NASCAR’s Roadmap to Victory Lane

18:10John:Steve, my crack research staff spent hours researching. You have one of those things. This is basically your PR people. You grew up in Egypt. You couldn't have been a NASCAR fan growing up, right?

18:27Steve O’Donnell:No, I was very good. So I grew up originally northeast. So, you know, some of the modifieds, that kind of thing. But I left, yeah, it was middle school through high school. So I spent six years in Cairo.

18:38John:So in 1996, when you take this job as a marketer at NASCAR, were you a fan? Like, how did NASCAR draw you in?

18:47Steve O’Donnell:Yeah, no, I was. But I would say NASCAR drew me in because I was living in Florida, gone to school in Florida. So I actually was working at the Daytona Cubs minor league baseball team. So it was right adjacent to NASCAR. the sport was slowly emerging Jackie Robinson field it's not that they don't know that's exactly it right on the island it's a great ballpark yeah so um I I uh basically answered it was a random sports ad and and went in and and it was NASCAR and and so knew about the sport but it was more kind of that intro to NASCAR from a marketing operations job and got lucky getting the job And then I've had a wild ride ever since.

19:32Steve O’Donnell:I've had some great mentors, great teammates, and have been able to stay and really see so many great things and so many great people.

19:41John:You referenced earlier, you know, the different changes that are occurring this season, like rules changes, the champions, or the playoff, how you get into the playoffs. How hard were those to push through?

19:59Steve O’Donnell:It's a great question. So it goes back to kind of your earlier question about, you know, being true to who you are, chasing new fans, that sort of thing. So I'll go back to kind of my, you know, just general, we're both sports fans, right? And so you would think from a NASCAR standpoint, you want new fans and fans understand playoffs and fans understand the concept of, you know, maybe that game seven moment. And so if you just put your sports hat on, not necessarily your NASCAR hat on, a one race finale, this will be great. Our fans who have been with us will really believe in this and will attract a whole new fan base who will buy into this.

20:38Steve O’Donnell:And I think over time, what happened was the industry, while we presented, while we had some great moments, said, wait a minute, this isn't really who we are. and really isn't the essence of NASCAR in terms of, you know, a driver having to be more consistent through maybe 10 races. There's so much chance that goes into that one race and anything could happen. And some of the newer fans that we're trying to attract didn't even understand the sport yet. And so you didn't bring them along. So instead of having the industry say, this is great, I really buy into the system, new people would check it out.

21:12Steve O’Donnell:We started to see that turn. So And I think working with our television partners, working with the industry to get to the model that we were ended up in a great place. You know, I was someone who initially thought, you know, one race would be great. And the more we got around it, when we had young drivers coming through the system who maybe won 12, 15 races during the year. And because of something that may have happened in one race, didn't win a championship. And if that happened three, four or five years, I'm not sure a younger driver would aspire to be racing in NASCAR. And that became kind of something that we needed to really look at and try to fix, which we did.

21:52Steve O’Donnell:And the last thing I'd say about it, you know, I'm a New York Giants fan, which I know I'll get some booze from you. But when the Giants are a wild card, yeah, when the Giants are a wild card and they win the Super Bowl, they win the Super Bowl. And everyone's good with that. In our sport, if someone came into the playoffs, quote unquote, 12th and won, our fans didn't buy it. And they said, no, that's not a full season. And so we kind of learned that over time and I think landed in a really good place where the industry is really buying into it. And our fans have reacted very positively as well.

22:25Like as this moves forward, this is a question kind of like, what did you learn from that?

22:31John:I mean, are you going to, do you have the flexibility that like, if you realize this season that it's not working, like next season, you could just make another change or in your mind, is this a couple year process or a couple year run? Or is it, you know, we're going to tinker with it until we get it right?

22:48Steve O’Donnell:my mind it's a couple year run um you know i just actually had a conversation with dale earnhardt jr and we were talking about the future of the clash and you know can we bring the clash back to daytona and why did we move it and his viewpoint which i think is very fair is when something goes a little bit wrong we just we throw it out and we drastically change it versus fixing the problem and i i embrace that i think we need to focus more on you know let's let's try and really fix something here versus some drastic new shiny penny that may not be really kind of core to who we are. And I think you'll see us do more of that, of like embrace kind of, you know, who we are, what we're doing, be authentic because our fans know when we kind of veer left or right and it's not that authentic way to do things, they call us out.

23:38Steve O’Donnell:Yet when we do do things that they believe in, you know, a lot of fans will say, all right, NASCAR is doing it the right way. So we We just got to be authentic with the moves we make.

