I had visions of well produced, unique video content, fresh stories about the team and drivers, perhaps blogs, and areas for fans to interact. What we got was a rehashed version of what they already had.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, take a look at the ‘new’ Roush Fenway website.

Don’t get me wrong, the site is pretty. It’s much better than what they had before, and it’s nice to see all the links work and actually have content on them. That said, after an article in Sports Business Journal, and what was reported as a $500,000 spend on the site (that includes a relationship with the Barbarian Group, a broadcast studio in the shop, and reassigned team executives) I was expecting something great – something I had never seen before. This I think I’ve seen.

The site was built to serve two purposes – business and competition. On the business side, I think they’ve done a pretty good job – it’s certainly more than anyone else in the sport is doing. The cheesy photos of their business development team notwithstanding, that part of the site has a lot of good information. I would imagine there are locked portions of the site that offer additional helpful information for the team’s corporate partners too. It’s the other half of the equation that disappoints me.

The competition part doesn’t look or work any different than any other team website. They’ve got replayed press releases on the front page, minimal video content, and driver/team profile pages.

In the video department I was expecting well produced, innovative content (check out this QVC style sales video they made for Ricky Stenhouse Jr.). Instead what they’ve got are essentially video pre and post race reports. While they are reasonably well produced, the content is not so innovative. On top of that I wonder about the format. If you’ve got the studio, why not do a weekly interview style show with one driver/multiple drivers (instead of a bunch of spliced together soundbites)? And what’s the deal with that sunset background?

Maybe I’m being too hard, too early – perhaps there is more, better content to come – but I’m pretty disappointed with what I’ve seen. NASCAR teams have neglected the power of their websites for too long (I wrote about that here), and I thought Roush might be the one to change that. I guess not.

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