorms]

45. Your local NASCAR track.

Is that Michigan International Speedway? The June Monster Energy Cup race? The August race? If you're getting tickets there for less than $50 for either of their races, good for you. My guess is you're watching the "future" NASCAR drivers at those prices. Mind telling me where you're sitting? A $20 voucher for concessions. So you're all splitting the hot dog then?

As far as North Wilkesboro, that's where NASCAR started, and there wasn't an empty seat in the house. Ever. Yes, it was a small track, but my point is NASCAR just got too big for it's britches, too fast. Like another poster mentioned, they tries to turn NASCAR into the WWE. Too much Hollywood, and not enough pure racing.

Whatever. Enjoy your ARCA races.

[MichMan]

46. I LOVE the ARCA Series

I find your post very confusing. You say NASCAR has too much Hollywood and not enough racing, yet you attempt to put in a jab to me about the ARCA Series which would seem to be the exact type of racing you say you want.

Guess what. I LOVE the ARCA Series. Some of the best racing of the season. I have seen dozens and dozens of ARCA races a several tracks. They have the most versatile schedule in all of stock car racing; Superspeedways, Short Tracks and Dirt Miles.

Yes, I will enjoy every lap of them !

Been a season ticket holder at Michigan for 30 years

From the MIS website

"Four Pack

Looking for a deal for your group or family of four? Save up to $237 with the four pack!
Package Details:
4 Sunday Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Tickets
$20 in MIS Money
Buy now for $179-$219! "

http://www.mispeedway.com/Tickets/Ticket-Packages.aspx

[SergeStorms]

47. OK....

Now it's $179-219. Again, where would you be sitting with those tickets. Turn 1, row 4?

Let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that. When most people hear 'NASCAR' they're thinking of the old Winston Cup, Sprint Cup, this year the Monster Energy Cup. Next year? They don't have a sponsor. Guess why? Because it costs too damned much, and Monster got the Cup sponsorship at a deep discount, but they're not in for next year.

So when you're talking ARCA races you're not talking the racing most people associate with NASCAR. Hey, enjoy the races, and to tell you the truth, I enjoy watching a dirt track race more than I enjoy going to a NASCAR ??? Cup race. Have a happy!

[MichMan]

50. Monster has extended for 2019

Announced a month ago


https://www.sbnation.com/nascar/2018/4/10/17171224/monster-energy-contract-extension-cup-series-entitlement-sponsor

[SergeStorms]

51. I wasn't aware of that.

Thanks for the link. Peace.

[USALiberal]

3. Has to be the most boring sport ever. nt

[ret5hd]

4. Wait for it...wait for it...

TURN LEFT!
Wait for it...wait for it...
TURN LEFT!
Wait for it...wait for it...
TURN LEFT!
Wait for it...wait for it...
TURN LEFT!

[USALiberal]

5. LOL, exactly!! nt

[flotsam]

14. Just write

"I'm clueless" four times...

[Julian Englis]

20. NASCAR races are run counter-clockwise

So all the turns are to the left.

[flotsam]

21. Actually two races a year are run on road racing courses...

and one can speak here of horse races without someone claiming they're boring because the tracks are ovals...

[Dave Starsky]

38. To be fair, there is that whole pit stop thing.

You know, you can't enter out of order, or when the light isn't green, etc.

That usually keeps me and my family on the edge of our seats.

[jmowreader]

6. Hopefully some of the France family's bright ideas will end with his departure

I am thinking:

stage racing
keeping lug nuts instead of changing to a single wheel nut
post-race teardown inspections
weekly rule changes
the Laser Inspection Station and templates

And decide on one format for the Chase and stick to it. The NFL Playoffs haven't changed since the Super Bowl was invented. Why does NASCAR change theirs every stinkin' season?

[SergeStorms]

23. They think.....

it's more interesting for the fans (it isn't) and they think it's more fair for the smaller teams (nope). I lost interest years ago when they gave up the short tracks where NASCAR got it's roots, and when they started with all these rule changes. They took a winning formula for family entertainment and changed it into a losing formula for everyone. It just costs too damned much money now for a family to afford a single race each year! When you go to a dance, you dance with the one that brung 'ya. The France family forgot that.

[jmowreader]

24. The "small team" mystique is bad for NASCAR

But what's really going to help, if the Frances really do sell NASCAR, the sanctioning body won't own 60 percent of the tracks on the circuit.

[SergeStorms]

25. Bingo!

That's exactly right. They've run the sport into the ground, and it's time for them to move on. They should have done it decades ago.

[MichMan]

35. Do you favor massive cheating in sporting events?

1) Why is the number of lug nuts that important to you ?

2) Post race teardowns and laser inspections & templates stop everyone from cheating. How else do you enforce the rules?

3) Just wondering, did the NFL playoffs always have wild cards eligible since Super Bowl 1 ?

[JunkYardDogg]

8. OK, so where do we start......

I will start where jmowreader left off...

