Darlington Raceway is trying out the method that most fans think will lead to an increase in ticket sales -- and you can bet that many other NASCAR Sprint Cup tracks will be taking a good hard look at its results.The 1.366-mile South Carolina track will roll back its ticket prices up to $31 per seat for next May's Southern 500 at the track built in 1950, according to the Associated Press, in an effort to bring fill its grandstands.
Last season, track president Chris Browning said "The Lady in Black" came within 3,000 seats of recording another sellout of its Saturday night race, despite a local area swamped with unemployment.
From the AP:
Darlington president Chris Browning told The Associated Press on Thursday that the track "Too Tough To Tame" would offer reduced prices on about 35,000 seats for next year's Southern 500. Add that to the 9,000 or so seats reduced by $10 for last May's event, and 44,000 of the track's 62,000 would cost less than they did in 2008.Certainly Darlington is making a smart move by dropping the price on nearly 71 percent of its total grandstand capacity, but to also be the first track announcing the move should help ticket sales. The race has been held on the eve of Mother's Day in the past few seasons, though NASCAR has yet to release the 2010 Sprint Cup schedule.
Darlington came within 3,000 tickets of a fifth straight sellout this spring, a strong showing in a region afflicted with 12 percent unemployment. But Browning said officials didn't want to just hold the line and pray more prosperous times were ahead by May.
"We kicked around a whole lot of different scenarios," he said by phone, "and at the end of the day, we felt like this was the right thing to do."
Browning said renewal forms will go out to all ticket buyers next week. Should they respond by the deadline of Sept. 18, purchasers could receive an additional $5 discount.
The story, however, said the track has already received its sanctioning agreement for next season from NASCAR. Both International Speedway Corporation (who owns Darlington) and NASCAR are run by the France Family.
Ticket prices rose exponentially during NASCAR's explosion in the 1990s and early 2000s, though most seats are certainly within the range of most NFL games. A sizable difference, though, is that most tracks hold a much larger capacity than most other professional sport stadiums, creating the need for tracks to find ways to fill seats.
The 2009 season saw a several tracks sell tickets in certain sections at a discount of their previously set price. Darlington, however, is the first track to announce that its dropping ticket prices before any fans have had a chance to even get their passes for next May's race.
