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Sticking with the Big East is a losing strategy. If we were ever "victims" then we are just hurting ourselves by sticking with this failing model instead of moving to or creating a new one.
If any of you ever followed Open Wheel racing in the US also known as CART, IRL, IndyCar, ChampCar etc. you may be familiar with what I am about to say.
Indy Car racing was once the biggest form on motorsport in the US. For alot of different reasons, it was surpassed by NASCAR, it's decline was accelerated by a costly "Civil War" between CART and the breakaway series the IRL which eventually won a pyhrric victory.
The parallels between CART's decline and the Big East are numerous. And I am telling you. We have to get out of this thing and into a different construct, or else we will die on the vine.
To keep a long story short, CART was once so big that even rivaled Formula 1. Bernie Ecclestone wanted to merge F1 and CART. CART didn't need it so it didn't happen. CART was different as a racing organization because it functioned more like a collegiate conference or the NFL and was not like NASCAR which owns itself and allows teams to participate. The Teams owned CART and the Team Owners were getting fabulously rich.
The problem was that they were just pursuing short term gains, races on city streets that didn't always build enduring fan support and they favored hiring foreign drivers who could win instead of developing home grown talent that appealed to the fans.
Short term tactical victories were never translated into strategic success. NASCAR came on strong in the mid 90s and the CART team owners dithered while lining their pockets with sponsor money that was going to move to NASCAR pretty soon.
The IRL broke away and was a joke for many years. Until a CART team owned by Chip Ganassi decided to return to the Indianapolis 500 and destroyed the IRL field with a driver named Juan Montoya. The next year, Penske and Ganassi both competed. The year after that, Penske left CART altogether. This was the real tipping point and when the war was really "won".
In the years that followed, the biggest most successful teams in CART moved to the IRL. Sound familiar? CART got smart way too late. They hired a dynamic CEO in Chris Pook who probably should have been running the thing all along, but it was too late save it. A few years later Pook was gone, and the series was kept on life support changing its name tow or three times until merging with the IRL when Ford and Bridgestone finally abandoned it.
The same garbage you hear from Aresco now, is what you heard from Chris Pook then. "We're positioning, we feel confident. when the dust settles we'll be able to move forward". The dust never settled, and it won't settle for us.
If any of you ever followed Open Wheel racing in the US also known as CART, IRL, IndyCar, ChampCar etc. you may be familiar with what I am about to say.
Indy Car racing was once the biggest form on motorsport in the US. For alot of different reasons, it was surpassed by NASCAR, it's decline was accelerated by a costly "Civil War" between CART and the breakaway series the IRL which eventually won a pyhrric victory.
The parallels between CART's decline and the Big East are numerous. And I am telling you. We have to get out of this thing and into a different construct, or else we will die on the vine.
To keep a long story short, CART was once so big that even rivaled Formula 1. Bernie Ecclestone wanted to merge F1 and CART. CART didn't need it so it didn't happen. CART was different as a racing organization because it functioned more like a collegiate conference or the NFL and was not like NASCAR which owns itself and allows teams to participate. The Teams owned CART and the Team Owners were getting fabulously rich.
The problem was that they were just pursuing short term gains, races on city streets that didn't always build enduring fan support and they favored hiring foreign drivers who could win instead of developing home grown talent that appealed to the fans.
Short term tactical victories were never translated into strategic success. NASCAR came on strong in the mid 90s and the CART team owners dithered while lining their pockets with sponsor money that was going to move to NASCAR pretty soon.
The IRL broke away and was a joke for many years. Until a CART team owned by Chip Ganassi decided to return to the Indianapolis 500 and destroyed the IRL field with a driver named Juan Montoya. The next year, Penske and Ganassi both competed. The year after that, Penske left CART altogether. This was the real tipping point and when the war was really "won".
In the years that followed, the biggest most successful teams in CART moved to the IRL. Sound familiar? CART got smart way too late. They hired a dynamic CEO in Chris Pook who probably should have been running the thing all along, but it was too late save it. A few years later Pook was gone, and the series was kept on life support changing its name tow or three times until merging with the IRL when Ford and Bridgestone finally abandoned it.
The same garbage you hear from Aresco now, is what you heard from Chris Pook then. "We're positioning, we feel confident. when the dust settles we'll be able to move forward". The dust never settled, and it won't settle for us.
