Are Soft Pay Walls Next?

This is the Statt Mann Baby. Time to Scatt a little bit.

I heard a comment that resonated while watching my favorite Sunday Morning news program. It was from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich who was talking about the labor unrest in Hollywood.

He said we’re all in the U.S. economy together. And he implied that companies who withhold pay from labor will soon find there’s not enough people to buy the goods for sale in the marketplace.

The other side of that coin is emerging in the motorsports marketplace now.

Programming is disappearing behind pay walls. The argument is the industry needs more money to sustain itself. But the key corner of an industry triangle is audience and, if audience can no longer afford the product, where’s the industry go then?

Now, I can hear the shrieks now. The problems in Hollywood are the fault of unions who want something for nothing. In Hollywood, producers say they’re taking the monetary risks so they should reap the monetary harvest. But in racing, if producers don’t have an audience to sell to sponsors, there’s no industry.

No audience. No product. No product. No sales. No sales. No industry.

Are softer pay walls the answer in racing? I don’t think so.

Secretary Reich is correct. We’re in this thing together.

Peace.