Notebook: Infield Parking

I found out about a new NASCAR-oriented “social networking” site today called Infield Parking and thought it was pretty interesting. Not so much the site itself, but the way I found out about it and the people who are behind it.

Web-based social networks are all the rage these days… there are even social networks for social networks, and sites to help you manage all of your social networks. If you’re not familiar with the term “social network”, think of MySpace, Facebook, Classmates.com, and similar sites- those are web-based social networks.

What I find interesting is that the site is owned and operated by Dale Earnhardt Jr. (or I’m sure that to be more accurate I should say Junior’s “people”). But Jr is listed as the President and Co-Founder of the site. To my knowledge, this would be the first time a driver has been involved in a broad-based fan-oriented site at such a high level. If there’s one thing Dale Sr. passed on to his son, I’m quite certain it was the ability to market himself and maximize every opportunity to generate revenue.

Infield Parking already has over 20,000 members and claims to have signed on 10 NASCAR drivers (including Tony Stewart, Eliott Sadler, Kasey Kahne, Dale Jarrett and Bobby Labonte), who they claim will be blogging, posting photos, and participating in all of the Infield Parking action “real soon”. I wouldn’t exactly call it a well-executed site right now, but I’m sure they’re working on a lot of things and it doesn’t seem to have mattered to their members.

I found out about the site by reading Sports Marketing 2.0 - a blog published by Pat Coyle, Director of Database Marketing & E Commerce for the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts are getting close to launching MyColts.net, a social networking site for - you guessed it - Colts fans. Pat has suggested that perhaps two ways for MyColts.net to collaborate with a site like Infield Parking would be to swap profile pages, or to have someone like Tony Stewart create a profile page on MyColts.net that would link back to his page at Infield Parking.

All of this attention to social networking from the “big guns” of sports marketing and their associated sponsors is interesting. But what remains to be seen is whether all of these sites ever provide any substance and truly strengthen relationships between the entities and their fans (or between fans), or whether they just end up being hollow shells for a lot of money to be wasted on advertising. I’ll give Infield Parking some time because they just launched the site in the last few weeks, but let’s face it- most race car drivers are not writers, and the stuff they put on web sites is not terribly interesting to read. Truth be told, they post very infrequently and rarely divulge any kind of “inside information”, personal thoughts or anything of that nature. Granted, some drivers are very public figures who may not be care to give up what little privacy they still enjoy, but if that’s the case then perhaps they shouldn’t make such a commitment in the first place.

So we’ll see what happens… NASCAR.com is also rumored to be starting their own social networking site, and if nothing else you can bet it has been created to capitalize on the potential advertising revenue and will therefore be absolutely chock full of ads. Tens or hundreds of thousands of people will register and post photos of their kids and pets and comments that start and end with “WOOOOOO!!! GO [insert driver]!!! WOOOOOO!!”. The site probably wouldn’t ever fail, simply due to the strength of the NASCAR brand and the amount of money they’d be willing to spend on it, but it may very well leave people asking “Where’s the beef?”.

It’s been my experience that some of the best fan sites are the ones truly created by fans. People that are passionate about the sport, care about other people passionate about the sport, and lend their unique talents to benefit the good of the sport and the enjoyment of its fans. The jury’s still out, but I think it will be interesting to see what happens with all of the corporate-run fan sites out there.