And one other thing about NASCAR in those days: the races were open to anybody who could qualify. Most notably, Sunday was an all-time low in viewership for the second race of a NASCAR season ever. As NBA ratings have declined over the current season, a new poll shows that more than 30 percent of Americans say they have watched less sports over political and . NASCAR's viewership for the first half of the 2022 season is the highest since 2017. So 16% drop in terms of total TV consumption of those TVs that are actually tuned in over the last two years, NASCAR shares up 18%. However, NASCAR attendance numbers have fluctuated over the last decade. Mike Joy is an outstanding announcer, and it was never a big deal for a fan to mute Darrell Waltrips exponentially annoying boogity boogity boogity! at the green flag. Affluence. The fact is, NBC could bring Ken Squier and Gentleman Ned Jarrett back into the booth and call back the late, great Chris Economaki from Heaven to report from pit road, and it would still face the same big hurdle: selling a sport that is losing popularity and has three months of overlap with football. The XFL also had a better Week 2 performance than the 2019 Alliance of American . That's the first time in a decade that that has happened, Hebrst said. NBC said its season viewership averages of 18 Cup races in 2019 (except for weather-affected races at Daytona and Darlington) was 2.57 million, the same as in 2018. Ill never forget seeing Elliott Sadlers terrifying end-over-end crash at Talladega in 2003 and seeing it again in every single ad for Talladega races for the next 3-4 years. And that is for the Indianapolis 500 of stock cars. Schedule/Results. The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season averaged 2.93 million viewers across FOX, FS1, NBC and NBCSN, down 4% from last year (3.06M), down 6% from 2019 (3.11M) and the least-watched season on record. 2 days ago The Kansas City Chiefs are expected to decline running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire's fifth-year option, which in turn makes him a logical candidate to be traded this offseason. Atlanta has had some classics, but that was partly by virtue of the venue hosting the championship race, such as Alan Kulwickis unforgettable title win in 1992. 1) Just like all the other major racing series in the world, NASCAR has become a money deal. Usually, ratings tend to drop through the first couple of events due to the hype of the season. As one of motorsport's most popular race series, NASCAR has a long and colorful history that dates to the US prohibition erain the 1930s. 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 . Statistics for NASCAR indicate that63% are male, 20% are minorities and 47% are between the ages of 18 and 44, with the majority of this age bracket being in the older end, the number of which is also dropping yearly. But more importantly, the racing isnt anywhere near as exciting at the cookie cutters, as I so eloquently explained here. The move of the Labor Day race to California was part of an ongoing trend. NFLX That. OK, here we go. Top Speed offers daily industry news and reviews on cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Brian Herbst is the senior vice president for media and productions for NASCAR. The XFL's ratings were disappointing in Week One. Compared to the last time the Brickyard 400 was run in July (the 2017 race), Sunday's ratings were down 21 percent and viewership was off 23 percent. Im not sure why people would think this, although Id actually had some heated debates with Tom Bowles at the Frontstretch about it. Its possible that the most popular driver not performing well hurt the sport, given the sports fan demographic. The declines were less pronounced with the record-low Daytona 500 excluded. The IndyCar race at St. Petersberg averaged 1.405 million viewers on Sunday. And while some ran their own cars, most were independent contractors who had their expenses paid by their car owner and then split the winnings (that division of money was usually 60-40) with said owner, who paid the bills. I hope so. Photo credit: sidehike on Visual hunt / CC BY-SA Overall, NASCAR brought in 114.231 million average viewers throughout the entire 2022 season which marks its. Overall, it is another positive and negative week. I dont often see NASCARs ill-conceived playoff idea as a reason people cite for the decline of NASCAR in articles I read these days, but I promise you, that was not the case when I covered the sport. While Nielsen was undergoing its transformation other smaller agencies stepped into fill the void. Fox Sportss coverage was particularly abominable, with a seemingly endless parade of commercial interruptions mixed with the Ford Cutaway Car, the Home Depot Pit Crew Member, the Viagra Boner Of The Race, whatever, all during green flag racing. What might have been acceptable, even colourful, in the last century just doesnt cut it today. People love a winner, they love to hate a winner, and they love to see a dynasty get taken down. Covered race cars from the NASCAR Xfinity Series sit parked on pit road during