The Winds Of Change...

Hey Everyone! :-)

You know, it's interesting the way NASCAR took the lead in the modern-day civil rights movement when it comes to sports corporate leadership. Honestly, I'd have thought it would be the NBA, or that maybe the NFL would do an abrupt about-face on the movement. Hell, I'd even have guessed baseball would bow to public opinion before NASCAR.

But then I got to thinking. Professional sports have been suspended for months because of COVID-19. And, yeah, they're trying to figure out how to resume them safely but, candidly, I doubt they'll really be able to do that until a vaccine is developed. Oh, they might start holding sporting events before that, but it won't be safe for either the players or the fans. So how sustainable it will be is an open question.

But NASCAR is different from a lot of other sports. The "players" are in cars, not in physical contact with each other. And, yes, there are still the teams of people who tend to the cars and the drivers, but they can travel together and stay together within their teams and away from other teams.

Sure, there will still be some personnel who will be different from location to location; the facility staff, medical professionals, etc. But they may largely be able to organize the drivers and their individual teams into self-contained units and so create a reasonably safe environment for races to be held. Granted, not with live spectators, but it would be more than people have now.

NASCAR, due to the basic nature of the sport, is one of the few sports that might be able to pull off safe-ish sports during a pandemic. And with sports fans desperate for fresh content, doing so could be a potential goldmine. Their only real problem is their image.

Traditionally, NASCAR has been largely regional. Yes, obviously, there are individual NASCAR fans all over the country, and probably the world, but it's still a sport with a fan base that's mostly concentrated in the south and midwest. And even within those regions, its fans are almost entirely white. So, even with a country full of sports fans who are starved for their entertainment of choice, it's still conceivable NASCAR might have trouble attracting new eyeballs.

Now enter the growing national attention on the Black Lives Matter movement, and the swing in public opinion regarding symbols of the Confederacy, and NASCAR suddenly has an opportunity. It's an opportunity that comes with a gamble -- after all, their existing fan base may not welcome their shifting stance and its attendant changes in rules -- but it's an opportunity nonetheless.

But, apparently, the powers that be in NASCAR decided to cast those dice. They're betting that the attention, and goodwill, they generated by choosing the correct side of history, at this juncture, will be remembered when they get their races up and running. They're hoping sports fans across America and of all different racial and ethnic makeups will hear about a race on tv and think back to when NASCAR took a stand and chose the truly "courageous" position that white supremacy is bad and the symbols of white supremacy are cruel, hurtful, and do not reflect the principles that America is supposed to be founded on.

Yes, I know, a truly radical stance. And, yet, as I said, not one that comes without risks. Because, as I'm sure we're all painfully aware, there is a significant portion of the population in the US who don't agree with those sentiments. And, historically, there has been a rather large overlap between that portion of the population and NASCAR's fan base.

But, as the song tells us, the times, they are a-changin'. And the younger generations are far less likely to be sympathetic towards or nostalgic for the unquestioned acceptance of racism that has largely been the norm in the past, and still, sadly, often is. That's a sea change in the national paradigm that's real and growing, and it's something NASCAR is banking on.

Coupled with the fact that there are a whole lot of potential new fans who aren't white and/or who live in other parts of the US than the south and midwest, that sports fans in general will be more open to trying something new in the absence of their sport of choice, and that even people who don't like the changes might overlook them because they want sports to watch more than they want to be openly racist, and NASCAR is betting that their gamble will pay off big. Not just now, but in the future, if they're able to hook new fans and get them invested in the sport.

Will it work? I don't know. Personally, I don't really have a dog in this fight; I wouldn't willingly watch NASCAR, or any professional sports, if you paid me in Amazon stocks and orgasms. But, objectively speaking, it's an interesting strategy. And I'm very much looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

Peace!