23:50John:Just having talked to Steve Phelps a bit, he had been pushing a lot of things, sort of getting into Chicago, expanding in markets that aren't core NASCAR markets to try to expand the NASCAR brand. Also doing it internationally as well. Is that something that you support right now? I mean, as much as Steve did?

24:15Steve O’Donnell:I do, a thousand percent. But I think you got to make sure that I'll go back a little quick history lesson for us. So when we left the Rockinghams of the world in North Wilkesboro tracks in North Carolina and we expanded to Las Vegas and California, it was a great move for the sport. but how we messaged that was really poor and a lot of our fans kind of in the North Carolina, South Carolina felt like NASCAR abandoned them and we learned a lot of lessons doing that so I think what you're seeing us do now is if you go to a Chicago or Chicago street race, go to Mexico City, you couple that with maybe a points race or an exhibition at a short track within the U.S.

24:57Steve O’Donnell:where we're showcasing kind of our grassroots as well and I think that's the model is mixing and matching both. The race in San Diego this year is going to be incredible. Everyone in the industry is so excited to go out there, but we've got to keep iterating on those things. Our fans are craving for, yes, the traditional races that you have, but really love kind of those new events. And we're learning along the way too that, you know, when you go somewhere, does it have a one or two or three year life cycle? What's the right model? You know, we're at the Coliseum for a couple of years. We're at Bowman Gray for a couple of years.

25:32Steve O’Donnell:San Diego, I hope we can go for multiple years, but you've got the Northwest, you've got Canada, you've got Europe, who's very interested. We've got racing in Brazil. So there's so many opportunities, but we want to make sure that wherever we go next, we put a lot of thought to it and make sure it's a success.

25:52John:So I want to dovetail off that a little bit, sticking just with the U.S. markets. how do you decide on markets? Is it where a non-traditional market that might have a big NASCAR fan base, a non-traditional market that doesn't have a big one and you want to grow it? Or what goes into how you decide this?

26:11Steve O’Donnell:Yeah, another great question. As we look at it now, I would say we're looking at places where number one is bringing the industry together. So, all right, we've got, you know, here are the sponsors that we have on all the race cars, you know, where they want to go. And, you know, I'll use an example of if we showed up tomorrow and said, hey, we're going to go race somewhere in Africa next year because we're all going to take a big check. Most of the sponsors on the teams would say this does absolutely nothing for me. Right. It's not growing my brand. That's not a key market for us. So we kind of want to pick, OK, where are we not activating?

26:46Steve O’Donnell:What is the sponsorship group really desire? I think the Northwest would absolutely be something that we want to look at. You know, our television partners play a big part in this. Where are they seeing some areas where we could grow the sport as well? And then the fan base, certainly. So, you know, you look at, you know, Pennsylvania as one, you know, the race in Pocono, ton of our fans come from Pennsylvania to Charlotte, the races, South Carolina, Virginia. So obviously we want to be in that space, but then how can we migrate, you know, maybe where we haven't had the support that we need, maybe take one of those events to a new market and test it out.

27:26John:So, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, but why is it that so many of the hardcore fans seem to, I don't know if they rejected it so much as they didn't seem to like this expansion. Is it just not being part of the, you referenced earlier, like you know going back to the grassroots and sort of taking that elsewhere as opposed to you know um just having a race in chicago or something like that like what can you do differently to sort

27:56Steve O’Donnell:of bring them on board yeah i think it's um well you got to show them a great race first of all right it is as long as we put on a great race usually they're gonna they're gonna like it but it's also depends on what race yeah one thing i know is if i can interrupt for a second that

28:11John:people love to complain. So yeah, that's the number one put on the race.

28:15Steve O’Donnell:They love to complain no matter what. Yeah, but that's okay, right? They're passionate and that's all right. But I think it's what races you potentially move, right? There are traditional races that our fans would say, absolutely not. This is a staple. We've raced there 50, 60 years and we get that. And there are newer events where we can try some things and move them. So I think that's what we want to do is take maybe some of those newer venues or where they're challenged from an attendance standpoint. We can explain why we're trying something. And it doesn't have to be permanent. You know, we went to Chicago Street for a couple of years.

28:45Steve O’Donnell:We're going back to the Chicagoland Speedway this year. Maybe we'll be back at the street race the year after. Who knows? So there's a lot of opportunity that we want to keep. You know, not surprising fans, but we always want something to be new where we can have something, especially, you know, with the Amazons of the world. They're very interested in, you know, what's the next new idea? Fox, same thing. What's the next new idea? but we've got to make sure we do it in a way that celebrates the sport, not just go to a new market just because. It's got to be meaningful for everyone within the industry and ultimately the fans.

