Millennials and the future of auto racing
Imagine a future where the whole concept of a car culture shifts. A future where the youth of America are not overly concerned about muscle cars like the 60’s and 70’s or the rolling status symbols of the 80’s and 90’s. A future where youth culture is concerned about environmental issues like CO² emissions, climate change, and the depletion of fossil fuels. And don’t forget about a future where technology rules and everything is “on demand.” Now imagine how that all gets rolled into the auto racing fans of the future. Those fans, better known as Millennials¹, are here now.
Crusty old Bernie Ecclestone at F1 has made it clear that he, and by extension F1, are not interested in creating new fans since young people do not have any money. Bernie has always used himself as F1’s target audience; he’s only interested in other rich guys. So while he is waiting for all those types to spring into existence, he has alienated his European promoters and allowed his teams to sink under the weight of enormous costs. Over at NASCAR, the one-time American racing bully and its partners have been pulling seats from all of their tracks to make tickets more elite. Well-managed but sometimes tone-deaf, the series is slowly moving away from the mainstream and back to its guns, camouflage, and beer Southern roots. Nothing wrong with that at all. They know their core audience and go after it hard.
All of this begs the following question: Is auto racing too expensive and elite as in F1 or too rural and redneck as in NASCAR for the Millennials to follow? Whatever series captures this demographic while simultaneously keeping their own core fans will be the one to assert their dominance.
It would seem Formula E would have an edge here. This electronic series, described as having forklift motors and Formula Ford chassis with bad tires, certainly checks some boxes of the Millennials: it’s green, technologically relevant, and cool. The racing, while slow and quiet, is really pretty competitive when you get past the lack of sound and speed. The fact is that Millennials might not know the difference. Plus, they have some big name sponsorship with BMW, DHL, Michelin, TAG Heuer, and Qualcomm. What series wouldn’t want that? What it does not have is an existing core fan base. It’s starting from scratch.
Which brings us to the Verizon IndyCar Series. This is the series best positioned to connect young fans to old fans and begin its ascent to greater popularity. The series certainly brings a rabid, albeit small, fan base. Unlike F1, it is not sinking under he weight of outrageous cost. The argument can be made that it was sinking under the weight of less-than-stellar management. No longer. Technology giant Verizon markets the phones and data that Millennials desire. That checks another box. The racing is superb, which trumps the slo-mo action on the Formula E circuit. The Verizon IndyCar Series’ willingness to race on any type of circuit gets it into places that F1 and NASCAR cannot go: city centers. IndyCar can bridge the past to the future.
Need more? The introduction of the new aero kits has been big news from the non-traditional media as well as the racing media. Articles appeared in Wired, The Verve, DesignBoom.com, Fox News, USA Today, and Jalopnik. Okay, Jalopnik is a car site but it’s not a racing site. The article there is outstanding. IndyCar has some buzz going on about things that are not the bad news of recent years or Indy 500-centric. Just as yellow flags breed more yellow flags in a race, good coverage breeds more good coverage in the media. At least IndyCar fans hope that is true.
IndyCar promoters should look to the Indy 500 and IMS for lessons on how to hook Millennials while keeping their core fans. At the corporate Snake Pit in the infield at the 500 this year, Millennials will pulse to the beat of world-class EDM (electronic dance music) DJ Kaskade. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know who this is. The Millennials do. And it matters if you want to hook them. Can you imagine this at Daytona? IMS caters to its other demographics with rock and roll on Carb Day and a top flight country show on Saturday. This stuff matters! If a race fan doesn’t care about it, great. Just go to the race. You are an important demographic, too. Quit being so stuffy about it all.
The ascension of the Verizon IndyCar Series is under way. Real business people are running the show, real research is being done, and they have a real product to sell. As the character of Penny Lane explains so well in the Cameron Crowe movie Almost Famous, “It’s all happening.” Be there or be square.
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¹ Millennials are the demographic group following Generation X. Birth years of this group range from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. These are the coveted money spenders of the future.
New Track Record 