How many more years for Indy 500?

[renard_ruse]

Indy car series is recording record low TV ratings this year. Indy 500 viewership has been in free fall over the past 5 years, and has been in decline for 20 years. Most people no longer even know what an Indycar is and think all auto racing is NASCAR. A few more sophisticated people know what F1 is. Most have no clue what Indycar is. Even in Indiana interest is limited more and more to a small niche.

Its an expensive sport, it will be curious to see how long it can sustain itself. Even sports in decline like horse racing and boxing get many times more viewers for their marquee events. Indycar isn't even on the sports radar anymore. Sad to see the decline of a great American tradition.

 

[snugglestruggle]

What they need is a new celebrity to reinvigorate the race. Perhaps a multiracial, bisexual, transgendered driver that's an illegal alien? Or Hillary Clinton driving the pace car.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

Indy car series is recording record low TV ratings this year. Indy 500 viewership has been in free fall over the past 5 years, and has been in decline for 20 years. Most people no longer even know what an Indycar is and think all auto racing is NASCAR. A few more sophisticated people know what F1 is. Most have no clue what Indycar is. Even in Indiana interest is limited more and more to a small niche.

Its an expensive sport, it will be curious to see how long it can sustain itself. Even sports in decline like horse racing and boxing get many times more viewers for their marquee events. Indycar isn't even on the sports radar anymore. Sad to see the decline of a great American tradition.

From what I understand, it doesn't sustain itself and hasn't for many years. The cars are essentially identical, using the same chassis, same tires, same fuel, same gearbox, and engines tuned to the same specifications from only two different suppliers (Chevy and Honda).

Motor racing used to be about ingenuity of engineering. Remember when Andy Granatelli ran, and very nearly won, the '67 and '68 races with a turbine powered car against a conventionally powered field? Nobody cares about that anymore even if owners and teams were allowed to find and exploit exotic performance capabilities, which they aren't.

It doesn't seem to be a test of anything anymore. It's basically a show of who happens to succumb to or survive the dumb luck of which car breaks under extreme physical demands and avoiding the handful of crashes that often result.

The full talent of the drivers are frequently held in check until they've "nursed" their rides through the first 475 miles or so. The the race starts.

It's still exciting to watch any human pilot a fucking missile over dry land amongst a pack of other missiles hurtling along only inches from each other, but the race's reason for being vanished decades ago.

 

[eyer]

Indy car series is recording record low TV ratings this year. Indy 500 viewership has been in free fall over the past 5 years, and has been in decline for 20 years. Most people no longer even know what an Indycar is and think all auto racing is NASCAR. A few more sophisticated people know what F1 is. Most have no clue what Indycar is. Even in Indiana interest is limited more and more to a small niche.

Its an expensive sport, it will be curious to see how long it can sustain itself. Even sports in decline like horse racing and boxing get many times more viewers for their marquee events. Indycar isn't even on the sports radar anymore. Sad to see the decline of a great American tradition.

And yet, on this 24th...

...175,000-225,000 people at minimum will attend the 99th running of the Indianapolis 500.

It has been said that upwards toward 400K attended the Greatest Spectacle in Racing in its heyday, but since the Speedway intentionally began eliminating virtually all of the past infield crowd (sometimes estimated at 75-100K very, very rowdy fans)...

...most fans today are regulated to grandstand seating (which is estimated to be 225,000).

This will mark the 70th running of the 500 under the stewardship of the Hulman-George family...

...and in not one of those years has the IMS, a privately-held entity, ever released an attendance figure for the May classic.