29:19John:Let's talk about international. And I happen to know you're a big supporter of taking things internationally. What makes sense? In a year, how many races, when would those races take place? Because I would think a race in Europe, that would be difficult to do within the scope of the season, I would think, right?

29:44Steve O’Donnell:Yeah, so it's the million-dollar question. And I think we are spending a lot of time looking at this because there's a lot of different avenues we could take. You could run your class race, your season preview. You could take that internationally as an exhibition. You could create kind of a two or three week midseason where you have time to go overseas somewhere for a race and it's a points race. Or you could create kind of almost, you know, a new series where it's an exhibition with a new type of car that you're running. I do know this, that the celebration of kind of Americana around the NASCAR style of racing people love.

30:26Steve O’Donnell:So if you go to the NASCAR Euro race in Brands Hatch in England, smaller kind of series like one of our touring series, there will be 50 ,000 people there. And it's an eye opener. And they love NASCAR. They love the style of racing. So I think our next move will be somewhere where we can showcase that style of racing, probably on an exhibition side. And then we're going to take a much longer view. We haven't in the past, John. We've made some mistakes along the way. We've just shown up with a race rather than seed the marketplace, you know, marketing, social media, shows, you know, in the local bars talking about, you know, the sport.

31:08Steve O’Donnell:And then you put a race there, you know, three to five years later. That's the things we've got to get way ahead of as an industry is really kind of planning four or five years out. what are the marketplaces because there's no shortage of interest in the sport. We get a lot of phone calls. It's complicated to do, as you've said, but we want to make the right move. We believe in our racing. We think once people see it, they're hooked. Personally, I'd love to flop a race in Europe on an oval and showcase our sport. I think the fans would go crazy like they did for Le Mans with Garage 56, but we'll see how that goes.

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32:53John:One thing that I've enjoyed about sort of getting to know you a little bit is, you know, before we started taping, we were talking about the hated New York Yankees and the beloved Baltimore Oriole. You referenced the Giants on this as well. Should Eli be in the Hall of Fame, you think?

33:12Steve O’Donnell:you know i it's tough man probably but ford's looking at me but it's kind of a fluky pass i

33:19John:don't know what uh the reason i bring this up is uh that is what can what have you learned what can you learn what are other leagues doing well that you would like to sort of borrow from

33:33Steve O’Donnell:so another great question so i do a lot of reading i do a lot of studying of other sports and i think it's a good thing. I try to get to a lot of other events just to experience what's happening, you know, not necessarily saying, Hey, I'm coming, just, just go as a fan and see what you experience. So I would say, um, from the UFC love just what they've done of being brash in terms of, you know, they were, you know, small and then we're here. What did, what did they do? They promoted the heck out of things. It was awesome. Um, I love what baseball has done in terms of, uh grew up a baseball fan played baseball the games got longer you heard boring you know they were in a real struggle and they made some really cool rule changes now they've got a i know they've got some challenges coming up in the future but in terms of the product on the field i thought they made some great moves and it's something that you know we can learn from and we can look at as well and then you know the passion of uh you follow anglis premier league soccer.

34:32Steve O’Donnell:I don't think we'll ever get to relegation, but the passion of teams moving up and down and the fandom that those folks have when you go to a game, they don't care about concerts. They don't care about anything. Put the product on the field and let's go. So there's so many things that we can learn on a daily basis. And then I'd say it's not just sports. I'm getting old, but the celebrity, the podcasters, what you're doing, there's so much to learn from what's entertaining now, right? And utilizing that, going on podcasts, learning from what we can do from a content standpoint has been huge as well.

35:09John:That's like back at the beginning of cable, you know, all the different leagues, you know, the birth of NFL Network and MLB Network, and they decided they wanted to be media companies as much as being sports leagues. You're seeing a little bit of a trenchant now, you know, the ESPN took over NFL media and things like that. But you're saying that there is sort of the new media that's out there that you can take a look at and pursue.

35:37Steve O’Donnell:A thousand percent. And you can, you know, who knows what will stick, right? Some things aren't always going to work. But, you know, Brian Herb's leading our team from a broadcast standpoint and Tim Clark content. We've got a ton of assets. You know, we're going to try some things again and experiment a little bit. But there are so many things emerging. YouTube for us has got to be a huge play in the future. I mean, my son and daughter, I don't even watch TV. They're tuning in on YouTube to whatever show it is or gaming. We have got to be better in that space with content. We've learned along the way.

36:09Steve O’Donnell:We've had long form content with movies, that sort of thing. But, you know, we can put together some quick 15 to 20 minute highlight shows that I think will drive some new viewership and some new interest as well.

