It was a successful year as the sport averaged over three million average viewers per race. This is convenient if the city where a follower lives in has a track, but for those that live a long distance from NASCAR venues, the cost to go to watch them is gradually becoming more expensive due to the continually rising prices of fuel. By Jack Davis June 22, 2020 at 8:10am. This article looks at several of the reasons why NASCAR is losing fans. It may seem good on the surface, but theres more beneath that makes this concerning. UPDATE: The Daytona 500 posted only a modest decline in ratings and viewership, but that was still enough to make it one of the least-watched ever. So NASCAR racing has become just like European formula-car racing and IndyCar racing in North America. The broadcasts have also improved. Social impressions, social following, a positive buzz of our sport, which is measured by third parties, like at YouGov is up 2.5 X over the course of the last two to three years.. The XFL's ratings were disappointing in Week One. No longer do young NASCAR racers start at their local tracks and work their way up. The six-race consecutive increase in viewership prior to Talladega is something that everyone can understand and helps reinforce just how healthy NASCAR is. Schedule/Results. When you think of the venues that have showcased the most memorable events in the sports history, Daytona, Darlington, and Bristol often come to mind. There was suddenly lots and lots of prize money available and other full-time competitors like Bill Elliott, Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip joined up to give chase. Compared to NASCARs 18-49 demographic, IndyCar has an average of 24%, while they are at 20.1%. It is understandable that throughout its existence, rule changes have been implemented at NASCAR, and the reasons for such have varied from safety, technological, or as organization initiatives to provide more challenges or add excitement to the races. I expect that will be a boon to NASCARs future. After years of seeing its once enormous audience dwindle to almost nothing, NASCAR is finally righting the ship. Its certainly healthy in terms of eyeballs, Hebrst said. Nepotism isnt dead in NASCAR. In todays world TV ratings arent the big deal they once were nor the only thing that matters. IndyCar is seeing huge success as an open-wheel Motorsport, just like Formula 1. In NASCAR, the equivalent of a ref would be the flagmen, who not only flag the start and end of the race but flag drivers with caution warnings for safety and rules enforcement. NASCAR scraped bottom. Strauss also reported that TNT's viewership is down 40 percent since the 2011-12 season, and ESPN has seen a decline of about 20 percent during the same time. The last race at Auto Club took place in 2020 and had an average of 4.781 million viewers for the third event of the season. I covered NASCAR for six seasons for two excellent racing websites, Thats Racin (the Charlotte Observers racing site) and the Frontstretch. The NASCAR ratings for the 2022 season are the best they have been in four years. Las Vegas, by contrast, moved back from the coveted week after the Daytona 500. As it happens, the first four official NASCAR races of 2022 are averaging a 9.73 share, which means nearly 10% of all homes that had TVs in use at the time of the broadcasts were tuned in to Fox. With his brilliant head wrench Chad Knaus on the pit box, the #48 team for years remorselessly laid the field to waste when playoff time started. All that said, the unveiling of the Car of Tomorrow in 2007 certainly didnt help. With all the different metrics used to measure a sport these days however, it can be complicated. When NASCAR first started, you had a bunch of good ol boys who worked blue-collar jobs, usually in garages, and gottheir hands dirty and went racing at local speedways on the weekend and, if they were any good, developed a following. Herbst, and NASCAR, are well aware that fans, and some media, still look to the ratings. Should there be concerns with the current trend of viewership? https://t.co/Zf4L7g5im4 Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) July 10, 2018 And abuse and manipulation of that system. Men in particular were more put. NASCAR did (and still does) market the possibility of spectacular wrecks. With fewer fans at the track, you might think TV ratings would continue to rise and maybe even increase as those fans turned on the TV instead of spending money to go to the track. But for whatever reason, Junior not only didnt measure up to his fathers formidable reputation, he rarely even established himself as a contender. The XFL, owned by actor Dwayne Johnson, is struggling to retain its viewers. Most die-hard fans of NASCAR are those that have followed it the longest. HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA - NOVEMBER 17: Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M's Toyota along with his wife [+] Samantha and son Brexton pose with the trophy after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Homestead Speedway on November 17, 2019 in Homestead, Florida. Schedule/Results. Then they sharply declined in Week Two.The four XFL games in Week Two averaged 665,000 viewers, which is a 50 percent decline from the four XFL . The addition of retired driver and fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. beefed up NBCs product in 2018, but four people in the broadcast booth are too many voices. The 2023 NASCAR season is underway and it is bound to be very exciting in the second year of the NextGen car. All Rights Reserved. Speaking of disrespecting your fan base, how about needlessly putting an end to a beloved 54-year tradition? The various platforms of social media have been a convenient and fast way to obtain information and entertainment on a particular sporting event. Last year, nearly 70 million unique viewers tuned in to . If they hadnt, youd probably be reading articles today about the decline of Coca-Cola too. By virtue of his fathers untimely passing, Dale Earnhardt Jr. instantly found himself with a larger fan base than any three drivers in NASCAR. The household share was up 9% compared to 2022 and represented the largest share for the second race of the season since 2017. The future of IndyCar seems to be brighter when it comes to younger people. Removing the Toyota logo and Supra badge, one would be hard-pressed to identify, and in actuality, to associate with the caron what it is supposed to represent. NASCAR Home. It was boxy, ugly, and top heavyand its shape was part of the reason for the Indianapolis debacle of 2008. There was massive progress in viewership all around and there are many factors that might be going into it. These are bold changes, but this variety of tracks will test drivers and teams at every level. This marks a 25% lift versus NASCAR's analogous share in 2018, and is the strongest showing since Fox got off to a 10.5 share start in 2016. People do not want to watch numerous full-screen commercials while green-flag racing is taking place. The drops: 10% in one year, 19% in two years, 38% in three years, and, good golly Miss Molly, 51% since 2015, when NBC picked up the second half of the season in a giant 10-year contract, with Fox doing the first half. NASCAR TV Ratings Below are the ratings for the NASCAR Cup Series: Date | Track | Network | Viewers | Ratings June 20, 2021 Nashville Superspeedway NBCSN Viewers: 2,600,000 Ratings: 1.46 June 13, 2021 Texas Motor Speedway FS1 Viewers: 2,735,000 Ratings: 1.64 June 6, 2021 Sonoma Raceway FS1 Viewers: 2,494,000 Ratings: 1.49 May 30, 2021 TV ratings for the Richmond race were said to be down 12% from the same race in 2015 and 44% from 2014. . Not all, of course, but most. Then they sharply declined in Week Two. Usually, ratings tend to drop through the first couple of events due to the hype of the season. It was the insistent implementation of it over loud objections of fans. The sport mishandled the on-track racing by introducing the 550 horsepower package which caused the fanbase to lose trust. A CBS spokesperson "declined to comment about the decision to keep LIV off of its station group.". The decline of NASCAR from dominance started circa 2005, and there wasnt any big change to car specs in that time period. It was, but even that wasnt the point. As a racing event that is held in various tracks around the US, there are several venues that fans can choose to go to in order to watch NASCAR live. However, NASCAR has been taking major strides as the on-track product is improving, the schedule is being changed, bold decisions are being made, and communication between each party is better. I was critical of the Chase in plenty of columns, but I felt like I really got the point across with this one about it. I think that the momentum is good. NASCAR's social media channels have piled up nearly 2 billion social impressions (the number of times its content was viewed) and more than 92 million fan engagements (retweets, likes, shares). Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY The. There are not many. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA So that's a positive viewership increase of 2%. