Where is motorsport’s Big Bash?

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The start of the 2018 Aussie motorsport season is upon us. The enthusiast’s spotlight will be on the Bathurst 12 Hour, the Australian Formula 1 GP hype will start any minute and the clock is ticking before Supercars starts seriously spruiking its Adelaide kick off.

For Australia’s premier motorsport category, there’s a new car in the wings for Holden fans, the odd driver and/or livery change and an impressive new track in regional South Australia. But aside from those changes, at its core, it’s status quo.

And that’s a concern.

We live in an era of disruption. Marketers and business developers are constantly coaching us to consider consumers’ changing tastes and ‘needs’ as well as their ever-contracting attention spans. Yet as a series our number one motorsport property seems, from the outside at least, to have firmly entrenched ‘steady as we go’.

There’s an interesting parallel with cricket. A storied game loved by purists, at its essences it once almost defined the establishment. Once upon a time, old-school ties were only ever taken off in Melbourne business circles to re-don a Melbourne Cricket Club replacement. The same went for Sin City.

Tests were all that mattered. Then via a certain K Packer, one-day matches arrived and were accepted. And in the course of time these evolved to 50-over games that were even played and accepted internationally.

Yet even these eventually also became irrelevant to time-poor consumers and, most importantly, didn’t engage young fans.

And then Big Bash arrived. And cricket went from zero to hero with kids and families in no time.

Australian motorsport has its test matches – Bathurst, Sandown and even the Gold Coast. Arguably Supercars’ regular calendar offers the equivalent of ODIs… But where is the motorsport equivalent of the Big Bash?

The Australian corporate world has jumped on the Big Bash League. It’s attracting quality sponsorship dollars from a range of high-profile consumer brands – including carsales.com.au.

At the same time, motorsport in Australia is largely bereft of high-impact, big non-auto brand sponsorship. Dollars that are based on quality return on investment. There are some brands there, but dig into the ‘whys and wherefores’ of brand X on car Y and in almost every case it’s a very personal relationship that’s delivered the dollars.

Cricket saw the writing on the wall. Big Bash worked and, guess what, its effect has been to rekindle the interest in the game’s long form.

From where I sit, there’s a first-mover advantage for the motorsport genre that can replicate a Big Bash-style, easy-to-consume racing offer.

The racing needs to be spectacular but that doesn’t mean F1-fast.

The cars need to look good and be relevant to consumers but that doesn’t mean they need to be cutting-edge under the skin.

The drivers need to relate to the same audience that has embraced the new normal that Big Bash cricket has defined for one of the world’s oldest team sports.

And most of all the whole thing needs to be packaged with a keen eye to the ‘window’ that current consumers will gift an entertainment channel.

There are currently just three car brands represented in Australia’s number one motorsport series. At last count more than 50 manufacturers sold passenger cars in this country. Something has to change…