Do You Buy NASCAR Tickets?

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

Some confirmation this week of the troubling issue of empty seats at NASCAR events across the country.

The three public companies that operate those NASCAR races all reported another down year for ticket sales.  That continues an eight year trend.

The 2015 numbers, however, were down slightly for International Speedway Corporation, Speedway Motorsports and Dover Motorsports.  And that could be good or bad news depending on the tint in your rose colored glasses.

Ticket sales since the record year in 2007 are down 49 percent.  But if you graphed out the numbers you’d see a line that’s flattening out. Maybe the spiral is slowing.

The other side of the argument, though, requires you to look at the number of seats available as grandstand downsizing continues throughout the industry. With fewer seats to sell, maybe the track owners are finding the sweet spot for fans who want tickets and the box office bloodletting is stopping..

Either way, there’s some concern.  Box office isn’t the key indicator for stock car popularity.  But if trends keep going down it shows a weakness in the business model going forward.

Peace.