Guest Author: Jay Masinick

UnlimitedHydroplaneRacing.com would like to thank Jay Masinick, President & CEO of Experts in Marketing, for providing his perspectives on our sport of Unlimited Hydroplane Racing and how he feels a focus on TV coverage should be the key strategy for a successful future.

First Step To Fix H1 Unlimited Hydroplane Racing Series

By Jay Masinick

Preface

You sit in the grandstand with child-like anticipation on Christmas Eve. The colors and pageantry surround you. The smell of jet fuel, barbeque, and sea water create a potpourri of hypnotic aromas.

Then, these “uncaged great white rocket ships on water” are hoisted from the deck into the most unforgiving racing environment that, in a split second, cannot just destroy you, but swallow you whole, taking you under for a death roll.

The danger just multiplies the excitement. Your pulse races as the jet engines fire and you see the heat plumes quiver the air behind the exhaust. Or if you are lucky, a WWII Rolls Royce airplane engine shakes you to your toes.

Held to the water with a few small pieces of steel and driver guts, these mechanical marvels which are better suited for flying, throttle up. Your heart in your throat, they skim the course pressing to over 200 miles per hour. Flying into a turn, side-by-side and nearly out-of-control, the fantastic rooster tail of water explodes hundreds of feet into the air.

You lurch from your seat, blinded by the massive plumes of water, looking for survivors of the frequently destructive hairpin turn. Those who survive throttle up as they pass the apex of the turn – this time to glory as they race down the front straightaway, hair on fire, eyes glazed, the taste of victory in the back of their throats.

Each driver casts aside safety and common sense for glory. Oh, the glory! Oh, the excitement!

And It Could Be Gone Very Soon

The only thing keeping the circuit from sinking is the passion of a handful of race team owners who love the sport more than the money they pour into their teams. They expect little in return except the prospect of glory and trying to preserve some long-lost memory of by-gone days.

So why can’t a sport loaded with speed, danger, sexy race crafts, (and did I say speed?) even get arrested in the few towns they race in anymore? I could tell you it is aging crowds, maybe the endless choices available for your entertainment dollar, or maybe the boats are just not as loud as they were before the jet engines.

Maybe.

Then there’s my “little” theory. Bernie Little, with his passing and the eventual loss of a national-esque sponsor, Miss Bud, seemed to have taken the sport with him. Imagine baseball without the New York Yankees, or the NFL without the Patriots?

Every underdog needs a villain, the big fish, the king of the hill, or an evil empire, with a red and white U-1 Death Star to fight. And without a villain, Team Han and Team Luke and Leia have no one to save the galaxy from.

We are a league of strangers with no household name sponsors, no swash-buckling, pirate-like drivers fans can root for or hate! We have no rep, no major sponsors, and no real reason for new fans to come out. Our races are, simply put: exhibitions.

Me? With all due respect, I believe that the H1 Unlimited organization has proven they are the main reason for the circuit’s plunge into the deep. That’s due to their lack of contemporary vision, and its inability to bring the sport into the 21st century where sports and entertainment are one, fueled by major sponsorships and television.

Just standing on the edge of the dock praying has cost the sport its future. Plans should have been put in place to evolve with the audience. Success for a “thriving” racing organization is grounded in the daredevil action of the sport, married to Hollywood, music, fashion, sex, and don’t forget good ol’ fashion family barbeque.

Then, when you get this amazing product of excitement powered up, you need to show it to the non-fan masses. They need to see how cool this is. We have the old guard fans that show up, but we need to create new fans. But unless you drag them from the video games, or fantasy sporting teams to the edge of a river, on a specific weekend, you can’t show them anything, you can’t sell them anything, and they have no reason to care.

This, my friends is why the sport is dying. I own and operate entertainment and media companies in the U.S. and I always tell staff, “I don’t mind hearing what’s wrong, but you also need to tell me how to fix it.” So, if any of the folks at the H1 Unlimited Hydroplane Racing Series may be reading this, I will stop telling you what is wrong and tell you now how to begin to fix it.

Stop Waiting for a TV Network Hand-Out

Over the years, the Hydroplane Racing Series (HRS) has partnered with NBC Sports, ESPN, or some really obscure, local, and yes, cheesy network or production company. We presently are streaming our races in some cities on the web. Disappointing. The production is poorly shot, poorly edited, has bad sound, with ol’ school play-by-play broadcast style.

This is not helping grow the sport. You are probably ruining what reputation you may still have.

The Fix

No more waiting for some third rate, tape delayed, TV or streaming hand-out. The HRS #1 goal in 2020 SHOULD BE to create and support its own television production company that will build pre- and post-race content and human interest stories, and deliver 90 minutes of racing live with the finest sports production crews available to create a spectacle.

Why?

You see all those large media networks have plenty of time to air our content. What they don’t want to do is send union wage production crews in big fancy satellite trucks with a price tag exceeding a quarter million dollars, to an event to produce the race, knowing they will never see a profit or gain one new viewer.

Trust me – they have tried.

When we create our own production team, we bring the sexy, the music, the speed – and cram it into all our content that may be confused with a music festival. Even the major networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX would snap up the content if they didn’t have to pay for the production.

It Gets Better

A menu and teaser reel of all production products built for the year will be packaged, price tagged, and shipped to every market in America. Do we want cash for our efforts? Maybe. What we really want is the ad space in our own shows. As soon as we develop advertising inventory by delivering the production packages, for a start, to the 6 or 7 active race markets, we are in the media business.

Now it is hands free for the networks. They just plug and play. Local stations could bid on different products. All our media partners split the commercial space with us in the broadcasts and pre- and post-race show. Now we have advertising inventory we can sell to sponsors. And now we are raking and making money. We do the same by creating the HRS radio network.

We want ad space. Why?

The Next Evolution

Once we have created a true network with advertising on mainstream media, we offer the exposure to national sponsors who will see our product and look to invest. Why us? Why on our race show? Because in addition to the television exposure, they will also enjoy multi-platform branding and campaign marketing including web site, radio network, race point of sale, in-store promotion and branding at all our races in front of millions of fans.

Eyeballs are dollars in media sales. And the more eyeballs we create, the more media sales. Have you ever met a “poor” NFL team owner? It’s all TV money. In addition to the race products there will be sponsorable promotional spots promoting ticket sales, the TV broadcast times, and local promotion the week leading up to the race.

NASCAR Marketing 101, and we own it all because we produced our own product.

Oh did I hear you ask, “what if in year one we don’t get a TV sponsor?” My answer is we buy 90 minutes on the local station, sell our own ad space and continue to rake. But trust me – done well, we won’t have to worry about that.

Problem: Race Day Packaging for TV

Over two days and somewhere around 6 to 8 hours per day, only 30 minutes of racing occurs. This is television death. The solution? Our production team films all the heats throughout the 2 or 3 days, but not the 2 qualifying heats to the finals – nor the final itself.

In a show space of 60 or 90 minutes on a Sunday, we deliver highlights of the Friday and Saturday qualifying races and any Sunday morning activity leading up to the live finals.

Finals qualifiers and finals heats happen within the 60 or 90 minute show. Now we have 90 minutes of pure racing eye candy!

Onward!

We need to control our own product and destiny. The production company is the first major step to save the sport. There are many other steps if anyone is interested in 30 years of television
experience.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the races, that’s if you know where to find us on the web.

Jay Masinick: 50-Year Fan
President and CEO
The Experts in Marketing