Too Early To Praise NASCAR For Saying It Will ‘Prohibit’ Confederate Flag To Support ‘Black Lives Matter,’ George Floyd Movements

Surely, this NASCAR statement is incorrect.

Either that, or the earth is flat, the cow really did jump over the moon and the combination of The Black Lives Matter movement, along with these George Floyd-inspired protests for justice around the world, is way more powerful than we could have imagined.

Oh, wait.

We’ve seen this before (see below).

Never mind.

Call me when the parking lots and the infield at your average NASCAR event doesn’t resemble a tribute to Robert E. Lee.

If you didn’t know better, you’d say NASCAR bosses wish to do something about their sport with the stagnant television ratings before this season and the grandstands throughout their races over the past decade looking as they do now during the COVID-19 crisis.

Empty.

Sponsors also have sprinted away from NASCAR.

According to Forbes.com in February, the average worth of the league’s top eight teams is $158 million. Courtesy of Lowes, Target
TGT
, Speedway and others deciding to put their dollars elsewhere after seasons of advertising on stock cars, that’s an 11% drop from its peak of around a dozen years before.

The Forbes.com story added, “The fortune of the France family, the series’ owner since its 1948 founding, is also grinding along, having risen just 14%, to $5.7 billion, since 2014. In that time, the average value of an NFL team has doubled, while NBA team values have more than tripled.”

So NASCAR officials claimed Wednesday they wish to reverse that free fall, and they suggested they’ll do so by expanding their base beyond those still yearning for the days of “Gone With the Wind.”

Yes, it’s nice NASCAR had that huge pregame event before Sunday’s race in Atlanta supporting racial tolerance.

Yes, Bubba Wallace, the only African American NASCAR driver in the Cup Series, wore his “I can’t breathe” shirt, and he spent Wednesday night during a race in Martinsville, Tennessee in a black car owned by legendary Richard Petty, with Wallace’s ride carrying the words, “Black lives matter.”

Just wait, though.

This is the same sport whose officials took forever in April to tell rising superstar driver Kyle Larson to get lost after he used the N-word while competing with his peers during an iRacing event.

Let’s see what happens regarding NASCAR’S new (or actually old, which we’ll discuss in a moment) initiative during the next two weeks.

About the past several weeks: After the world-wide pandemic forced the sports world three months ago into a hiatus, NASCAR was the first major league to return with a race on May 17 in Darlington, South Carolina. There were no fans due to health concerns, and the same went for subsequent races.

That changes Sunday, when NASCAR will allow 1,000 service members for the race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Then comes the following week in Talladega, Alabama, where NASCAR is opening that race to 5,000 folks.

We’ll know faster than you can whistle “Dixie whether this latest plea from NASCAR officials for fans to join the 21st Century is as insignificant now as it was during the summer of 2015.

Back then, former NASCAR CEO and chairman Brian France told reporters in Sonoma, California: “We want to go as far as we can to eliminate the presence of that (Confederate) flag. I personally find it an offensive symbol, so there is no daylight how we feel about it and our sensitivity to others who feel the same way.

“We’re working with the industry to see how far we can go to get that flag to be disassociated entirely from our events.”

Here’s “how far” France’s words went: From the end of his tongue into nothingness.

Over the subsequent weeks, months and years, NASCAR fans waved their Southern Cross, Rebel flag, Stars and Bars or whatever else they like to call their hateful emblem as much as always.

I’ve covered the Daytona 500, along with Talladega and several races at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, and most of those times felt like any time before the Civil War, especially for African Americans such as myself.

Banners not exactly saying, “We shall overcome.”

Confederate flags.

Always those Confederate flags.

Everywhere.

Still, given the momentum from the Black Lives Matter thing and the George Floyd thing, maybe this is different.

It’s just that, despite NASCAR officials proclaiming Confederate flags aren’t welcome anymore, and despite those upcoming races sitting a few pitstops away, NASCAR officials didn’t say how they’ll handle violators.

Hmmmmmm.