Originally Posted by Charles Nungester:
My beef with Flo is that it seems Certain series and races get all the $$$$ while the Track (Which you have to have to have a race is sometimes losing a few hundred fans) *Mostly iffy weather ones* but still.
Get your point, but I think it goes deeper than this. Someone is going to have to show me empirical evidence of the benefit Flo provides, such as increased revenue for tracks/teams and a growth of the sport in terms of participants and fans. Frankly I'm not seeing it.
Flo comes in and essentially takes over a track, especially if it is a travel series they broadcast. It is likely that the track's support series never get on camera, or if they do it is heat races only and Flo is gone by feature time.
The track's regular announcers are booted in favor of who ever the series and/or Flo hires. They take over the PA and the track's sponsors are never heard all night long, a problem if the promoter has secured a title sponsor for the event and has sponsor people in attendance, or as part of the program (waving green, victory lane, etc). The stream guys never mention them.
If there is a decrease in fans, then there is also a decrease in concessions, which many promoters need to show a decent profit. And there is the potential of the community losing a few hotel reservations, restaurants losing business, gas stations, etc. I really can't say that streaming causes a huge loss of fans, maybe with bad weather or bad roads, I imagine the loss of fans is small. But I think we can say that the streaming isn't adding much in the way of fans. And a Flo broadcast isn't making the promoter's bottom line for the year.