Quote
Reamer
Disapointment is a better word. Not hate disapointment!

Its crazy to see all the people disapointed in a sport we all have grown to love!

I still cant figure out why sponsors dont think there is a ROI in rally? I almost think it may be because every body in rally says there is no ROI. Doesnt take much google searching to find people saying US rally isnt good for sponsors. Most investors I would think would have some body do some research on the sport before dropping big cash. If all the research google produces says rally ROI sucks. Who will take the leap?

Even ESTD ended on a bad note making you feel like rally is to expensive to even test the waters. That movie should of ended on the up swing of the good things about rally.

To me it seems more and more people are discovering rally in the US and at least think its interesting. Not competing but at least following there locals.

Im not a numbers guy but I believe the total followers who buy products because of rally is as good or better then other sports that get big sponsors.

Okay I get it. After typing all this barly readable drival I am disapointed to!

Because there is none. People say it because its true. A few thousand people see your car. There's a reason blocks sponsor want him elsewhere.

The rallys themselves have a tough time getting sponsored; which i'm sure they probably charge less to sponsor an entire rally than it costs to run 1 top budget team.

My local pop station reaches 232,000 people. I can run a series of eight 30 seconds ads on there for something like $2500.

So sponsoring a car, that 500 or 1000 people will see for 10 seconds, that is 1/24th the time, and 1/232 the people. So... that equates to about 44 cents worth of exposure if we make time and people equivalent.

For rally car sponsorship to make sense it has to work in some other way.

Plus, remember it's "ROI", RETURN On Investment. So, say I sell, oh, racing paper towels. And typical margins in the retail industry are 30%. So, If I sponsor you for $1,000, I don't need to sell $1,000 of towels to make it worthwhile, I need to sell $3,333 worth of towels to have $1,000 of profit on those towels to afford your sponsorship. And that is only to break even, which is not what I want, I want RETURN, which means money coming BACK to me.

So when you're asking a company for $10,000 sponsorship, what they are thinking is "Will doing this sell an extra $40,000 of product?"

Of course some companies are service companies, not product companies, and different industries have different product margins, but the idea needs to run through similar methods.

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

Quote
Iowa999
The last time I laughed at that kind of joking, I fell off my pet thesaurus.

Reminds me of that old saw, "Sitting on stools can be very unsanitary."

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"Talk about drugs. Driving a car like that, going that fast, it’s like all the drugs at once." - Tommy Byrne

"Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?" - The Brain

Your not selling advertising to be seen by 100 people in the woods your selling advertising to the fact that your rallying threw the woods. The ROI is the fact that were here talking about rally.

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First rally 2013
Rally car type AWD subaru
Total rallies as driver 6
Total rally cars built 2
Total rally cars caged 3
Total rally cars repaired from offs 4
Total years racing exp other then rally 19 yrs
Like 31motorsports on FB!
Check out 31motor sales on ebay for used Subaru parts

I agree it is tuff to get car or team sponsors. First the series needs to get sponsors. Prove that there is a market value in rally and then the teams will be able to get the indivdual sponsors. GRC does not have 1/4 of the followers as rally. Yet sponsors come because ESPN shows it on tv and its on the in field of a big race track.

I dont know how to find #'s but I bet RA has more diehard followers then GRC. Reeves, Lestage,Higgins,Orders They all come here to the USA to run our rallies.They all have people in the know of what there doing in there country. I feel US rally has a lot bigger following then what we know of. The problem is proving it to advertisers. We will never prove it if all you here is oh sponsors dont get ROI because we are only seen by a few thousand people. No one wants to go out in the woods.

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First rally 2013
Rally car type AWD subaru
Total rallies as driver 6
Total rally cars built 2
Total rally cars caged 3
Total rally cars repaired from offs 4
Total years racing exp other then rally 19 yrs
Like 31motorsports on FB!
Check out 31motor sales on ebay for used Subaru parts

Quote
Reamer
I agree it is tuff to get car or team sponsors. First the series needs to get sponsors. Prove that there is a market value in rally and then the teams will be able to get the indivdual sponsors. GRC does not have 1/4 of the followers as rally. Yet sponsors come because ESPN shows it on tv and its on the in field of a big race track.

