Texas Motor Speedway hold all the aces

Article posted by Coliseum, October 15^th, 2025

Image: Coliseum GSVA

Mark Faber is very assertive and a positive person and he can turn adversities into one’s advantage. One among the top brass at the Texas Motor Speedway in the United States he believes that everything that happens along the way is a learning lesson.

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James A. Renne of AECOM Sports also joins Faber in asserting that the behind-the-scenes show at the Speedway is “a whole definite experience in itself”.

Mark Faber has more than 35 years of experience in the sports and entertainment industry. As the Executive Vice-President and General Manager of the Texas Motor Speedway since August 2022, Faber oversees all operations, events, revenue, community initiatives, and strategy for the 1,500-acre facility which held its first National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) race in 1997.

In a compelling conversation exclusively for ‘Coliseum’, Mark Faber, EVP and GM, Texas Motor Speedway, US, tells James A. Renne, Managing Director, AECOM Sports, that the Texas Motor Speedway “work for the fans” and “we are really in a great spot right now. We are in a highly competitive market. But NASCAR’s done a great job of how we then change our media portfolio on our partners to get the new fans in because all of our tracks and all of our races are competing. So, instead of just FOX and NBC now we have Amazon Prime and Netflix Specials.” He further explained to Renne that they work for the women fans and “our male-female demographics tell it all”! A growing female audience and circa 41 percent of the NASCAR fans are female.

NASCAR

Daytona Beach (US)-based the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), LLC is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top-ranked motorsports organizations in the world and is one of the largest spectator sports leagues in America.

Texas Motor Speedway

The 75,000-capacity Texas Motor Speedway is a 1,500 mile quad-oval intermediate Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas (US). It has hosted various major races since its inaugural season of racing in 1997 including the NASCAR races.

The Texas Motor Speedway is a part of NASCAR hosting multiple races each year for the NASCAR Cup Series, the Xfinity Series and the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series. It is considered a major and fast circuit on the NASCAR calendar with events that are often among the largest sporting events in the United States.

James A. Renne started the conversation by stating that the NASCAR events are a fully immersive experience for the fans but “they also take up a lot of land” and it takes a lot to maintain the same.

Stated Mark Faber, “We sit on 1,500 acres. Just our landscaping and our sheer operations team on managing that takes a lot of time, a lot of planning, a lot of efficiencies. We have a great operations team, one of the best and also for an aging facility to develop the 15,000 acres within the 27,000 acres is no mean task. Fast forward, we are going to be trying to work through an aging facility and we have to be really creative on our capital expenditure. We have an office building that is 102,000 square of office space that we lease, we have 76 sold out condos, we have a Speedway club tower where we had last year 196 events in that facility – all the way from corporate meetings to chamber meetings to proms, wedding receptions. So, we utilize that. And then we have 80 outdoor including our NASCAR Cup Weekend where we have three driving schools, we have music festivals, we have car shows, and we are really planning for 2026 right now for some big things on the horizon. So, we have a lot going on.”

Renne asked about the number of events and Faber informed that they do “close to 275 events. We have the largest attendance.”

Fan Experience

He further informed Renne that back in the 2000 “we were really hard on the fan experience and we would have 400,000 people turning up at the Speedway. I don’t want to manage a 400,000 personal event. Of course, next year we are going to have some big event so, 400,000 are really arduous and it makes sense if you had a great fan experience with 400,000. So, it’s changed and we are really in a great spot right now. We are on FOX. The beauty of what NASCAR did is they had new media partners. It used to be FOX and NBC. And you talk about an aging demographic when you recently celebrate 75 years of history you have got to think how do we bring in a new generation and we are competing against big venues like the 80,000-capacity AT&T Stadium in Texas which by the way we can fit four of those and infield. So, that gives you a size, scope and scale of how big it is talking about that. So, we are in a highly competitive market. But NASCAR’s done a great job of how we then change our media portfolio on our partners to get the new fans in because all of our tracks and all of our races are competing. It helps to bring a younger demographic and help grow the sport.”

Women Sport Fans

Renne wanted to know how the women sport fans for NASCAR works and Faber remarked, “We do a lot of surveys pre-and-post-races, especially for NASCAR Weekend and so. We hear the male voices, we hear the female voices as far as the surveys are concerned. We have an event – ‘Guilt for Greatness’ – that celebrates women leadership and entrepreneurship.”

Wrap-up

Mark Faber wrapped up by telling James A. Renne about the future plans – “Our ownership is looking at how do we reach a younger demographic – females in a different group. One of the core things we did is we brought in 10 influencers before the race that were all demographic – male-female, African-American, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian-American across different portfolio because we need to do that and we need to grow our fan base and how to reach them. The aggregate between those influencers was four million followers. These are younger individuals in their 20s who had never set foot on our property. We had drivers drive them around our track 165 miles an hour. So, when you talk about an adrenaline rush and more importantly about an education program like what our sport is about and the aggregate was four million followers between the 10, they are foodie and influencers – 1.5 million. So, we have to go through non-traditional means to call attention to our sport whether its food and beverage (F&B), whether its universities including new ticket programs for the universities, new social media influencers.”

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