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I’ve been watching in anticipation the last few days as the showdown between the Formula One Teams Association and the FIA (Max Mosley) played out. Today we learned FIA President Max Mosley would give in to the teams’ demands to not impose the spending cap and he also agreed not to stand for re-election to the FIA. Surprise, surprise.

I got to thinking about what would happen if teams in NASCAR banded to together and attempted to stage a similar coup. The conclusion I came to was that this could not and would not ever happen.

Beyond the cars, the most pivotal part of a race is the race track. In the United States the only tracks really capable of accommodating NASCAR events are owned, for the most part by two companies: Speedway Motorsports Inc. majority owned by and controlled by Bruton Smith and International Speedway Corporation majority owned by and controlled by the France family. The France family of course owns and operates NASCAR.

Should NASCAR teams break away Bruton Smith’s SMI is certainly an option but ISC is not. What this means is the break away series loses the marquee Daytona 500 and only has eight tracks to race at. I doubt the Mattiolis would turn their back on the France family, so Pocono is probably out. There are a few other tracks that could add to the hypothetical break away series, but that is assuming they aren’t already with NASCAR in some capacity.

With F1 this isn’t the case. Because this is not just a regional sport there are tons of tracks that don’t currently host F1 events that would be capable of hosting them.

Another issue with NASCAR is the lack of control wielded by the teams. In F1 the teams are king, especially with the fans. Ferrari fans are Ferrari fans. Renault fans are Renault fans. The driver is often secondary. In NASCAR just the opposite is true. The teams are very much secondary to the personalities. If you want proof of this look to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s departure from DEI.

All it took for Max Mosley to back down was eight teams (mind you eight very large teams) threatening to start a breakaway series.

Another thing working in NASCAR’s favor is their lock on TV contracts. In the United States we only have a handful of networks capable of producing and carrying large sporting events like a race. ESPN/ABC, Speed, Fox and NBC/TNT are all out of the question. Maybe the break away series could go on Versus?

Around the world there are countless companies and stations capable and likely very willing to produce and broadcast F1 races. There are a world of possibilities.

Lastly I don’t see any NASCAR team owners capable of funding another series. Sure they’re all wealthy guys, but none can afford what these F1 owners can. It is widely believed Ferrari spends/has spent in the past upwards of $500 million on their F1 program. That is insane and well more than the entire worth of most of NASCAR’s owners. Obviously large auto manufacturers can afford to fund this sort of thing, but a former Ford engineer, a football coach and a couple of auto dealers likely would have a much harder time. I guess what I’m saying is this sort of thing isn’t worth their time or money and they would have to know that.

In the end the FIA and F1 are just very different from NASCAR. The FIA is a consortium (though F1 is not), NASCAR is a privately owned and held company. The teams are allowed to organize in F1 and in the FIA, and in NASCAR the teams throughout the history of the sport have been strongly encouraged not to organize. Where F1 has a global presence and global opportunity, NASCAR is confined to just the United States and continental North America.

For better or worse NASCAR is the king of American auto racing. This is their game and we’re all just playing it. So don’t expect Roush, Childress, Hendrick and Gibbs to band together and threaten NASCAR anytime soon.

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I think I should probably just start a problem series. I have been writing about it a lot lately. But I digress…

At the beginning of the season many in the media would have had you believing the world was crashing in on us. They were predicting empty race tracks, fleeing sponsors and failing teams.

Well six months into the year and four months into the season, things aren’t quite as bad as many predicted. Sure a couple teams have folded (the No. 8 car and No. 28 car), the independents are starting to struggle, and sponsors aren’t quite clamoring to spend tens of millions of dollars in the sport, but are things really that bad?

For the last several months everyone has been screaming about television ratings. Yeah they’re down, but if you look at them compared to other sporting events and programming, the sport really isn’t doing too bad. I unfortunately don’t have easy access to the Nielsen ratings, so I am working with what I can find online, but consider this: an average NASCAR race (not the 500 or another big race) does just as well as the NBA Finals did last year. They averaged about 9 million viewers.

That number is also big enough to beat a lot of primetime programming on major networks (not including Greys Anatomy or CSI of course). It also beats the hell out of the top rated cable programming.

Take a look at some older Nielson ratings and compare it to NASCAR this year. They’re down, but they’re no means bad.

The Chicken Littles are also pointing to the down attendance at the tracks. Now if you take the track estimations and subtract 30 to 40,000 (which is probably closer to the truth at some of these places) they are still nothing to scoff at. Any sport would give anything to have 100,000+ fans at their events every week. NASCAR is crying about it.

Sure it’s not the sell-out crowds we got just a few years ago, but still it is very good. The Super Bowl this year had just over 71,000 in attendance. With the exception of some of the smaller tracks, NASCAR easily beats that week in and week out.

Now I know what you’re saying, if there was a football stadium big enough (the new Cowboys stadium perhaps) they would have NASCAR-like attendance for the Super Bowl and that’s probably true (NASCAR couldn’t hope to have the TV viewing audience though), but the fact that NASCAR does that good every week is a very good thing.

So now that we’ve established things really aren’t that bad, I ask you, what is different between this sport and others?

The answer is the negative media attention on the sport.

Baseball attendance has been down and NHL and IndyCar TV ratings have been mediocre on Versus, but you don’t hear their respective press corps bashing the sport. In fact it’s quite the opposite. I have read several stories about how positive everyone is about the Versus ratings despite the fact the ratings have been cut in half for some events and how MLB is looking forward to a jump in attendance once the summer hits.

I feel like this sky is falling mentality has created a very negative perception of the sport by not only the general public but by the fans. I think much of the anxiety fans are feeling and another reason why they aren’t tuning in is the fabricated negativity. When you are reading every other day about how bad things are, or how bad things are going to be you’re going to start to believe it. I know NASCAR is attempting to combat this, but they can only do so much.

Things aren’t quite as great as they have been in previous seasons, there is no denying that, but are things really that bad?