I dont know how to find #'s but I bet RA has more diehard followers then GRC. Reeves, Lestage,Higgins,Orders They all come here to the USA to run our rallies.They all have people in the know of what there doing in there country. I feel US rally has a lot bigger following then what we know of. The problem is proving it to advertisers. We will never prove it if all you here is oh sponsors dont get ROI because we are only seen by a few thousand people. No one wants to go out in the woods.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22Rally%20America%22%2C%20%22Global%20Rallycross%22%2C%20%22Ken%20Block%22&cmpt=q

Have fun with the tool. Add/delete search terms. You're going to be very disappointed with your assumption.

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Reamer
The ROI is the fact that were here talking about rally.

There's a difference between a result and a return. Unless the sponsor owned this forum and was charging access to be here, or was selling advertising here, or reaping some demographic information about us from us being here, there's literally nothing being returned to a sponsor by us being here talking about rally. And even then, I'm not here because of any particular sponsor. I don't know anyone else that is either.

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Reamer
...First the series needs to get sponsors. Prove that there is a market value in rally .... We will never prove it if all you here is "oh sponsors dont get ROI because we are only seen by a few thousand people."

Not really sure how to answer. If there IS market value, it exists independently of what we say about it here. If it could be proven to exist, surely when RA hired those very expensive PR consulting firms a while back, they would have found it? And sponsorships would have followed?

That was M360 back in 2004:
http://www.rallyracingnews.com/ra/ra-pr-11-8-04.html

And then WMG in 2006:
http://www.rally-america.com/news/entry/ra_58

WMG is _BIG_. Like representing the NBA, NFL, and Olympics big. Like representing Tiger Woods big.

So if THOSE GUYS can't get ROI out of rally, and they've tried, professionals in the work of providing advertising value have been paid LOTS of money to try, if THEY can't do it, my question is, what makes you think it exists?

Understandably, these things happened before your time.

I think some niche sponsorships DO make sense in rally. They are very strategic, or very local. "Generalized exposure", for "just any" product, I think if it was there the folks above would have shown it and already been selling like crazy.

Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

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Anders Green

I think some niche sponsorships DO make sense in rally. They are very strategic, or very local. "Generalized exposure", for "just any" product, I think if it was there the folks above would have shown it and already been selling like crazy.

Anders

My understanding is that Subaru USA is tickled with the Launch Control series. What are your thoughts on that Anders? (no sarcasm or anything, just a straightforward question).

Somehow, someway in Canada somebody thinks it is good to have the CRC on TV (my basic understanding is Subaru Canada does think this way). You guys have 10 times the population we do, and Subaru USA is a much bigger entity, plus you have much more well known names (sometimes?) competing.

Would you say that an online TV show would be worth it? As I've mentioned elsewhere, Ryan Douthit (sp?) of Driving Sports TV offered to do a free series for Rally America in the recent past (of course it wasn't "free", but it was in the sense of no cost to Rally America).

Does GRC realllllly do better for coverage/eyes viewing than rally? I usually get frustrated with how crappy the coverage of the GRC has been until recently, rather than a well polished broadcast, but maybe that is just me. Even the people doing the casting are... not very good... (being kind there in case for some odd reason they were to stumble across this, media people aren't very good at taking criticism typically)

I thought the launch control series was good. Especially considering how there wasn't much a story. Those guys did a great job of making nothing interesting. I'm obviously biased though since I know the stories and a lot of the guys being filmed.

Quote
HiTempguy
My understanding is that Subaru USA is tickled with the Launch Control series. What are your thoughts on that Anders? (no sarcasm or anything, just a straightforward question).

Haven't watched it. (Really, what those teams are doing doesn't interest me that much.) I took a quick skim look at one just now.

Looks like Subie USA hired them to make a series, the cinematography looks nice, it got 80k views.

If they're happy, then, good?

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

Its hard to type about this sort of thing. When I say here on this forum. I mean were here and theres guite a few of us. Meaning rally fans in general. There are lots of rally fans and lots more rally fans to be had because this sport is fun to watch and be involved with. That in its self is worth advertising $.

Yes I believe those guys who tried didnt really try because when they tried it was easier to just sponsor Nascar. What about the rest of the world who sponsor rally. Some how WRC gets millions and millions. Im not saying US rally can currently get millions but im positive they can get something. The drivers that come here from over seas dont leave here stating that us roads suck and its not worth doing. Im sure every one of them would love to come back.

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First rally 2013
Rally car type AWD subaru
Total rallies as driver 6
Total rally cars built 2
Total rally cars caged 3
Total rally cars repaired from offs 4
Total years racing exp other then rally 19 yrs
Like 31motorsports on FB!
Check out 31motor sales on ebay for used Subaru parts

Quote
Reamer
Yes I believe those guys who tried didnt really try because when they tried it was easier to just sponsor Nascar.

