You can't sit behind your keyboard and wait for them to come to you, you have to bring it to the public either by setting up temporary tracks in parking lots during special events, or in the case of Nankin Hobbies, inviting the Boy Scouts to a local track. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/2pGGamnVhLmq7AZ3/

We help the store sell a lot when I ran outdoors. But only got 1 new driver in 3 years.

Father and son that started would invite their scout troop every weekend. Couple of the dads came, but only watched for a bit.

We had regulars that would come every Saturday when raced outside. They’d watch for couple hours. But just wouldn’t take that next step.

It sucks they didn't get involved. But I like that they showed up to watch and returned more than once. That there was an audience means something is there. I'd assume that intimidation, money, or time was why the reason some of them didn't try building a kit and racing. Admittedly that was me when I'd go to airfields. We'd show up weekend after weekend to watch them fly, but not take the next step and build a plane. It all looked intimidating.

Time commitment was what most I talked said. They just didn’t know if they could or would. Outdoors in parking lot probably looks a little less intimidating then walking through an indoor pit area. Even now, I’ll still get that feeling. Especially at on road races. Looking at a pit area with on road setup stations and the balancing scales(keep almost buying the scales)

Brownie's Hobbies, Staten Island, NY hosted an NYPD Day recently exposing kids and everyone else to RC racing. Had a pretty good effect.

Promotion is being done. It's up to us to support it

And what works one area. Might not in another. For me, I’ll keep trying to get videos out wherever I can. I still try to aim parts of them towards people on the fence. There are interested, but unsure. The racing side can be overwhelming at first, or longer. And it’s far too easy to scare people off with the possible costs. There are ways of getting in with breaking the bank.

Agree with both points. Outside of tracks, basher meets, and the few stores still standing, the hobby exists almost exclusively online. I know it's not as simple as "build it and they will come". But physical stores are few and spread out, especially ones also hosting a track. RC needs a tangible representation, like what jiml mentioned. Even if people will ultimately just go home and buy it online, having a place you can see and touch the models, and interact with other RC people helps. I miss hobby shops. The last one to close in my area also had demo cars they would let customers rip around with in the parking lot. And it made sales. These people bought basher models, but its more people in the hobby.

Here's a thought.

If I were a big RC brand, instead of spending millions on sponsoring drivers and advertising to current racers/bashers, I would put much of that money into introducing my brand to new potential buyers. I would start sponsoring robotic and automotive courses at colleges and high schools. I would also donate product for them to tinker with. Those are the students that are into this type of stuff, and are highly likely to purchase RC products.

Excluding the robotics and automotive courses,,, Like Traxxas.

I don’t think most of brand have millions to invest. And aren’t paying the handful of fully sponsored drivers what some think. Now covering travel adds up. I do still question what the return is on sponsorship.

The 'big RC brands' are doing just fine.. racers, race tracks and local hobby shops don't add much value to their business.. if anything.. running a dealer network is a pain in their butt.. they sell tons of ready to run bashers, crawlers, drones.. preferably direct to consumer thru their own website.. actual sponsorships to racers are very limited these days.. vast majority of 'sponsored racers' you see get a small discount and a free t-shirt... the big RC brands spend their marketing dollars on you-tube influencers and tiktok advertising not on 'racers'.. Traxxas.. Horizon.. Amain.. Tamiya.. Kyosho.. don't care if your local track is struggling..

The big brands might be fine, but couldn't they be doing better? Isn't that what advertising is all about? If what you're saying is true, then there would be no reason for them to advertise the way they are. They only advertise to help build their brand up.

Traxxas figured this out, and that is mostly the reason they are so big. They started putting their product out in front of all those who would be interested in that stuff.

Back when “Big Squid” was the site for bashers. Cubby, their former racer wrote about this few times. Most of the brands were fine with there $5-10 million in sales per year. Didn’t seem interested in getting bigger.

I got to work twice at a Traxxas display at the NHRA events at Route66. Their weekend walk up sales were averaging $20-30,000. At that time they sometimes had 4-5 crews out at different events every weekend.

They are advertising a lot.. just not with objective to get people into racing at our local tracks.. and just like tracks are struggling.. so are traditional ways of advertising.. they can reach more potential customers by buying advertising on youtube.. facebook.. tiktok.. that's how they are growing their brand..

Well it looks like your idea has been pretty well bashed. But I need to add another nail

Someone I know is an extreme high end RC racer, winning multiple national championships and now has his own RC track (nice one too)

His son is totally into robotics, and couldn't care less about racing

Go figure