CBS Partners With NASCAR Disruptors For Races With "The human being controlling the machine, not the machine controlling the outcome"

SBJ’s John Ourand explains the new partnership between CBS and SRX, a NASCAR disrupter led by hall of famers Tony Stewart and Ray Evenham.

The parallels with the Premier Golf League are hard to ignore, from claims of wanting star drivers and to not threaten NASCAR (right!). There are also short-track races, tighter TV windows

wo of the biggest names in auto racing — NASCAR hall of famers Ray Evernham and Tony Stewart — will launch an auto racing circuit that has the potential to be the biggest disrupter to the auto racing business in decades.
 
With top agent Sandy Montag and former NASCAR COO George Pyne rounding out the four-person board, Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) will feature six short-track races starting next summer.
SRX already has a TV deal in place with CBS, which has committed to carry the Saturday night races in prime time next year. The CBS deal runs for multiple years.
SRX has no outside investors; it is being underwritten by the four board members. Startup costs currently run in the low seven-figure range. Those costs will ramp up next summer when the races start, but SRX expects to have sponsors on board to defray those costs.
During interviews last week, SRX’s board members took pains to say the new group had no plans on competing with NASCAR. But it’s clear that they see openings where they believe NASCAR has fallen short. That includes:
■ A television strategy that will fit races into two-hour prime-time windows, presenting a contrast to NASCAR’s races that can run twice that long.
■ A focus on driver performance, rather than auto technology. Evernham will design the cars so that everyone races with the same equipment.
■ It will include racers and crew chiefs who are well known. Each race will have 12 drivers randomly matched with a crew chief.
■ It will feature racing under the lights at short tracks in the American heartland.
■ It is being positioned as an easier sale for sponsors that want to buy time on TV and at the event. “They make one phone call to be integrated in all aspects of the broadcast and the event,” Pyne said.
When it came to finding a media partner, Montag said his first and only call went to CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus, who was instantly drawn to the project based on the amount of experience each had in racing.
“If you look at all the elements that you want in a new venture in the world of sports television, it’s pretty much got everything you would want,” McManus said. “It’s got a great television schedule, it’s got a great track record of people working on it. It’s got high-profile names, it’s got really attractive live action that is unpredictable, it’s got an opportunity to tell a lot of stories.
“Let’s face it, with prime-time television being what it is, all the networks are looking for new, attractive and hopefully live content,” he said. “I can’t think of anything better than this for six Saturday nights in the summer on CBS.”
McManus has dabbled with startup sports ventures before, having signed a deal with the Alliance of American Football last year. He said this deal is different.
“Since we are partners, I’ve looked really carefully at the financial projections and the estimates for sponsorships and partners,” McManus said. “This works really well from a financial standpoint. I was not that involved at all in the finances for the AAF, and in the end, the finances are what brought that league down.”
Racing
SRX is most excited about the way drivers will compete on those short tracks. Evernham will design, prepare and build traditional stock cars that are capable of running on different surfaces and different types of tracks, such as paved or dirt.

“We want to make that machine be a big part of it, but it’s got to be the driver, crew chief, the human being controlling the machine, not the machine controlling the outcome of the competition,” Evernham said. “That combination of driver, crew chief and machine, no computers telling you what to do, no simulation. It’s really about the competition, how well that driver and crew chief can make that machine go against one another.”