Hometown paper cites NASCAR's problem

My hometown newspaper, the Goldsboro (NC) News-Argus, ran a sports column on Friday diagnosing a dire need for NASCAR going forward:

NASCAR desperately needs parody.

The Goldsboro News-Argus - Embarrassing Wayne County since 1885

Yes, reporter Andrew Stevens breaks it down for us like this:

Limited, yet intriguing parody is what the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the NFL, Major League Baseball and the NBA all have in common — and working in their favor.

It’s what NASCAR desperately lacks and continues to suffer without just three races into the season. The sport has already landed with a resounding thud.

The season began in mid-February with the Daytona 500 and the annual “great American race” turned into a marathon that lasted over six hours thanks to multiple delays caused by a pothole between turns 1 and 2.

In each of the past two weeks at Fontana and Las Vegas, NASCAR has seen its television ratings drop by a million households compared to the numbers for those same two races a year ago.

Parody is the problem.

Personally, I thought Talladega Nights was parody at its finest.  But  if  “parody” is truly the problem, maybe NASCAR can call on the fine folks at Saturday Night Live for some help.  How about a copy of “Mad Magazine” doing a NASCAR-inspired special issue?

Really?  “Parody” when you mean “parity”?  How many editors  – print and web – read that column before it was posted?  Once is an oversight.  But the word is used twice in the body of the article and in the headline!  I will have to ask my dad if the print version also has “parody”.  Sheesh – it’s not like Goldsboro has a lot to be proud of, and now the newspaper is vying for a spot on Jay Leno’s crazy headlines segment.

But as to Stevens’ point, Jimmie Johnson’s dominance of NASCAR is part of the equation but is not the reason racing’s numbers are down.  Despite his four points championships in the last four years, he has only won 29 out of 144 races during that time, or about 1 in 5 races.  Yes, that is dominant in a sport where there are 40+ other drivers competing every week, but NASCAR is essentially an individual sport and fans follow individual drivers over individual races.  Johnson winning 1 in 5 races means other drivers are winning the other 4 of 5 times.  Plus, the points championship (the “Sprint Cup” in “Sprint Cup Racing”)  is important, but not the end-all like team-based tournament sports.

NASCAR’s struggles have had more to do with a down economy and a product that essentially requires fans going to races in person to commit multiple days to the event.  And as for the TV ratings, it’s still early, and the past two weekends have had to fight the Olympics (including USA-Canada hockey that drew an amazing ratings number).  If TV ratings are sagging for the July Daytona race,  then let’s entertain talk of larger issues.

But despite my being a grammar guerrilla, let’s cut my man Andrew Stevens and the News-Argus a break and give NASCAR a little parody.

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