Tobacco and Racing

[Rogue Leader]

So over the late 80's to 90's we saw the peak and fall of many series. We can look back and see that the early 90's was a great time to be a racing fan as you had so many strong series to choose from. We can also look back and pinpoint things that caused steep declines in all these series, basically mismanagement combined with two types of racing that went through a split (CART/IRL, and IMSA/ALMS/GARRA/PSC/WSC/everyother damn acronym they used did I get them all?). But we can also point out other previously strong series like Trans Am.

However I can't imagine all the people that enjoyed racing back then turned around on their principles and said F these guys im going home and started watching football, golf, soccer, etc. None of these series were able to come back out of their hole, the only two we could say survived relatively unscathed was NASCAR (where fields are even increasing now) and F1 (but they are in a bit of a decline, remember when there was so many teams we had pre-qualifying).

So almost concurrent with this but a few years later we have the loss of tobacco money in racing. Thats a whole lot of cash that could fund a whole lot of teams. So my question to all is, do you believe the true reason none of these series ever has (and very likely ever will) reach their late 80's/early 90's popularity level because of the loss of tobacco money? And if so, why didn't another industry step in? like maybe energy drinks, or was it by the time they became really big it was too late.

[cameraman]

and F1 (but they are in a bit of a decline, remember when there was so many teams we had pre-qualifying)

You didn't have $100-400 million dollar annual operating budgets then. The huge increases in the cost of going fast have done in (or seriously dinged) every form of racing that isn't held in developmental check by the rules, ie NASCAR. The GT1 & P1 "fields" this year are a great examples of "seriously dinged". Unlimited high tech racing simply costs too much to survive. Even if the split did not exist there is no way US open wheel racing could support spending on current F1 levels.

Taking tobacco out sure did not help things but the vast increases in the cost of the technology is the real problem.

[Indy]

I don't buy the cost argument. Teams will spend what they can afford.

But, the one thing we can say for sure about cost is that if you base the identity of your series on a specific set of relatively expensive technologies, then the revenues dry up, you will be hurting in a hurry (see CART to CCWS for the prime example).

But, given time to adjust, the types of racing will expand or contract their spending to match revenues. If anyone really wants to insure survival in the short run, they will be most concerned with supporting revenues.

[cameraman]

I don't buy the cost argument. Teams will spend what they can afford.

No they quit when they can't keep up, ie all those long gone F1 teams.

[ChrisB]

I'm glad that tobacco is diminishing in our society... but Rogue does make a good point. Tobacco was (still is) a huge revenue producing industry, and they spent HUGE sums of money on advertising because it's a commodity product which derives almost all its value from brand advertising.

Having a tobacco sponsor is like getting a golden goose. Notice how the top F1 and CART teams all seemed to be tobacco sponsored? It made the difference between being at the front of the grid or the back.

Nascar at least got it right by having Winston as the "overall" series sponsor, but disallowing individual teams to have tobacco sponsors (with the exception of RJR's Camel brand for a little while) ...this helped maintain parity.

USAC had Marlboro in the early 70's, but still allowed individual sponsorships, like the Vels-Parnelli Viceroy team.... that probably PO'd and sent Marlboro away.

I still prefer racing be without tobacco sponsors though.

[Ed_Severson]

None of these series were able to come back out of their hole, the only two we could say survived relatively unscathed was NASCAR (where fields are even increasing now) and F1 (but they are in a bit of a decline, remember when there was so many teams we had pre-qualifying).

Somebody else already complained about this, but for a different reason. I don't think it's fair to say F1 is in a decline because teams used to have to pre-qualify for grands prix and now they don't. The field size has been reduced by force of rule, not by economics. If Bernie would allow it, pre-qualifying would still exist and the bigger operations would run more than two cars.

As for the role of tobacco sponsorship in racing ... it's a bigger piece of the CART puzzle than a lot of people remember. Penske left CART for the IRL primarily because of anti-tobacco legislation in the United States. He ran Indianapolis in 2001 without Marlboro on the cars because the law prevented Marlboro from participating as a sponsor in more than one series and they had already sponsored Penske's CART effort. So, they fund the team that wins Indianapolis and can do absolutely nothing to advertise that fact. The next year, at the behest of Philip Morris, Penske was full-time IRL. Ganassi left the next season mainly because Penske has Chip about 50 feet behind him wherever he goes. Those two teams gave the IRL some credibility and after that, the smaller fish followed suit.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the loss of tobacco sponsorship has been a huge negative for motorsports, and it's happened for all the wrong reasons. Just another in a long line of unintended consequences the nanny state unleashes on the world. :(

[Indy]

No they quit when they can't keep up, ie all those long gone F1 teams.

