‘Tis The Merry Month ‘O May for Actual IndyCar Racing Fans

Evidently the Disciple fan club has gotten restless and I apologize for neglecting to inspire the special dreaming that comes to many from reading my quaint little missives. LOL.

Truth is the ‘ol D has been busy earning a living. Come Friday, however, the rest of the month is vacation and yours truly will be at the one place that is logical in May…the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Also, speaking with frank honesty, it is tedious trying to wade through the rampant illiteracy that plagues most IndyCar-centric sites. The Internet Television Executives are their usual Einstein-like selves as they attempt to position 12+ overnights as life or death every week. Those of us in the business continue to wait for anything resembling intelligence or discussion about the actual numbers used in such commerce. As usual most look backward for mostly arbitrary standards with no real cognizance of what is happing now and in the future.

There is literally no discussion of current trends such as programmatic selling or unbundling. You know who is flipping out right now? ESPN. Why? Last time I checked they were getting over $6.60 per subscriber. By contrast Fox Sports 1 gets less than a buck per. ESPN has always been ubiquitous in terms of basic cable and that has become an 8 billion dollar per year bonanza for the house of the mouse. Verizon and others are moving closer to ala carte pricing of channels to counteract the tendency of millennials to cut cords. One of the fundamental moves is offering a small number of basic channels supplemented by genre-themed add-ons. Therefore if you are a sports fan you might pay an extra ten bucks a month for a sports tier. Chances are you won’t include any tiers that include things like kid channels or Lifetime or Oprah or any of that tripe. On the other hand if you are a woman not into sports you may not need or want a sports tier. What ultimately results is ESPN in a lot fewer households than today. ESPN/Disney is startlingly pissed about that and is doing everything they can, including lots of lawyers, to halt the status quo from changing.

Change, however, is inevitable. Pining for a better IndyCar television package is not the way to go. The correct path is figuring a way to disseminate product offerings on a much wider variety of platforms anytime anyone wants to consume them. This harkens back to an earlier idea about launching a non-linear network(s) that features all the rich content of the past that links to live events carried by current partners.

Which brings us back around to the 99^th running. The May 3 opening day harkened back to the good old days and despite way too many opening day snafus, such as only being able to play twangy country music from someone employee i-Pod, made many ask the question about what those responsible for getting that right have been doing for the past eleven months.

That said the aero kits are compelling, speeds have jumped and IMS is slowly being refurbished . I can do without the Sunoco gas station signs at either end of the pits but love the corporate sponsorship.

If anyone needs me I will be where I usually am in May. Strolling the grounds of IMS and/or very nearby.