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Visualhunt / CC BY-SA The season averaged 2.866 million sans-Daytona, down 1% from last year (2.91M) and a fraction of a percent from 19 (2.871M). Below, we take a look at the NASCAR ratings over the course of the 2023 season with an up-to-date analysis of each event. And those ways that didnt always involve traditional broadcast TV. It was another case of costly arrogance; as much as fans loved NASCAR, they didnt love it enough to put up with an endlessly saturated marketing campaign featuring occasional snippets of racing each week. Even more so than in baseball, the on-screen product is affected with the layout of a track. This year's Daytona 500, for example, drew 4.8 million viewers a. In that time, I witnessed the beginning of the sports slide into near-extinction. Brian Herbst is the senior vice president for media and productions for NASCAR. NASCARs popularity is down and the ratings reflect it. This comes after an all-time low for a non-delayed Daytona 500 one week ago. "While it's easy to cite 'cord-cutting' as a catch-all explanation for what's going on, keep in mind, Nielsen ratings do incorporate streaming services, albeit imperfectly . One shining example was a 2010 Dover racea playoff race, no lesswhere ESPN broke away with 11 laps to go in a very much undecided event for an ad break. Maybe there is a segment of fans who tune in for death-defying calamities, but that has always been a part of the sport and still is. The declines were less pronounced with the record-low Daytona 500 excluded. On the re-debut of the XFL, the league's TV ratings down in a pretty big way, according to Sports Media Watch. Compared to the fourth Xfinity race of last season, from Phoenix, ratings fell a tick (from 0.8) but viewership increased (from 1.19M). In the early 2000s, NASCAR was soaring. According to reports, the league saw a sharp 50% decline in viewership from week one to the next week.The 3.0 reboot is not going well. NASCAR still attempts to do the best it can when it comes to getting the word out. Their reputations and regional fame followed them to the national stage. Ousting Brian France, who created the Chase and presided over the sports decline, was no small part of that. NASCAR's meteoric rise was fed by the rise of Jeff Gordon, whom many consider to be NASCAR's first superstar, and the death of legend Dale Earnhardt Sr. By the measurements used today, NASCAR then is in a very good place. Three of the four drivers in the championship race were also in the 2018 race, and three of the four drivers were in Toyotas. That is a decrease of nearly 50%, and in some races this kind of decline could be seen in the stands too. 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Last years Xfinity race at the track aired on FS2 and had a 0.21 and 341,000. FONTANA, Calif. Most of NASCAR's Cup Series drivers feel like they're saying their final goodbye to a dear old friend this weekend. It has been a challenge for the sport to consistently grab the attention of its audience; however, there are reasons for optimism as the 2022 season represented a step in the right direction. (Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images). Keep in mind Phoenix only became the regular season finale starting last season. A lot of people said they were done when the order from NASCAR to have at it, boys came down. The NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway averaged 4.315 million average viewers on FOX last weekend. In addition, the current playoff format, while far from perfect, isnt nearly as unpalatable as the Chase was. Viewership for the 2019 Phoenix race was 22% lower than in 2018. Internal surveys show that 75 percent of Nascar fans overall approve of next year's schedule -- one that includes a dirt race at Bristol -- and 90 percent of the 18 to 34 demographic approves. The current NBA broadcast deal nets the league $2.6 billion a year, however, a new report says the next one may be closer to $8 billion annually. When not at work, Karlo spends his time at home, with family, either being the cook or fixit guy in his house. And he had a very large fan base. They shut down the polls and went ahead with it anyway. Once upon a time, if the Cup series had a weekend off, drivers like Earnhardt Sr. and/or Earnhardt Jr. would go to Disney World and drink beer with NASCAR fans they bumped into in the lineup for A Small World. After two DNFs in the first two Chase events resulting from simple bad luck, just like that his title hopes were gone. Top Speed offers daily industry news and reviews on cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Gordon wasnt the only driver who turned in a spectacular season-long performance only to have it nullified. The NBA ratings are down 13% from last year's disastrous season going into the final week of the 2020-2021 regular season. He said its important to look at the bigger picture, a bigger picture that shows how media is consumed. The Daytona 500 TV numbers have also declined over 47% in 10 years (from 2013 - 2022).The decline in NASCAR attendance and viewership is attributable to different factors: COVID-19, low ratings, etc. It may be difficult for younger people to imagine it, but the sport was once poised to overtake the NFL in popularity. Next years championship race will be held in Phoenix, and even though the 2020 race should draw a packed house of 42,000, or 7,000 more than the estimated crowd at Homestead, fans have said they dont like the racing at Phoenix as much. Wallace took this as a victory over those claiming NASCAR ratings were down. 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