With the sort of speed usually reserved for the drag racing seen in his series, Peter Clifford has made sweeping changes to the NHRA in his first few months as president. As part of a six-pronged growth plan, Clifford, who ascended to the role in July after former President Tom Compton stepped down, has struck a new television package with Fox Sports, overhauled the NHRA’s Pro Stock division and brought on veteran journalist Terry Blount as the series’ new communications chief.
In a conversation with staff writer Adam Stern, Clifford expanded on why the new media rights deal is integral to the NHRA’s future, how sponsors and fans have responded to recent changes, and how he plans to execute in the new position.
■ Why did you go with Fox over NBC, and how pleased are you with the deal?
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Peter Clifford took over at the drag racing organization in July.
Photo by: NHRA |
CLIFFORD: We looked at both [NBC and Fox]; NBC Sports is fantastic as well. What pushed us over the top with the Fox deal was the minimum 16 live broadcasts. Hopefully we’re going to have even more than 16, which is huge. That’s the first time in our history that we’ll have live programming on network television, and we’re trying to get it so there will be four events in a row, which would be really huge for us.
Another thing that we’re going to have going forward is there will be a total of 450 hours of programming each year. That compares to about 150 hours of programming now [with ESPN]. Based off the feedback we’ve gotten from everybody, our fans and sponsors seem to be happy because it gets us what we wanted and actually more in that we knew we had to be live being a major league sport. We know major league sports are live, so that was the goal.
■ Why move production in-house?
CLIFFORD: We think we can do a great job better showing the fan experience on site. In our previous television shows, they’ve done a very good job showing off what’s going on on track, but if you’ve been to one of our events, one of the big benefits to our events is off track, in the pits, the grandstands — that whole experience. And that’s one of the things we’re very excited about going forward. … Also, it will help us utilize the content and use it across all our platforms, whether that’s digital, social — all of our platforms.
■ How concerned are you with the amount of open race title sponsorships and categories?
CLIFFORD: We had a sponsor summit [a few weeks ago] in Sonoma with all of our major sponsors, and it went very, very well. … They’re thrilled with the new TV package. That was very important to them going forward. And they liked all our initial announcements with our changes to the Pro Stock category, the addition of Terry Blount from ESPN to handle our vice president of media as well as other announcements; they’re all part of our six initiatives we’re rolling out, including we are adding a lot more resources to our business development department. We’re starting to fill that out. That’s obviously to bring on more business partners going forward because we’re seeing a lot more activity based on the recent announcements already and intend to capitalize on that.
■ How have sponsors responded to the new TV deal?
CLIFFORD: Actually, we’re already seeing the benefits of the new TV package and we have quite a few new, potential sponsors who we’re talking to in a number of categories, from consumer packaged goods, wireless, technology — and that’s in addition to endemic sponsors who we’re talking to. So we’re seeing a lot more activity right now.
■ How do you intend to make the NHRA more of a household commodity?
CLIFFORD: We’re the second most popular motorsport in America, and we deserve the coverage as the second most popular motorsport — and we’re not getting that coverage. We think Terry will help us be able to do that. Terry is an award-winning journalist, strong background in 10 years working for ESPN. But he had worked prior to that covering motorsports for decades in Texas, knows motorsports, is extremely passionate about the NHRA. And what Terry will help us do is he has relationships with all the PR reps in our sport as well as media around the country. So he’s going to be able to open doors, help tell our stories. … We think that’s going to make a big, big difference and help us get the coverage we deserve.
