According to the Associated Press, the Boston Consulting Group has suggested that the Hulman-George family retain possession of both IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
BCG was hired following the end of the 2012 IndyCar season to assess the series and the legendary race track, and to offer ideas on how to strengthen them in the years ahead. Per the AP, suggestions from the group — which the family is under no obligation to follow — range from a 15-race IndyCar schedule over 19 weeks to a three-race playoff with a season finale on the IMS road course.
Also in the report were ideas from focus groups on how IndyCar could distinguish itself from other series — particularly NASCAR, which has fallen from its lofty heights in the early to mid-2000s but still remains America’s most popular form of racing by a considerable margin.
“Focus groups suggested that marketing strategies should be geared to ‘positioning IndyCar as having the most skilled, daredevil drivers and not theatrical off-track personalities,'” the AP’s Jenna Fryer wrote. “They indicated they valued fast cars over science and engineering; winning over points challenges; suspense through lead changes over entertainment through crashes; and the diversity of track types rather than ovals.”
Fryer also wrote that BCG called IndyCar “the best pure racing motorsports league in the U.S….but the series suffers from lack of awareness.”
As for the Brickyard itself, BCG has suggested more use of the facility (only 21 of the 132 days the track was used in 2012 were for “major-revenue generating events”) and a reworking of its ticket price tiers.
