Business is good, France says in annual address

The business of business is, oddly enough, business, or so they say.

When you're the CEO of a business that makes its money entertaining people, then the business of business is staying ahead of the curve. Brian France, the CEO of NASCAR, has quite a job doing just that, but in spite of the rigors of the job, he's getting it done.

Follow the rules

NASCAR is not afraid to suspend drivers in order to uphold the rules, said the sport's CEO Brian France.

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France talked of many things when he sat down with the media at Daytona last week, and much of it had to do with his business. Topics ranged from TV to the pending announcement of a sponsor for the Busch Series to international expansion, and all of it was very interesting from a business standpoint.

Television was a hot topic, because ratings are flat or declining across the board. France met that one head on.

"Look, ratings in sports, depending on the storyline, what else is going on, lots of factors," he said. "They're always choppy, even for us. They have been in the past. You have to look at things over two-, three-, four-year cycles, not three months. Our product is still very, very strong.

"Once again, last weekend the No. 1 watched sporting event of the weekend. We are either one or two almost every weekend. Attendance is doing very well. No concerns there. We are tied a little bit to rising fuel costs. We're not immune to those kind of issues.

"From time to time our fans are affected in the pocketbook, and that will show up from time to time."

As to how the fans are affected in the pocketbook -- and that's a big part of the business for NASCAR -- France said he was aware of what was bugging the majority of them, as well as the constituent tracks and other entities involved in the sport.

The two main items of interest that France spoke about were ticket prices and hotel bills. Anyone who has shelled out more than $100 per ticket for a race and then turned around and plunked down $250 per night for a room that sells for less than half that any other night of the year is interested in his answer.

"Well, the tracks have the biggest concern of them all," France said. "They want to give value to their customers. They don't want to see hotels price-gouge multiple days more than anybody else does. They don't want to see fuel prices high. That's a big concern.

"Our fans travel obviously a lot by car and RV. They're very, very mindful of trying to do everything they can, whether it's free parking, a better price on a Friday or qualifying day, so that they're sold out, they can get somebody in that wants to experience a little bit of NASCAR firsthand. They're running lots of different promotions.

"They have the biggest concern of anyone that we don't price the fan out of being able to attend the events. They're building more seats in some cases. They are seats that they can sell in a less expensive capacity. They're all over it.

"But look, a lot of things are even out of their control. I know in the communities, they work more closely than ever with the hotels, restaurants, to try to look at the NASCAR events and not take total advantage of it. Ultimately, the marketplace works its way around these issues. I can tell you the tracks and NASCAR are looking at it always."

On the topic of international expansion, France didn't have much to report, only that he and key NASCAR personnel went to China to look at the new Formula One track there.

"[We were] in Shanghai, talking to some people about international opportunities in the Far East," France said. "Nothing to report other than every time I get on the road and talk to people they're very familiar with what we're doing, like our style, like our brand of racing, lots of interest." (Continued)