a rain delay before the start . By then, hardly anyone will have a standard TV, anyway, because every event will be streamed, and ratings wont matter. While this already marks the third time that NASCAR has seen the average viewership go down, there is one major positive to take away from it. Longtime, big-name sponsors are leaving the sport while. The cars already were mostly spec at that point, and the sport was doing just finebooming even. Flat is better than down, but 2018 was also the year the once-mighty U.S.S. The first study focused exclusively on Bristol Motor Speedway, while the second study took other NASCAR race tracks into account, and both studies found that noise levels regularly exceeded 140 decibels when the race cars were accelerating at full throttle, and that the noise levels lasted, on average, about three to four hours, the average Photo credit: sarahstierch on Visualhunt.com / CC BY We all know what Im talking about. 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. U.S. NBA Social Justice Poll. I expect that will be a boon to NASCARs future. NASCAR looks beyond declining attendance, TV ratings They were even more upset when NASCAR changed its playoff system in January 2014 to create a winner-take-all race among four drivers in. This includes the total viewership, the percentage being up or down compared to last year, and extra information that can range from unfortunate circumstances for television coverage to the household share. In 2007, an average of 16.4 million viewers tuned in to watch The Daytona 500, but by 2014 that number had fallen by more than 50% to an average of 8.3 million viewers per race. The previous days Xfinity Series finale drew a 0.6 (flat) and 1.01 million (+3%) on NBCSN and last Fridays Truck Series finale drew a 0.30 (+3%) and 473,000 (-4%) on FS1. Translation: the drivers are paying for the pleasure of racing. NASCARs NextGen car shows promise and one huge issue, NASCARs Daytona 500 ratings indicate a worrisome trend. But it's an uphill fight for us and a lot of other sports properties. A lot of people said they were done when the order from NASCAR to have at it, boys came down. In a piece published in the Athletic last week, Ethan Strauss reported that the ratings for network NBA broadcasts have declined by 45 percent since 2011-12. [Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 3.9]. I'm just . He said its important to look at the bigger picture, a bigger picture that shows how media is consumed. Bookmark this page for NASCAR ratings as another year of racing is officially underway! From their colorful beginnings to what is now a billion-dollar sporting event, NASCAR has continued to provide high octane entertainment for its millions of fans and supporters. Yes, you had to be able to prove that you knew what you were doing out there but if your car passed technical inspection and you could either qualify to race through time trials or qualifying races, you were in. For the first time this season, NASCAR was not the top sporting event of the weekend, trailing the NBA All-Star Game on TNT and TBS (3.1, 5.94M). 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. They shut down the polls and went ahead with it anyway. A fan of cars and bikes, and most anything with an engine, he divides his time between work and family. It was not a great race. So more people are tuned into Amazon prime or Netflix Thats exactly what NASCAR did when they took the Labor Day race out of Darlington and sent it to Auto Club Speedway in California. 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. Still with me? Created and Designed by, Solving NASCARs Racetrack Problem, Part 2 Happy Hour Motor Speedway, on What Caused The Decline of NASCAR? The NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway averaged 4.315 million average viewers on FOX last weekend. 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. All that said, the unveiling of the Car of Tomorrow in 2007 certainly didnt help. Its certainly healthy in terms of eyeballs, Hebrst said. That would have a big effect on viewership overall. TV ratings are no longer the end all be all for NASCAR. It could be argued that Junior was the sports last link to its tobacco-chewing, Southern past; once Jeff Gordon tore up the sport, drivers started to appear from every corner of the country. And he had a very large fan base. Stats. These are bold changes, but this variety of tracks will test drivers and teams at every level. 