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. Im not buying the its too safe bit as a cause for the decline of NASCAR. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images). Home Media FOX NASCAR hits Las Vegas low. In fact, the current car lends itself to some pretty good racing. The decline of NASCAR from dominance started circa 2005, and there wasnt any big change to car specs in that time period. The Yankees were always good for baseball. Related:15 Abandoned And Forgotten NASCAR Race Tracks. Nascar, long a symbol of Southern heritage, has become an unlikely battleground in the debate over whether the Confederate battle flag still has a place in America. And we wont get into the murdering of the English language that goes on week after week, ad nauseum. Created and Designed by, Solving NASCARs Racetrack Problem, Part 2 Happy Hour Motor Speedway, on What Caused The Decline of NASCAR? Please email the author at nmcdonald@thestar.ca, Copyright 2023 | Powered by CityMediaInc.com, Happy Birthday, GM Canada, and thanks for the (many) ride(s), Racing Roundup: Great Grand Prix in Austin, despite actions by stewards; Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame induction video; Alonso wont drive in IndyCar in 2019 or ever. NASCAR rose to prominence in the 1980s and 90s as TV became more and more involved. On the other hand, NASCAR will go to full-screen commercials on a regular basis which affects the way a fan can follow the race. For NASCAR it meant fewer butts in seats at tracks, and fewer sponsors willing to part with what little revenue they were earning. Kyle Larsons win, which averaged 3.27 million including additional streaming data not tracked by Nielsen, was the seventh of the final ten Cup Series races this season to post an increase in viewership. Overall, NASCAR brought in 114.231 million average viewers throughout the entire 2022 season which marks its best since the 2018 season (120.454 million average viewers). (Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images). Photo credit: sarahstierch on Visualhunt.com / CC BY Compared to last years fourth race of the season, Phoenix, ratings fell a tick (from 2.7) and viewership 5% (from 4.58M). Why poll the fans if youre just going to ignore them? Then they sharply declined in Week Two. 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%. Sundays race at Auto Club is also down from the second race of the 2021 season. Basicallythe first 2 races of 2015 have already soundly beaten the first 4 races of 2012 by 4.7 million viewers. Photo credit: royal_broil on Best Running / CC BY-SA The Daytona Road Course averaged 4.750 million viewers during the event. Auto Club Speedway's racetrack seems to be adored by every . They are now just one part of a bigger picture: one pixel of a screenshot. 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. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY We all know what Im talking about. The fan backlash was loud and intense. Dover is a 1-mile track, and 11 laps does not take long. Racing, like basketball and other sports, has seen year-to-year ratings decline. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images). NASCAR is clearly falling behind other motorsports in a new era of television. It was the first NCS race on the dirt in 50 years. What might have been acceptable, even colourful, in the last century just doesnt cut it today. Top Speed offers daily industry news and reviews on cars, trucks, and motorcycles. It was not a great race. Dr. Jon Lewis (aka Paulsen) has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. Weekly races at smaller locales have come off even worse. Fox reported a modest 2% increase in viewership of comparable Cup race from 2018 to 2019, but it needs to be noted that Foxs part of the schedule does not collide with NFL and college football, which NASCAR fans also enjoy watching. The various platforms of social media have been a convenient and fast way to obtain information and entertainment on a particular sporting event. Feb 25, 2023, 2:33 AM. Yes, sports ratings as a whole are down, but NASCAR's fall is alarming: Daytona 500 viewership from 2001 to 2009 ranged from 16 to 19 million. There are not many. The NFL only went down 9%, but please, tell me about anthem kneelers. It's the most exciting driver line-up in Formula 1: a seven-time world champion alongside his appointed heir - albeit one who can't wait to get the . NASCAR still attempts to do the best it can when it comes to getting the word out. NASCAR Home. 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. When combined, it shows that NASCAR is in a pretty good place. Brandon Kochkodin. Related: NASCARs Daytona 500 ratings indicate a worrisome trend. . Last years season-opener at Barber only averaged 914 thousand viewers which is almost an extra 500 thousand. This comes after an all-time low for a non-delayed Daytona 500 one week ago. They got famous because of word-of-mouth (Hey, didja hear about that new kid blowin em away over at Hickory?), weekly newspapers like National Speed Sport News (called simply Speed Sport and whos Editors Notebook by the late Chris Economaki was a Must Read) and magazines like Stock Car Racing. NASCARs 2020 champion is also its most popular driverfor the first time since 1988. IndyCars race at St. Petersberg was also up from 1.219 million viewers last season. But more importantly, the racing isnt anywhere near as exciting at the cookie cutters, as I so eloquently explained here. Most die-hard fans of NASCAR are those that have followed it the longest. Jimmie won a lot. That metric is down 16% over the last 24 months. All eight CBS-owned CW affiliates have "declined to air" LIV Golf's tournaments, according to Rice & Hayes of DEADLINE. 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. Yes, all of those factors might have contributed to the decline of interest in NASCAR, But, in the end, I think the franchise system and the ride-buying are what did NASCAR in. As Juniors fortunes continued to trend downward even while driving for the strongest team in the sport, his fan base became turned off. And based on what we see today, NASCAR seems to be on an upward trajectory and shows no signs of slowing down. 