So if he wants to drink in the non-alcohol section, smoke in non-designated areas,curse at the top of his lungs, stand up and block the view of other paying patrons. That's OK because he paid to get in. Non-certified broadcasting should never be allowed. You cannot scream fire in a dark movie theater. All of our rights require responsibility and usually end where the next person's nose begins.

Re: Kokomo
 

I remember when USAC would stream many of their races for free, Some tracks were against it and they didn't. Some allowed it every time. Some only allowed them to show the feature.

I always seen this as good PR and free publicity for the track.

Last year at Bloomington the lady sitting beside me was from Oregon, The people in front of me from Great Britain. Last Sat at Burg the people behind me were from Eastern WV. (CharlesTOWN) Not Charleston.

People are visiting because of what they are seeing and hear about. Im glad Speedshift is carrying many of these races. But like attending every race, I can't afford that either, Id much rather be able to pay full gate and buy a couple hot dogs while im there. It's just not the same. BUT IT IS A QUALITY WAY TO FOLLOW IT and the track makes a buck or two..

I'll bet that was "The Flying Farmer" Irvin King, a pretty good sprint car driver in his day, and a heck of a nice guy. Irvin and his wife Mary Jane
have been friends of mine for many years.

Re: Kokomo
 

Irvin King now that's a name I've not heard in a while! Used to watch him race at Hagerstown.

Re: Kokomo
 

Havent we had this conversation before......many times over :deadhorse:

Re: Kokomo
 

I would be surprised if he was actually making money off of this given that monetizing a personal facebook page is tough. If it were a branded page where they were drawing monetary value out of new "likes," sure, but it's a personal page and I've never seen him even ask for donations. Some fans purely do it because they love the sport, often more than any promoter you're going to find.

As for the streaming itself, every track has the right to ban it. But, it's a lot like concert recording, it's an unwinnable fight that will just create more bad will than whatever dollar amount they think they're losing. Personally, I think the crux of this is that somehow these tracks and sanctioning bodies expect people to pay more to watch it online than buying a ticket in the stands. Dirt racing will never be boxing, or MMA, or WWE in terms of selling overpriced PPVs. Nor can any live stream, Facebook or PPV, compete with the experience that being at the track offers. I really don't think that livestreams keep people at home from the track on a consistent basis, and probably end up making those you would never expect to bring to a track more familiar with the facility and the sport.

Like I said, they have every right in the world to take that stand, but I think it's shortsighted. Dirt racing isn't in the best place whether everyone wants to admit it or not. Those few dollars today pale in comparison to what growth would do for the sport. It's more engaged and exciting than any other form of racing, and subjectively any other sport, yet somehow it sits on the ladder somewhere between Extreme Ironing and Log Rolling in terms out outside exposure. Hell, even some of those sports have broadcast tv deals.

Somehow tournaments of people playing video games can have 600,000+ people watching concurrently and millions of unique viewers over the course of a weekend as they offer million dollar purses, but this extortionate PPV licensing path is what promoters take. It just seems shortsighted to me. It's kind of sad to watch race purses for a "national series" sit at a figure that is half of what some of these kids that play video games get paid just in ad revenue and donations on a practice day during the middle of the week.

I watch the facebook streams and videos all of the time, it has never made the decision as to whether I will skip going to the track. What it has done is make me more familiar and invested with local talent at dozens of tracks I would have never even considered visiting before.

I see where both sides are coming from with this, but lets not crucify this guy as some kind of monster because he's a hardcore racing fan and wants other people to enjoy it too. I don't think it's as malicious as people have made it out to be. Was there even any sort of sign posted prohibiting this last week or before? I've never really paid attention.

I don't know what kind of licensing deals these tracks are getting with these companies, but personally I'd sign up for a Youtube account, put a good camera on the grandstand perch, pipe in the announcer's audio, and use their PPV option to charge $5 night for regular shows and see what happens. A track would probably make more money that way because it's not an insulting price for an experience lacking the atmosphere of actually being there for those than can't make it. To each their own though.