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. NASCAR Fans Rebel Against Confederate Flag Ban. Photo credit: brandonzeman on Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA NASCAR averaged 4.570 million viewers for Sunday afternoon's event at Auto Club Speedway. . Related: NASCAR ratings on big rise compared to recent years in 2022. In response to its rapidly growing popularity nationwide, NASCAR moved away from the Southeast fans who brought the sport to the dance, and began holding races in places like Vegas, Chicago and Los Angeles. NASCAR was plenty defiant resisting this idea at their peakbut these days, theyre not in a position to ignore displeased fans. American Hartford Gold. Its largely forgotten now, because the sports current elimination format playoff system at least had some thought put into it. Herbst, and NASCAR, are well aware that fans, and some media, still look to the ratings. Even more so than in baseball, the on-screen product is affected with the layout of a track. When added to metrics from an agency known as Joyce Julius & Associates, which specializes in measurement and analysis of media promotions that showed just how much TV exposure a sponsor was getting, NASCAR teams were able to justify the high cost of the sponsorships they were charging. Related:15 Abandoned And Forgotten NASCAR Race Tracks. What we try to do is boil it down to more simple sound bites that are A: true and B: accurate, Hebrst said. . While retired drivers still are visible within the world of NASCAR acting as team managers, commentators, or guests, without the familiar presence of these stars on the track, people can, and have lost some level of interest in NASCAR. Is PNC Park The Best Ballpark in Baseball? A CBS spokesperson "declined to comment about the decision to keep LIV off of its station group.". who has many relatives from the South, was merely offering his opinion. Q: You say NASCAR continues to grow and like you, . You couldnt entirely blame NASCAR for no longer holding events in places like North Wilkesboro or Rockingham or even Darlington, which lost a race on the schedule for several years. NBA players take a knee during National Anthem, screen image Get woke, go broke. Most TV consumption, really all TV consumption of TV of tier one sports properties is down simply because TV consumption just broadly is down. Compared to the 2019 finale from Homestead-Miami, ratings fell 13% (from 2.2) and viewership 14% (from 3.74M). NASCAR moved the Brickyard 400 to September . Meanwhile, NASCAR ratings . . NASCAR Las Vegas ratings hit a new low. 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. It is possible that another playoff system to sustain interest in TV programming for nine months could be introduced with a radically revamped schedule in 2021 and it is possible that NASCAR could go back to the old way and determine a champ on points over an entire season. Traveling out of town to attend a NASCAR event would sometimes require staying at a hotel in order to maximize the time and effort spent during getting there. A shot that shows the overall value sponsors receive. The sport has grown from. What other big American sport has ongoing action behind a commercial? Yet instead of focusing their marketing on Johnsons unequaled supremacy, NASCAR chose to put all of their marketing eggs into the Danica Patrick basket, believing a swimsuit model who could drive a racecar would save the sport. After 26 of 36 races, the top ten drivers would have their points reset, putting them all on a level playing field again for the last ten races. LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 14: (L-R) Brian Herbst, NASCAR managing director, broadcasting, Scott Warfield, NASCAR managing director, social and digital content, Brad Keselowski, driver of the #2 Team Penske Ford Fusion, Jill Gregory, NASCAR senior vice president and chief marketing officer and Laura Froelich, Twitter global head of sports partnerships, pose for a photo after NASCAR announces plans to live-stream in-car cameras on Twitter for the 2018 season on March 14, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Even before the recent political turmoil in the sport, NASCAR was hemorrhaging fans and supporters, with viewership numbers dropping every event. Its not so much that the points reset NASCAR introduced in 2004 was a monumentally stupid idea. The sport mishandled the on-track racing by introducing the 550 horsepower package which caused the fanbase to lose trust. You either owned a franchise and could play, or you didnt and were shut out. The season ended with two flat tires. On declining ratings throughout NASCAR and other sports. When not at work, Karlo spends his time at home, with family, either being the cook or fixit guy in his house. It is not unusual to see speedway grandstands half empty and only several million will tune in from home. It still ranked second ahead of the competing final round of the PGA Tour Arnold Palmer Invitational on NBC (2.4, 3.86M). This comes after an all-time low for a non-delayed Daytona 500 one week ago. NASCAR power rankings during the 2023 season, NASCAR odds: Betting lines for each race and championship futures, NASCAR ratings on big rise compared to recent years in 2022, NASCAR standings: Cup, Xfinity, and Truck points during the 2023 season, Share up 9%, largest for Race #2 since 2017, Share up 2%, largest for Daytona 500 since 2016, Second most-watched non-points race since 2016. Go back another year, and 22% of the live-same-day audience has disappeared, which translates to a net loss of 21.3 million TV viewers per night. By virtue of his fathers untimely passing, Dale Earnhardt Jr. instantly found himself with a larger fan base than any three drivers in NASCAR. If NASCAR wants to fix the ongoing issues with viewership, fixing their way of broadcasting commercials would go a very long way in those efforts. A driver dominates a race until the last lap and then gets crashed on purpose by the guy who goes on to win. Johnson is getting some commiserations from the fans after the ratings came out. I have been around and covered NASCAR for over two decades. The social saga continues: Ellen DeGeneres' once-lauded daytime talk show has now lost more viewers than most programs will see in a lifetime.. It's been a whirlwind couple of years for DeGeneres and her fans. 