36:21John:Yeah, even Netflix is too long for them.

36:23Steve O’Donnell:You got to be able to go from one screen to another pretty quickly.

36:29John:Let me ask you a quick question about the PGA Tour, which has gone through. They're culling a lot of their, not a lot, some of their tournaments. They think that it's better to have fewer tournaments than what they had. You seem to be going kind of a different route in there. I know it's two different audiences and two different sports, but why does this work for you and that work for them?

36:58Steve O’Donnell:Yeah, I think it has worked for us. So I would not say this is the way it will always be. We just had a discussion actually two hours ago about that 2030, 2031. And if you had a clean sheet of paper, what would this sport look like? Is there a number of races that would make more sense? Could it be 30? Could it be more? Or could you have midweek races that, you know, you shorten the season? So I would say all that's on the table that the discussions that in the past have been more kind of by individual stakeholder. And I think what you'll see our industry come together on going forward is really talking about, you know, five years from now as an industry, what is the best thing that we can put together for the fans?

37:41Steve O’Donnell:How many races is that? You know, is it network? Is it cable? Is it, you know, digitally streamed? what is it, what do we want? And ultimately, what will the sponsors be interested in as well to help drive our sport and really showcase our drivers and our future stars? So I would not lock us in for the foreseeable future. We have contracts, obviously, with our existing media partners, which we're excited about. But long term, I think it's something to look at and really deliver what fans want. You see shorter games, longer games. You know, I know this. If it's entertaining, people will tune in.

38:17Steve O’Donnell:And, you know, if it's a four-hour college football game, but it's 45-45 going into overtime, no one's complaining that it was four hours. So if your product is entertaining, people will stick with it.

38:29John:One of my favorite stories I tell everybody is, you know, college football games are too long. Whenever I talk to a media executive, they say, if it could go six hours, we would want it to go six hours. It's like you have college football on there and people are watching it.

38:43Steve O’Donnell:But yeah, and I think, you know, for us just quickly, you know, even looking at how we're presenting races like, you know, right now we have stage breaks, cautions. And we're learning a lot, too, in terms of the time it takes for, you know, a stage break or caution. Can we look to shorten those things up and just make it tighter? Fans love kind of when we drop the green flag, they love restarts. You know, we don't love long breaks either. So we're really looking at utilizing technology, getting back to racing as quickly as we can. and delivering as much action as we can, because ultimately, you know, that's why people are tuning in.

39:18John:Last year was your first of a brand new media deal. Of course, Fox and ESPN were there, but then you had TNT Sports and you had Amazon Prime as well. What did you learn?

39:33Steve O’Donnell:What did we learn? So going into it with Fox, and if I was honest with you, which I always am, we had a few. Yeah, we had a few less network races. So we thought that we were going to get off to a tough start in terms of less network races, overall ratings. We were pleasantly surprised, even despite rain at Daytona, where we kind of ended up with Fox and thought, OK, you know, this is a good start to where we're going. And then it was a big question mark with Amazon. I would tell you that when discussions within the industry were initially talking about Amazon, everyone was like, oh, my gosh, what's this going to mean for sponsorship?

40:13Steve O’Donnell:What's going to happen to the sport? By the end of the Amazon five races, everyone in the industry said, can Amazon do 36 races? That was fantastic. It was unbelievable how they showcased the sport.

40:25John:Based on their programming, the way they did the programming, or based on their marketing of it?

40:33Steve O’Donnell:A lot of time, pre-race, telling stories, covered the race, extended post-race to tell the stories, and almost covered us like a movie versus a race. Really telling the stories, developing the personalities. And I think we learned a lot about that as well in terms of, okay, here's something new. Anytime you have a new partner, they're going to elevate the game. so I'd say awesome really pleasantly surprised and then I think as we look towards the the latter half of the season we felt a tail off and and we put so much focus on the beginning of the season in that launch of Amazon we felt a little bit of the pain when we went kind of TNT NBC USA and I think one of the lessons we learned is that focus kind of second middle second half of the season we've got to really kind of, let's go.

41:23Steve O’Donnell:We know we're going to be good Fox. We know we're going to be good Amazon. What can we do to refocus fans? All right, make the transition over to Turner. And then we're on our way with Burson. And so that's going to be a big focus for us, especially with the new playoff format.

41:37John:One of my worries for that schedule is that you start with a big broadcast network in Fox. Then you go to a streamer that, you know, Amazon's getting better, but it doesn't provide as many viewers as Fox. Then you go to TNT Sports, which is cable, and we all know what cord cutting is happening. So that by the time it comes back to another big broadcast network in NBC, the distribution has gone from tip top all the way down. Is that a problem or is that something that you can rectify by marketing?