There are a lot of empty seats at every race nowadays, as much as the cameras try to not show it,
1. The cars have zero charisma, compare to IMSA sports cars
2. The racing is actually not even interesting
3. Daytona, their flagship race is really bad
4. Their fan base probably is having Trumpian income problems, so they cannot afford to go to the races

I only watch the last 20 laps, just to see who wins
The driver are all Rethugs, except for Keswolski,
Not only that, They are all infected by being religious extremist believers, and every post race interview involves every driver invoking their religious beliefs, I can't watch that any longer
Liberty University sponsors one driver, who just graduated from that Madrasa
The Confederate Flags in the in field are a real turn off
The demographics the same
At Talledega, the announcers were talking about Jimmie Johnson's performance or lack of, so the camera was put on their pit box top to show the crew chief, mind you this was on pit row, the area surrounding them is restricted, behind the crew chief , in the background was a Confederate flag flying, they had 2 shots of that, somebody in the TV control both figured it out, the next shot was at a different angle, so that the flag was not visible

And again, the demographics are a real turnoff

Sports Car racing and Indy Cars are really interesting, the cars have massive charisma, the racing is fantastic, the demographics are educated, intelligent people, no fucking religion
They race on road courses
No comparison

I am a long time race fan, saw Earnhardt win his first championship at the old Ontario track, saw NASCAR race at Riverside
NASCAR today is just Butt Ugly

[7962]

9. How are the demographics today different from when you saw Earnhardt at Ontario?

And how in the world would you know the political affiliations of all the drivers? I've never seen a stat sheet showing that info.

[JunkYardDogg]

40. I have done a bit of research on that, out of curiosity

All that I saw were R's except for Kes

You can root around on google and find stuff like that

Back in those days, our country was not so politicized and divided, by religious extremism and rascism
The divide was not so apparent, we went to see racin', still, back then we knew that the base was rednecks, but it was no big deal

[House of Roberts]

19. I have wondered for years,

as time after time they have repaved Daytona and Talladega, why they haven't lowered the banking. It would do more for those events than any other thing to help renew interest if they could end the 'restrictor plate era'. Progressive banking has ruined Bristol, which has suffered old school fans losing interest in that venue.
They have been accused of throwing late race cautions for debris just to prevent runaway finishes. I was surprised yesterday that they didn't do that as Harvick kept getting farther and farther ahead at the end

[MichMan]

34. So you want them to tear down the entire track?

You know, Fenway Park is a old ballpark, They should knock down the outfield walls so it is symmetrical like other stadiums

[House of Roberts]

39. The best time to reduce the slope of the banking would be during a repaving.

Reducing the banking would slow the cars in the corners, which would reduce the overall speeds, and end the need for restrictor plates. The drivers would no longer be flat on the floor all around the track which would get rid of the pack racing that creates huge wrecks.
It wouldn't require 'tearing down the whole track'. The top of the turns simply wouldn't be as tall as they are now.

[MichMan]

31. Other than the Indy 500, attendence at IMSA and Indycar races is even worse than NASCAR

[JunkYardDogg]

41. It has always been like that

NASCAR is the 900 pound gorilla of Racing

Indy Car Racing committed suicide when Tony George destroyed it

IMSA went thru bad times due to lack of money, etc, they do not get the exposure they should have,
The attendance is not indicative of the quality of the racing, the cars, and the drivers

[rockfordfile]

53. I would say

I would say a good number of them are right-wingers. Earnhardt was a Democrat. Yeah Nascar screwed up when it went all right-wing. Sarah Palin to Donald Rumsfield were grand marshals.

[Aristus]

10. I was guessing that all the really talented drivers are out smuggling meth.

Come to think of it, meth is probably also the reason the stands are empty...

[Zorro]

11. NASCAR Winning Strategy

An Onion classic.

[Stallion]

16. ++++

[JunkYardDogg]

42. Wow!!!!!

I never fucking knew!!!!
Good info
Knowledge is powerful

Thanks

[Woodycall]

12. And to top it all off

Emmanuel Macron didn't even stop in to see his old friend Ricky Bobby when he was here recently.

[gay texan]

13. NASCAR has been dead for a long time

What was once an awesome place for automotive skunk works is no more. NASCAR adopted a WWE wrestling model and effectively killed it.

F1, motocross, road racing, drag racing, is vastly more interesting than NASCAR.

[Hortensis]

15. My husband told me the other day that tickets for next week were $144 each,

though he didn't know where in the stands. (He was watching a race, and I asked because the there's such big money involved now. And apparently the family decided to save/make more money by making the teams do with one less pit crew member or something.)

In any case, no surprise to read that popularity is dropping off. Their traditional working class base can't afford to walk in the gate. No longer anything to do with them, really.

[MichMan]

32. Tickets to my local NASCAR track are $179 for a family 4 pack

includes a $20 concession stand voucher too.

Not close to $144 ea

[Hortensis]

37. Must have been good seats. But $90 for a couple

to sit on a bench instead of watching from home is a lot of money for half the population.

