Comments on: The Costly Silence of Apathy

By: TheAmericanMutt

TheAmericanMutt — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 17:20:38 +0000

It’s an unfortunate side effect of being family, ceo, and board member. They did essentially fire George too though.

By: hadrianmarcus

hadrianmarcus — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:04:08 +0000

I passionately follow horse racing and auto racing…two sports that are slowly fading into a shadow of their former greatness. Horse racing is cursed with breeders, owners, race tracks…all acting in their own best interests…and rarely unified in doing for the betterment of the sport in general or for the fans that support it. Each year, the sport sheds about 5-10% of its existing fans through apathy or death. Indycar is the same. Everyone wants their little piece of power and no one is caretaking the sport in general. What is particularly sad is Indycar actually had a trace of momentum recently. If I was a sponsor, nothing could motivate me to step into the drama-filled environment of Indycar. And both sports have been pushed from Network TV to ESPN to finally second-tier sports networks. Good luck building a fan base and good luck keeping the aging one you already have.

By: billytheskink

billytheskink — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:39:59 +0000

I think the problem that a lot of fans are having is that this first rule of responsibility was the effin truth for Randy Bernard, but not so much for his predecessors. That’s the perception, anyways.

By: the american mutt

the american mutt — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 03:04:35 +0000

On the subject of apathy, again, rb has had nothing but indifference from this fan since that tweet in may.

By: the american mutt

the american mutt — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 03:03:34 +0000

Uultimately, the first rule of responsibility is everything is your fault. Love it or hate I ts the effin truth. Had china happened I don’t think we’d be having this conversation. Its. Hard for any board to shrug off such a loss with no built in guarenteed money. At least they could have built in a recoup of travel expenses.

By: the american mutt

the american mutt — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 03:01:18 +0000

Good points gekk, though I suspect wed have a new car anyway.

By: billytheskink

billytheskink — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:22:42 +0000

One of the best bits of writing I’ve read on this whole sorry situation.
Apathy is what shrunk the fanbase during the split, and it’s what will kill this sport if things don’t change.

It has been my experience that few things make potential fans more apathetic than an angry, woe begotten core fanbase (the Chicago Cubs are the one notable exception to this). Who can blame them? I wouldn’t want to start following a sport or team with a perpetually angry fanbase, out of fear that following that sport or team would make me angry as well.

By: The Speedgeek

The Speedgeek — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:20:43 +0000

Here’s the deal: had Randy (or somebody with an “outsider’s” perspective) not made the decisions that have been made over the last 32 months, what would we currently have?

1. We’d probably be going into year #11 with the Dallara IR03, and into year #8 of an all-Honda field. We’d probably also be coming off of another year where Penske and Ganassi won 80-90% of the races, due to their magic set up books.

2. Milwaukee (and several other fan-requested races) probably wouldn’t have happened at all in 2011 or 2012, and it’d probably be off the table for 2013.

3. Experimentation with doubleheaders/heat races/etc. probably wouldn’t be happening, and we’d have the same old on track product as always (see #1 again).

4. Firestone would still have doubled their price 2 years ago, and the Series would be vulnerable to another such doubling of price (or even complete withdrawl by Firestone), since no alternative would be on the horizon (it would appear that the drivers and team owners aren’t really interested in talking about that side of the Firestone coin).

5. Upcoming Dreamworks movie? A figment of all of our imaginations, as we drift off to sleep with nightmares of Sly Stallone and Kip Pardue dancing in our heads.

6. I won’t even touch the social media savviness, since that stuff was just a bonus with RB.

We’d be right where we were in 2009/2010. Remember those seasons? Anybody wish we were still there? Meanwhile, what did firing Randy actually accomplish, other than to highlight the fact that this sport insists on hitting the front office “reset” button every 24-48 months in perpetuity, regardless of whether or not it makes any sense to do so? That’s no way to grow your sport in the media’s and national public’s consciousness. That’s why this is so frustrating to me. If the sport’s team ownwers and management can’t learn that, then they are have to get real comfy with sub-1.0 TV numbers and dwindling crowds at the track. Insisting on bringing in another new guy to fix all the things that the last guy couldn’t in 2-3 years (which will be a lot, and mark my words, this whole scenario is going to repeat itself, probably sooner rather than later) is going to result in even further diminishing returns, when we should have all hands pulling in the same direction to glorify and polish what we have.

I just wish that my favorite sport were capable of learning even one lesson after years and years of shooting itself in the foot over and over again. It breaks my freaking heart.

By: redcar

redcar — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:14:52 +0000

And I guess my point, Mutt, is that–considering all the different factions and agendas within the sport–he did as good as could be expected. But I suppose we’ll see how good or bad Bernard was about a year from now when we compare him to the next CEO of Indycar.

By: the american mutt

the american mutt — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 17:59:28 +0000

Ill give you uniting the orad to indy as a good example, however, as good as that was, indy lights is much worse off than it was three years ago.

My point is, it sounds like, objectivly, he was largely bad at his job.