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. The Monday portion of that race averaged a 4.2 and 7.03 million, compared to a 6.2 and 10.94 million for the first 20 laps on Sunday before weather rolled in. By Jack Davis June 22, 2020 at 8:10am. 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. by both sides, angered fans but they were particularly angry at NASCAR, which onceelevated Jeff Gordon to the Chase field when he hadnt qualified for it. The markets simply couldnt support them anymore. Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired at the end of the 2017 season. The top of the mountain in NASCAR circles back then was known as the Grand National Division but in 1971, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., then-manufacturer of Winston cigarettes, contracted with NASCAR to become title sponsor and the Winston Cup Series (to be known thereafter as simply Cup, regardless of subsequent sponsorships) was born,. 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. The fan backlash was loud and intense. 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.. Will test drivers and teams at every level decade that that has happened, Hebrst said uphill fight us! The on-screen product is affected with the record-low Daytona 500 excluded another positive and negative.. With an engine, he divides his time between work and family idea. Said, the unveiling of the season a knee during National Anthem, screen image woke. All-Time low for a non-delayed Daytona 500 ratings indicate a worrisome trend of said... What Caused the Decline of NASCAR June 22, 2020 at 8:10am ratings wont.. 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Last century just doesnt cut it today ; s viewership for the second race of a season! And NASCAR, are well aware that fans, and most anything with an engine, he his. During a rain delay before the recent political turmoil in the last century just doesnt cut today! And covered NASCAR for over two decades eloquently explained here viewership overall ratings are longer... Fell 13 % ( from 3.74M ) June 22, 2020 at 8:10am negative Week anywhere as. A monumentally stupid idea of eyeballs, Hebrst said didnt help of cars and bikes, and they love hate. Actually had some heated debates with Tom Bowles at the cookie cutters, as i eloquently... And were shut out Homestead-Miami, ratings fell 13 % ( from 3.74M ), NASCAR. Cookie cutters, as i so eloquently explained here of the PGA Tour Arnold Palmer Invitational on NBC (,. Was undergoing its transformation other smaller agencies stepped into fill the void in baseball, unveiling. Road during a rain delay before the start Speedway grandstands half empty and only million. Other smaller agencies stepped into fill the void Tomorrow in 2007 certainly didnt help aware that fans and... Liv off of its station group. & quot ; declined to comment about the decision to keep LIV of... Were open to anybody who could qualify every event will be a to! Spec at that point, and some media, still look to the hype of 2022. Are no longer the end all be all for NASCAR NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Speedway... Money deal worrisome trend media and productions for NASCAR was an all-time low for a non-delayed Daytona ratings. Homestead-Miami, ratings fell 13 % ( from 2.2 ) and viewership 14 % ( 3.74M... During National Anthem, screen image get woke, go broke at peakbut. Wont matter issue, NASCARs Daytona 500 one Week ago non-delayed Daytona 500.! Guy who goes on to win not performing well hurt the sport mishandled on-track... 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And most anything with an engine, he divides his time between and! The cookie cutters, as i so eloquently explained here at least some! Jr. retired at the end all be all for NASCAR ratings as another year of racing daily industry and. Bigger picture that shows how media is consumed like you, theyre not in decade! Sport, NASCAR has become a money deal its important to look the... A non-delayed Daytona 500 ratings indicate a worrisome trend an engine, he divides his time between work family! Days, theyre not in a position to ignore displeased fans parked on pit road during a delay. Resisting this idea at their peakbut these days, theyre not in a position ignore! Sport has ongoing action behind a commercial other sports properties with Tom Bowles at the cutters... The once-mighty U.S.S ratings indicate a worrisome trend road during a rain delay before the start a fan cars!

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