Champ Car World Series: Molson Indy Toronto

Topics:  Molson Indy Toronto, ChampCar

Rob Correa
Chris Pook
July 13, 2003

TORONTO, ONTARIO

ADAM SAAL: Busy day here at the Molson Indy Toronto. We'll take a couple minutes out of your busy schedule. Thanks for joining us to talk about a very exciting announcement. As some of you may be aware, today's race will be live back in the US on CBS, as we continue to work with that great network in building our sport. Here to talk a little bit more about that relationship going forward is CBS Sports Senior Vice President of programming, Rob Correa. Welcome, Rob.

ROB CORREA: Thank you.

CHRIS POOK: Thanks, Adam. As you know, Championship Auto Racing Teams and the Champ Car series is now in the second year of its relationship with CBS. And it's a relationship that we've been working on together and building together over the past year and a half. Today's announcement is to say that in 2004, 10 of our races will be on the CBS network, including the season opener at St. Petersburg in February. Other races that will be on, of course, will be Long Beach, and I would suspect Portland and races such as this next year. We are not announcing our calendar today. We will not announce our calendar, I would say, for at least another three or four weeks. But we did want to take the opportunity today to tell you about the growing relationship with CBS and to introduce Rob Correa to you, who is a big supporter of our series. We're very grateful to him for his faith in us and, indeed, our production team headed by Terry Linger. Rob.

ROB CORREA: We're excited to be continuing and trying to build our ratings race by race, year by year. I think it's especially encouraging for us to kick off the season in February with the February 22nd race from Florida at 12 noon. I think that really will get us a leg up on the series as opposed to coming in during the season in June. So I think that alone is a terrific addition, I think for Champ Car and for CBS. The fact that we can get up to 10 races as opposed to the seven we're doing this year is also very encouraging, I think.

CHRIS POOK: Yes, it's a time buy-in production to CBS. We're still working with CBS on that basis, as I should point out to you, are many more sports working with networks. I want to remind you there still are a large number of golf tournaments that are time buys. Years ago, most of the golf was on time buy. As we rebuild our ratings and our relationship, we will continue in this business relationship with CBS, who have entrusted us with the production of their shows, which is for us very, very reassuring. We're very grateful to Rob and his colleagues at CBS for trusting us in that manner.

ROB CORREA: It's the only live show, live series of shows, that CBS does where we allow "outsiders, outside package, non-CBS personnel" to produce and direct the show for us. That's really a sign of the faith we have in Champ Car.

CHRIS POOK: I would suspect we will continue our relationship with SPEED Channel. They've been with us. We haven't entered those discussions yet. We thought it was important to get the network programming in place first with CBS, then we'll open up those discussions and see how we move forward. SPEED Channel has been very good to us, have been with us for the last year and a half. They've been very, very supportive partners and do an outstanding job for us.

CHRIS POOK: I suppose anything's a possibility in this world today. The first place that discussions would start would be at SPEED.

ROB CORREA: I mean, I can answer that question two ways: First of all, there really shouldn't be a negative connotation with "time buy". It's a reality of doing business these days. On our schedule alone, let alone our competitors', we do everything from the Tour de France, horse racing, we've done college football bowl games in the past, we do golf, tennis, specials, I'm sure I'm leaving out three or four different sports. It's kind of the reality of doing business these days. On the probably more important front, particularly in the Champ Car property, it is absolutely the best way to generate the most amount of revenue because Chris' people have access to sponsors that we, CBS, just selling media, don't have. Clearly, again, I think you have to get away from any potential negative connotation that the "time buy" has, and look at it more as a way of generating the most revenue possible. Over the course of this summer so far, I've seen, hasn't exactly been blanketed, but I've seen some pretty enthusiastic shall we say promotion of the CART races, Champ Car races, on CBS, not necessarily on the Champ Car race shows themselves, but I think I've seen them on the morning show and other sorts of things.

CHRIS POOK: Clearly, I think our numbers back it up, we are promoting the series more and better this year, airing more on-air spots, we're doing radio. We've ramped it up a bit this year probably something to the effect of 30 to 40%. Clearly it's something we'd love to do in the future. You know, it's always a battle because there's a lot of shows at CBS that need to get promoted and want to be promoted. But I think we've proven this year that we've stepped it up. That's something we'd like to continue to do in the future. It's a very crucial element in building the series from a television perspective.

ROB CORREA: I mean, I think what we're going to focus on is we're going to try and grow it every year. I mean, without getting into specific numbers, we want to see growth every year if possible. That's not easy to do. Particularly in today's day and age, if you look at virtually every other sport, flat from one year to the other is considered successful.

ROB CORREA: Going head-to-head with?

ROB CORREA: Oh, the Pepsi race. No, at this point it's an afternoon series for us. Any sport that goes head-to-head with itself, whether it's golf going up against golf or auto versus auto, I just don't think it makes great sense at this point.

ROB CORREA: We'd love to avoid that, honestly. But with the CBS network schedule, the ABC network schedule, that's sometimes unavoidable. I mean, clearly we'd love to avoid that. It has nothing to do with IRL versus Champ Car, anything like that. It's just not good television programming when similar sports, the same sport basically, open-wheel racing, goes up against itself. We'd love to avoid it, but I'm sure in certain cases it will be unavoidable.

CHRIS POOK: We have had discussions on that. Rob has discussed that with us, our advisors. We will address that issue going forward. We've assured CBS we will address that issue. That means that we will talk to the IRL about that and see if we can arrive at a solution so we don't go head-to-head with each other.

CHRIS POOK: At the moment, I believe we're hoping to do at least eight of them live. But, again, that's a process of discussion right now, not only with CBS but with our promoters, as well, who are the other part of the equation. We have to respect what they're doing, as well. It's a bit of a balancing act. But I would say to you at least eight of them. There was concern about going delayed from Brands Hatch. CBS did an outstanding job for us on that show. Of course, we followed the next day with our race from Germany. We were on a Saturday/Sunday schedule there which showed positive benefits to everybody involved.

CHRIS POOK: We don't discuss those things. It's a menu without prices.

ADAM SAAL: We want to thank everybody for taking time out of the day to join us. Great news, Rob, Chris. Thank you very much.