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."

The international aspects of NASCAR's future business are a potential gold mine -- if there's interest in it. After all, there won't be many RVs making the trip to China, but they can go to Montreal and Mexico City.

"We'll be careful of how we proceed, but we'll be looking at building our international platform with our event now coming up next month in Montreal, and of course having competed with the Busch Series south of the border in Mexico City," France said. "Both of those events, one we've already run a couple of years, but we're very optimistic about the Busch event. There's lots of interest in Canada. We knew there was a big fan base that was already there. Now taking a live event to that historic road course, we're all excited, lots of interest, and we'll see how that goes."

As for the Busch Series sponsor, France reported that the deal was in the works but some weeks off.

One of the biggest items that France addressed was a pair of lawsuits the sanctioning body is involved in, one with AT&T and the other with Kentucky Speedway. While not strictly business, the outcome could affect the way NASCAR does business, so it counts.

There wasn't much France could or would say about the AT&T case; it's in the courts and the wheels of justice grind slowly. The anti-trust implications of the Kentucky suit, however, are major.

"...That would have a very big impact on the entire industry," he said. "[It] is going down the road of the court system, as well. That will get concluded sometime early next year, if what our legal counsel tells us happens, in terms of staying on schedule. We're very adamant about our position. We look forward to defending ourselves at the appropriate time."

France sees the Kentucky case as a watershed for the industry, not just NASCAR.

"Well, we're just defending the whole industry's rights," France said. "We created an industry that a lot of people eat out of, that we're all proud of, that people are reliant on and count on how NASCAR does business.

"They would like to rewrite all that and benefit themselves. That's wrong. That's wrong to think that. We're going to hold up our end of the bargain and defend ourselves and defend everybody's right to manage the industry the way we have for the last, you know, 50 years, which has an undeniable success story anywhere you look. So that's what we're going to do and that's what we got to do."

Any time you can get the CEO to sit down and go over, point by point and topic by topic, the news of the day and how it affects the business of the sport, it's a good thing. France has made this "State of the Sport" trip since he took over as CEO in 2003, and it serves as a barometer for the next year or so.