521 - Business of Motorsports with World Of Outlaws CEO Brian Carter

Kelley Earnhardt Miller welcomes World Racing Group CEO Brian Carter for the first edition of the Business of Motorsports for the 2024 season. After growing up a racing fan in Texas, Carter ventured into the business finance world working for Deloitte and specializing in public to private transactions. In the early 2000s, while working with a software company, he was approached by the owners of Boundless Motorsports, who were in the process of purchasing the World of Outlaws and United Midwest Promoters operations. Carter jumped at the opportunity to get involved with the dirt racing enterprise, and a short time later he became CEO of what is now known as World Racing Group. Brian and Kelley discuss the state of the motorsports business world in the early 2000s, when a lot of major racing entities such as NASCAR, Speedway Motorsports Inc and WRG were publicly traded companies. He also explains the vertical structure of WRG, which encompasses 15 dirt touring series across the country, sanctioning racing in many different divisions of short track cars. The interview covers WRG’s streaming platform DirtVision and its impact on increasing awareness and exposure on both a weekly and national racing scale. Carter explains that having more of WRG’s events available for countrywide viewership has not only helped create an influx of sponsorship funding for short track racers, but it's helped bring new spectators through the track gates.