42:13Steve O’Donnell:Yeah, no, I think that's a fair point. I think that's what we're saying. The same thing, you said it more eloquently, is focus as many assets as we can on that timeframe and know that you're coming into that, right? That you've got this portion of the season where you've got to turn the fans, you've got to tell them exactly where they're at the race and pound that home every single day and see what happens this year. It's going to be a big focus for us. If you see kind of that fall off, we're going to continue to make efforts because we need Turner to succeed. We need Matt Hong and Versant, his team, to succeed.

42:47Steve O’Donnell:They've got a big bet on us, and we've got a big bet on them to make sure that, you know, we carry this thing through all the way to Miami with the championship.

42:55John:Another consistent gripe that I get is, boy, there are so many races on so many days. We just don't know where to find them. You went from two partners to four partners. I guess five if you count the CW. you. Did you find that to be a problem at all?

43:17Steve O’Donnell:I would not say I did. I'm kind of inside baseball, right? But I would say this, we benefited a lot as well, though. We were in places that we've never been. So when you're showing up on in-car cameras on an HBO Max, or you're seeing NASCAR maybe in a place that you hadn't before, I think there's pros and cons. And so that goes back to us doing a great job of letting the fans know where we're at. The flip side of that is you referenced CW, tremendous partner that came in, made a big bet on the O 'Reilly series, delivered great ratings for us. Fans knew where that was and it was a consistent story throughout.

43:55Steve O’Donnell:So we've got to learn from that and we've got to do our job letting fans know where these races are. And that's up to our entire industry as well. To me, this isn't just a NASCAR. Yes, that's our job, But we need drivers, teams, tracks, everybody focused on these partners who are really putting a lot into this sport and deserve to be promoted and let the fans know where to find it.

44:19John:Yeah, Steve, that's always been, that's actually a pet peeve of mine. Because I hear those complaints all the time from people that wind up finding the games or wind up finding the races. And so it's something that, you know, when I said earlier, people love to complain. I haven't really seen any evidence that that that's actually been hurting viewership. But I the complaint the complaints are from people in the business, from friends and family that aren't in the business. You hear it all the time, but it's a you there's generally no evidence.

44:53Steve O’Donnell:Right. And I think it goes back to, you know, what is that partner delivering? Right. So so before the season, I mean, everybody would have said about that about Amazon. What are you doing? What are you guys thinking? This is a crazy move. And once Amazon got done, literally, you know, Jeff Gordon, man, it's awesome. What can we do? You know, let's let's have some more of this. So there's pros and cons. Right. I think it's also what is that network cable network or streaming platform deliver for the sport? How do they present it? That has a lot to do with our fans. They're very particular about, you know, what's happening on a broadcast and who the personalities are talking about it.

45:28Steve O’Donnell:So I think we've got a good mix. But, you know, it's going to be our job. You know, we've got a long term partnership to get this right. It's long term, but it's also short when you look at, hey, we're already kind of on display for our next media package. So we got to do it right. And there's a there's a lot of noise out there with the NFL, right, already talking about opening up their their negotiations. So, you know, it's going to be on us. We've got to be a must have sport. And I think in the past, we were probably nice to have. So the mantra that we have as an industry is a must have property in the future.

46:00John:Steve, good luck with the Daytona 500 Good luck with the entire season It's been fun watching the rise of NASCAR over the years And I'm going to certainly be paying attention this year

46:16Steve O’Donnell:Well, appreciate all you've always done And don't want to be a stranger So I look forward to seeing you at a race And hosting over beer

46:24John:Count on it, thanks a lot All right, thanks

46:32John:Well, I enjoyed that. I think if you listen, he has an open mind. He listens and he's watching other leagues and he's listening to people. I think a lot of the changes that we're going to see coming to NASCAR are going to be a lot of fun to watch over the next several years. So I want to thank Steve O'Donnell for joining the pod this week. I also want to shout out James Hallis, also from NASCAR, for all the work he put into getting this done. More importantly, though, I want to thank you for listening to The Varsity, an Odyssey podcast in partnership with Puck. I also want to thank the executive editors from Puck.

47:05John:That's Gabby Grossman, Ben Landy, John Kelly, a great team from Odyssey, Bob Tabador, and Patrick Antonetti, and also our partners at Nessun, Greg Poth and Mark Merlaca. If you like this podcast, make sure to sign up for my newsletter, also called The Varsity. Head over to puck.news and use the code word, The Varsity, all one word, for a 20 % discount. And I will see you on Wednesday.

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