The economy, NASCAR and freedom

The economic downturn that has made life more difficult for many Americans over the last 5 years has also been unfriendly to NASCAR, which was America's fastest growing sport less than one decade ago. With this in mind, fans have banded together to form the independent nonprofit Race Fans For Freedom (RF4F), that works to spread knowledge of the economic opportunity, competition, and personal responsibility that made America great. RF4F's latest report outlines how much NASCAR relies on a healthy growing economy and how the recession has hurt the sport for both race teams and fans. Some notes from the report:

• As the unemployment rate began to climb starting in 2008, a rising attendance started to fall, and in 2010 attendance dropped below the 4 million for the first time since 2003. As people either lose or fear losing their jobs, they cut back on trips to the track.
• Team sponsorship is expensive, so when the economy slows, and choices need to be made about which costs to cut, advertising through race sponsorship is a likely first place to start cutting and teams can race less often.
•  The stock prices for the two major track ownership groups, International Speedway Corporation and Speedway Motorsports, Inc., were rising on average from 2002 until 2007, when the stock prices of each firm began to fall.  The prices bottomed out in early 2009 as the economy has floundered.
• During bad economic times, sponsors, looking for their money to gain a bigger return, choose to  focus their attention on the larger, more noticeable teams.  This has caused the income gap from rich to poor to expand, leading to a greater concentration of success in a few teams.
• When inflation and prices rise, putting a race team together gets more expensive.