Still not buying it. Like Ed says, there would be more F1 teams if it were permitted. Why? Because there is plenty of revenue to go around for those who participate.

I wonder, when the loss of tobacco bucks became evident, did anyone at CART sit down and really plan for how to replace the revenue to the teams? They must have known that it would be a huge loss for the series.

[Andrew Longman]

I wonder, when the loss of tobacco bucks became evident, did anyone at CART sit down and really plan for how to replace the revenue to the teams? They must have known that it would be a huge loss for the series.

They didn't really have to because the teams that had the sponsorship left. Marlboro/Penske to the IRL. Hollywood/Nunn to the IRL (then closed shop). Green/sans Kool to the IRL.

I think Players was the only other tobacco sponsor and frankly in all this time I can't understand why/how Forsythe hasn't managed to find somebody/anybody to sponsor his cars. Perhaps the sponsorship is really working for Indeck. :gomer:

BTW I used to do marketing work for PM, RJR and B&W. They look(ed) at these sponsorships with very shrewed eye. Smokers are incredibly loyal to their brand. Getting one new customer can be worth a fortune because they will likely keep buying for decades and literally until he/she dies.

Being shut out of TV and radio they are desparate for what they call live marketing. Given that they can't do billboards or pretty girls giving free samples anymore, they are now willing to give fortunes to Penske and Ferrari when they can't even put the brand name on the car.

[Rogue Leader]

Somebody else already complained about this, but for a different reason. I don't think it's fair to say F1 is in a decline because teams used to have to pre-qualify for grands prix and now they don't. The field size has been reduced by force of rule, not by economics. If Bernie would allow it, pre-qualifying would still exist and the bigger operations would run more than two cars.


In the 80's and 90's (and even 70s) the teams were limited to two entries, the guys that were PQing (or not in some cases LOL) were all independents running all kinds of chassis and cosworths and judds and stuff. Admittedly Bernie makes it pretty damn hard to join now (look at Prodrive and the **** they took) so that and the loss of Tobacco bucks is pretty rough.

Then again if you look back at these times, while tons of these guys would enter and even qualify, the reliability was so bad more than half of them would never finish!

[Fio1]

No they quit when they can't keep up, ie all those long gone F1 teams.

Exactly. 20 years ago, you had teams like Osella, Zakspeed, Coloni and AGS who ran in F1 with a budget of 2 million dollars. In 1985 $500,000 bought you the side pods of the Osella team (Kelemata). That's 2 cars! Now for 1/2 mil you can't even get a visible decal on a Spyker. On the other hand, these little teams were sometimes 7 to 12 seconds off pole on qualifying. Look any 87-89 grid and you'll see a big difference between top 5 and 20th, unlike today. When theer were so many cars trying to qualify that pretty much killed all the small teams, because speding 3 million dollars to run an hour on Friday is pretty harsh. In 3 years something like 10 teams closed down.

[Rogue Leader]

Exactly. 20 years ago, you had teams like Osella, Zakspeed, Coloni and AGS who ran in F1 with a budget of 2 million dollars. In 1985 $500,000 bought you the side pods of the Osella team (Kelemata). That's 2 cars! Now for 1/2 mil you can't even get a visible decal on a Spyker. On the other hand, these little teams were sometimes 7 to 12 seconds off pole on qualifying. Look any 87-89 grid and you'll see a big difference between top 5 and 20th, unlike today. When theer were so many cars trying to qualify that pretty much killed all the small teams, because speding 3 million dollars to run an hour on Friday is pretty harsh. In 3 years something like 10 teams closed down.

I forgot about the 107% rule, which probably didn't help this as well.

[oddlycalm]

Loss of tobacco sponsorship was a huge sea change for racing of all kinds and the evidence is everywhere. Some series aggravated the issue by silly rules as well. The absurd thing was that the handwriting was on the wall for all to see more than a decade prior to the end yet only NASCAR actively pursued a solution. Bringing in consumer brands by marketing to women and having a department dedicated to diversification of sponsors was successful. It's not like they kept it a secret. Any other series could have emulated NASCAR's program but none could be bothered. We had discussions about this years ago on 7G and plenty of us could see this coming.

So, now we are left with the least sophisticated and least interesting (to me) series being the one to achieve financial success and domination in the US. :( :thumdown: Their evil roadracing spawn are like ugly Tonka toys.

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