I'm sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. RA hired and paid marketing professionals, who work at the companies that represent one of the largest sports marketing firms on the planet, and spent tens of thousands of dollars to get them to make sponsorship happen for the series and find marketing value.

Am I understanding you correctly that you believe "They just didn't try"??? That all those competent people just sat on their duffs for a couple months then went back to RA, had some meetings, then worked for another year or so, had another meeting with RA and said "Well, so, you guys, aren't, like, NASCAR, right? Yeah, it's not gonna work out."

I don't know man. I'm betting they tried. Because if it worked, they would have been able to bill more hours and get paid more for future work.

WRC's event millions, in general, come from the countries. Last I knew, all but two of the WRC rounds are supplied the bulk of their budget by contributions at the equivalent of the "federal" level from those countries. It's a no brainer for a country to invest two million in an event that brings six million in tourism revenue. This sort of thing is exactly what I was talking about when I said that in certain niche instances sponsorship makes sense.

The WRC itself just gets their sanction fee, something like $100k or $120k, per event. Then there's Michelin and some watchmaker as series sponsors. (It seems. I can barely find any current info on WRC sponsors.)

Just because something is super fun to do and super fun to watch doesn't mean it has any long term marketing value. Look at, say, the Gravity Games. Fun to do, fun to watch, way easier to televise... out of business.

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

Like Anders said/wrote. Two respected companies were PAID to try. In 40 years of chasing sponsors, companies - even ones who aren't interested but curious ask me, "what's the gate at one of these?" So I say, "I don't know, no one pays to watch so there's no real numbers to tell you". "What's the TV audience?" "There isn't one now but when there was it was a .02 share at 3AM". and that's where that goes.
Malcom has been begging Ford to stay in and without the Arabs, he wouldn't be, Mitsu bailed, Subaru bailed, Peugeot and Citroen consolodated using old, proven stuff and VW saw easy pickings to get a major motorsport pedigree more for a lot less than F1 or DTM, and not much more than the F3 national stuff they always do. Lapworth's TV deal with WRC back when all the MFGs were still in was going to make WRC finally pay the bills and that died too. WRC is on life support and barely hanging on even though the roads are lined with "fans" who's largest contribution is a T-shirt or a Jacket.
That's why GRC. A gate, a TV deal and Mfg participation. Two classes, each with it's own race and you don't need to be a wiz to see who's winning and who's losing. If the race sucks, wait 20 minutes, there's another one coming up right after you get back from the flush toilet or the nearby concession. Cars are guarenteed to fly and you probably won't be killed if something goes wrong.
Fans "pay the bills" but they clog the roads, get drunk and stop the stages, crash their cars into the locals' yards and don't even pay to fuck it all up.

Okay, Guess back to work on the rallycar. Lol.

Anders your correct it was before my time and before every other new to the sports time. All of us newbs just dont get it! We all come here and try get shut down with pages and pages of rally cant be marketed to the public.

Erics google search isnt correct for rally. He left out all the individual rally sights, He left out NRS. I suppose with no paper trail there is no way to prove the fans are there and watching. If it takes a gate fee to prove theres fans then I guess it cant be proven.

I also dont get the 2 am thing. Ive yet to watch a WRC or ERC recap show at 2 am. Maybe 2 pm on a saturday but not am. I would love to know there raitings because they keep showing more and more of it. They must be either super cheap filler shows or there selling advertising.

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First rally 2013
Rally car type AWD subaru
Total rallies as driver 6
Total rally cars built 2
Total rally cars caged 3
Total rally cars repaired from offs 4
Total years racing exp other then rally 19 yrs
Like 31motorsports on FB!
Check out 31motor sales on ebay for used Subaru parts

Quote
Reamer
The drivers that come here from over seas dont leave here stating that us roads suck and its not worth doing. Im sure every one of them would love to come back.

But they do say "It's all about horsepower. The roads are all crazy fast wide open horsepower roads".....
And of course they have a good time: because it is like the level of a little club event and they have a good chance to have easy results---since the average speed, prep, whole approach is like other 3rd world countries--ie 2-3 rich guys who have little clue what they are doing (aside from spending lots of OPM, and then 20-35 total amateurs, who also have very little discipline, or passion or willingness to sacrifice any of the the creature comforts that every red-blooded 'merikun knows is his Gawd Given Birthright----results without effort or don't bother.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

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