ABC and NASCAR

Nascar is one of the most popular sports in America today. It not only incorporates the competition of running faster than the other guy. It also encompasses many skills that Americans use every day.

The first thing one thinks of off the bat is of course mechanics. Nascar race teams also use Sales, Hospitality, Engineering, Customer Service, and many other skilled trades in their line of business.

I believe a correlation can be drawn in the coverage of the Nascar race Saturday Night by ABC, and the decrease of quality in American culture.

For example although ABC does need to sell ads to make the event pay for itself. ABC had gone out and sold so many ads the quality of their presentation suffered.

Keeping track of the laps that were missed during commercials Saturday Night. I came up with a conservative total of 134 laps missed. The race was 500 laps long. That means I missed 26% of the race.

ABC has had this problem before. They came up with the solution of using a split screen, so you can see the race and the commercial at the same time. I guess maybe this made the advertisers unhappy. I don't know. But I can tell you missing 26% of the race, to watch commercials that are mostly concerned with pulling off some kind of gimmick, rather than promoting Quality, and Value, has made ABC and Nascar's customers very unhappy.

This is not an uncommon problem ABC and Nascar is going through. It permeates through our entire society.

Every day the Government, in the attempt to create a need, and fill it to get votes, imposes more and more burden on the already strained productivity of Americas economy.You really can't blame the Government. We have allowed this to happen. We continue asking what America can do for us, rather than ask what can we do for America. We reward people running for office who are adept at creating a need, than finding a need and filling it.

Of course the only need that Government should fill, Freedom, is contained in the pages of the Constitution, and the Constitution is a terrible thing for those who believe in creating a need or don't believe in Freedom. Look at what our public servants are running on. Creating jobs, creating tax breaks, creating dependency on Government programs for Social Services, picking winners and losers.

Essentially creating a ruling class that really don't have to live like the people they rule.

What has led to this is a fundamental shift in selling ideas in this country. Salesmanship is taught as learning to sell a pencil. The thought process is. If I can build value in an item most everyone has, I can build my market share. The problem is most people already have pencils, and pretty much have found a use for them. I believe the term is called selling the same old thing.

Now if I come from an old fashioned approach of Find A Need and Fill It. I have just automatically created value that is useful for all involved. The seller and the customer. The problem with this approach, ( or modern America thinks this is a problem) is it requires me to listen first. Otherwise how can I find out what the need , or problem is? That is called market research. Honest market research tells me what demographic my product fits into. Today we work from the context that we know what you want and we need to find the right message to make your demographic realize it. That is the difference between a Republic and an Oligarchy. Both function under the Democratic system of Government. One listens to what you think. The other tells you what you should think.

So ABC. The market research I am hearing out here, is many race fans are not happy with only seeing 74% of the race. They are paying Satellite, and Cable fees to see the whole race. Race fans like many Americans know what they want. You also know from your ratings that viewer ship is dropping. Of course if you are losing viewers you will be losing advertisers to other sports who are seeing an increase in viewer ship. (NFL)? First hint: the NFL doesn't cut away during a play. They wait for a time out. There were seven caution flags Saturday Night you cut away on only four of them. When you came back from commercial breaks we were treated to more ads from the announcers.

America like NASCAR and ABC needs to reexamine their business model. That business model needs to be written based on what you hear, not on what you want people to hear.

In the case of America, that business model has already been written. It is called the Constitution. It was written after our founding fathers heard about freedom, and learned about it. They took the best parts of other Governments through out history and threw out the bad parts of those systems that market research showed did not fulfill a need or provided value to their citizen's.

A return to the fundamentals of providing value is the only thing we need to restore this country.