[Stallion]

17. Are You not Entertained by "Boogity Boogity Let's Go Racing?"

[Calista241]

55. I just watched that entire video. lol. Consider me entertained.

[Sam McGee]

18. I didn't leave NASCAR -- NASCAR left me

I had season tickets to Talladega and Bristol and often picked up tickets to Darlington and Martinsville. Gave up Darlington and Martinsville in 2002; ditched Bristol and Talladega in 2009.

Because:

-- Tickets too damn expensive.
-- Boring. When was the last time you saw a driver get out of his car, grab a lug wrench, and go after another driver? I mean, shit, if a driver says anything negative about another driver, he's fined.
-- Cookie-cutter cars are all the same under the skin; no such thing as Ford, Chevy, Toyota -- all the same car.
-- Pretty-boy drivers.
-- NASCAR changed the names of all the races. For example -- WTF kind of races are these:
Advance Auto Parts Clash
Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500
TicketGuardian 500
Auto Club 400
KC Masterpiece 400
Gander Outdoors 400

WTF happened to:
Race at Darlington
Night Race at Bristol
Talladega
Race at Martinsville

The last straw was when they paved Bristol with two grooves, to prevent wrecks.

[SergeStorms]

26. I feel exactly the same way.

I used to go to at least three races a year on my own, and a buddy of mine was the corporate liaison between Kodak and Morgan/McClure Racing. I'd go at at least two or three races a year as a guest of Kodak (I still paid my own way though). That was a gas! In the transporter with Tony Glover and Runt Pitman. Out to dinner with Sterling Marlin, the McClure gang, Runt, Tony and the boys. Those were Sterlings winning years, when the #4 car dominated at the super-speedways.

Ahhh, the good old days. But you're 100% correct. NASCAR left me, I didn't leave them. It got so Kodak couldn't afford a team anymore. It cost over $20 million a year when they bailed out. They were going through corporate restructuring (firing lots of people) at that time as well. They couldn't justify the expenditure anymore. Money, money, money. It's always about money.

[MichMan]

33. Kodak probably couldn't afford to sponsor anything these days

[SergeStorms]

48. You're absolutely correct about that!

Kodak is a mere shadow of it's former Dow Jones Industrial Average days. The thing is, they owned just about every digital photography patent. But Kodak was a dinosaur, and couldn't get out of it's own way. They made more money in silver halide photography, so they refused to use the digital patents. The period of protection on those patents ran out, and everyone who could manufacture a digital camera, did. I worked in R&D there for over 30 years and got out in the late 90s while the getting was good. After that it's been nothing but massive layoffs and cost cutting. The same old American story.

I used to go to MIS with my buddy. I was in the pits in August of '94, the morning Ernie Irvan kissed the wall in turn 2 going 170 mph. What a cluster%^#@ that was! It was really sad. We all ended up in Ann Arbor for the rest of the weekend to be near Ernie until his family got there. He wasn't expected to make it through the night, but he made almost a full recovery. He was never really the same after that, and he was having such a great year in '94 too! Then Sterling Marlin. That's weird because I remember his Dad, Coo Coo, driving when I was a kid. Sterling is a great guy with a wicked sense of humor.

Like I said, the old days. I'd rather go to a dirt track race now, and there's plenty of them within a 50 mile radius of me. I didn't mean to rattle your chain in that other post. Just a couple different points of view, that's all. Take care.

[pstokely]

52. Kodak feared digital photography cannibalizing film sales

and they always expected people would still want prints of their pictures like they had for the past 100 years instead of looking at them on a screen

[SergeStorms]

54. The joke was on them....

well, them and around 100,000 employees worldwide. Morons.

[JunkYardDogg]

43. You left out the NRA 500

Soon Liberty University Madrasa will sponsor a race,
Shit maybe they will buy the series

[SergeStorms]

49. Yeah...

they don't have a sponsor after this year. Monster is moving on, and they got the Cup sponsorship at a deeply discounted rate compared to Sprint.

[nitpicker]

28. In the old days

On Sundays, one could turn on the TV, the radio, or both to catch the race and it would be over by dinnertime.

With a very few night races on Saturdays.

Now:

TV: A lot of FS1 and NBCSN races. Come on, who has the money to splurge for a PREMIUM sports package on cable? And I don't think those who could afford that include many NASCAR fans.

Radio? A couple of local stations used to carry the races. They don't anymore.

And the Frances think the will get BIG money if they sell? ha.ha.

[MichMan]

36. Also in the old days there were no internet forums either for people to complain

Find it interesting when people complain about how great the old days were while typing on a computer and posting on the internet

lol

[a la izquierda]

29. I used to follow it to some degree, mostly because my husband did and it was something to do Sundays

We went to Texas back in, oh, 2009 or so. Race was so boring we both dozed off (we were in our early 30s) and then bailed before it was over.
I haven't watched a race since, unless you count Talladega Nights.

[Blue_Tires]

44. Good...

NASCAR has been a sinking ship for years now and it's long past due to bring it into the 21st century...

Even the high-profile races now are damn near unwatchable...