Could The Financial Crisis Be Beneficial To The IndyCar Series?

As everyone in the world knows by now, there's been a rather serious financial crisis going on for several months now. Racing series are especially feeling the pinch—companies are dropping their sponsorships from F1, NASCAR, and even IndyCar almost daily.

So why, despite the recent loss of sponsors, do I feel the IndyCar Series could benefit from the crisis?

Well, its rather simple: Over the past few years, the Indy Racing League (IRL) has been in NASCAR's shadow, forced to make do with mostly small-time sponsors to make ends meet. In this economy, the small-time sponsors often cannot afford an IRL sponsorship anymore.

But an IRL sponsorship for a front-running team is still a mere fraction of the sponsorship costs for a 20th place car in NASCAR.

Even despite the financial recession, there are plenty of big sponsors out there who have had to drop their NASCAR sponsorships, but which still have money to burn on advertising.

And in many cases, its enough to afford an IRL sponsorship.

So why haven't they jumped over to the IRL yet? Again, its rather simple: The IRL still hasn't regained its original position on the racing radar map. The sponsors aren't quite aware that the IRL could be a good investment of their sponsorship dollars.

And why should they? There've been concerns about the new TV package, and the taint of the split is still visible in some aspects. On the surface, it doesn't seem all that great.

But what they fail to realize is that where the racing's good, the fans will go. And the IndyCar Series put on some very good shows in its first unified season.

If the IRL and Versus promote the hell out of the series on other channels, it will gain enough attention to get back on the sponsor's radars. And once that happens, the sponsors will come, and the IRL will weather the crisis at least as good as any other series.

It seems that everything comes down to the new Versus TV package. Versus has already made it clear they'll give the races the coverage they deserve, and the channel isn't as inaccessible as many believe.

In fact, the IRL coming to Versus has increased interest in the channel to such an extent that services are adding it on an almost daily basis, and other services which had it as an expanded channel are moving it to their basic lineups.

The Versus deal is poised to be as strong as the ALMS's arrangement with SPEED Channel. And if we look at how ALMS has prospered under its deal, we can see how the Versus deal can benefit the IRL.

As best I can tell, we should start seeing an upturn in IRL sponsorships by mid-season.

But only time will tell.