The View from Here: The Business of NASCAR

So is this news or what? Nah, probably more of the 'so what?' factor as a struggling team does what we see in my Strategy class all the time, namely, merger/sell-out in order to survive. After all, you can't win races if you don't exist (of course you don't have massive cash outflows either if you are in 'vaporland').

So this hits the airwaves but I'm not surprised -- not that I have an inside pipeline to either operation, rather this is IMO a common business practice. Now the real question is what the impact will be for all the other folks (you know, those behind-the-scenes folks who don't get much press who work for these teams) involved.

Joe Menzer writing on NASCAR.com even opined that:

"Ginn had an escape plan at the ready. For how long, who knows? Maybe this was his plan all along -- to come in, fix up a race operation like it was an old rental property in need of some curb-appeal repair, and flip it for a profit like a real-estate developer does."

Ooh, strong words! Does this mean that NASCAR teams actually have real economic value? Yes, my friends it does. And this is where another facet of capitalism is reflected in this sport. You are not bound by law to stay any longer than you have a written promise to do so and if you see an entrepreneurial opportunity then you are free to 'go for it' .

In the end what this really signals is that it is getting just too expensive to remain a "B" (or C) level team because cash talks and everyone else walks, and it takes mucho cash to play this game.

So are we becoming the domestic version of F1 racing? I hope not...

But hey, be of good cheer: no dogs or gambling debts are involved and we are not in need of "B" samples.

That's the view from here

Michael