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. NASCAR Ratings Down: Decline All Season for Fox McCord Roberts June 5, 2009 Last week's Dover race marked the 16th consecutive week of NASCAR Sprint Cup racing on television that saw a major. News. NHL regular season ratings were down 12% this year. The Xfinity Series at Indianapolis had a rating of 0.67, with 1.249 million viewers, totaling more than F1 Pocono TV Ratings July 26, 2022 Thats exactly what NASCAR did when they took the Labor Day race out of Darlington and sent it to Auto Club Speedway in California. Wallace took this as a victory over those claiming NASCAR ratings were down. 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. They wouldn't explain ratings declines from 2016 to 2017. 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. 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. That doesnt mean they dont have talent, or arent brave. If that contributed to NASCARs decline, however, that is on NASCAR. 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 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. Compared to Week 2 of last year's USFL, which consisted of two games on broadcast and two on cable, the XFL's Week 2 audience was down just slightly (661K to 655K). 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. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY-SA, Posted in NASCAR, Sports They are included along with social media engagement, streaming, and the like. This brought even more attention and money to the sport and school was soon out. Photo credit: Fast Eddie Maloney on Best Running / CC BY-SA 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 The same story goes for NASCAR as the adverts that major companies place during their televised races are a major source of income for the organization and the teams. 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. If they hadnt, youd probably be reading articles today about the decline of Coca-Cola too. 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.. Im also someone who became a disenchanted former fan myself. In case you werent there or dont remember, in 2004 NASCAR welcomed their new series sponsor, Nextel (now Sprint), with a new playoff system called the Chase. Stats. 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. Well, it might be as easy as the product fans are seeing on their televisions over the course of a race. 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. Unless you are a die-hard fan of the sport, people would rather watch condensed snippets of the race or read the highlights instead of actually spending time watching or subscribing to NASCAR real-time races. The sport has grown from. There are still 11 races on intermediate tracks, but its finally moving in the right direction. So if you can say that it's you and the NFL in terms of stability of your audience. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY The decline of NASCAR was a combination of ill-considered decisions: the implementation of a contrived playoff, poorly thought out broadcasting contracts, and departing from unique and venerable venues for dull, unexciting ones. 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. And he had a very large fan base. This isnt to say that the initial Car of Tomorrow wasnt a disasterit wasbut at the time, fans were plenty vocal about safety after the loss of the sports biggest icon. Now, they buy their way in. But the initial Chase, an artificial and contrived points reset, was despised by fans. All Rights Reserved. Unfortunately, the rising number and lengths of these commercials have become a source of frustration for their fans. Formula 1 does not have a single commercial during their races on ESPN. In todays media world they are now just a small part of what is used to measure the popularity of the sport. (Photo by ISC Images & Archives via Getty Images), ISC Archives/CQ-Roll Call Group via Getty Images, landscape. Not only in the business world, but in all sports as well. Last year's 500 was still the. This is all just ultimately my opinion, but its a carefully considered one. OutKick reported: The NBA ratings are worse By the measurements used today, NASCAR then is in a very good place. Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader, Geoff Bodine, Rusty Wallace and Trevor Boys were among several dozen drivers whose names soon became familiar, if not famous. The presidential and general elections, which need to be held no later than June 18, come at a tough time for Erdogan who has seen a decline in his ratings because of skyrocketing inflation. NASCAR Home. Dynasties like Johnsons arent bad for a sportunless the sport doesnt know how to market them. News. So that's household using televisions. Danica turned out to be a huge bustas many people who followed the sport closely, including yours truly, predicted she would be. However, NASCAR attendance numbers have fluctuated over the last decade. Gordon wasnt the only driver who turned in a spectacular season-long performance only to have it nullified. 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. NASCAR ratings have been on the decline over the last decade as they have taken a significant drop. Nepotism isnt dead in NASCAR. Ill start with a few things that I dont believe caused the decline of NASCAR, then Ill share what I think really did. When not at work, Karlo spends his time at home, with family, either being the cook or fixit guy in his house. NBC was slightly ahead of last years pace before the Nov. 10 race at Phoenix, but it drew 2.567 million, the least-watched Cup race on broadcast television since 2001 (not counting rainouts). Based on the overnight rating for the circuit's marquee event, that chatter won't be ending. Young fans want to watch the action. [Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 11.9, network PR]. FONTANA, Calif. Most of NASCAR's Cup Series drivers feel like they're saying their final goodbye to a dear old friend this weekend. Looking back over the 2021 season to date in NASCARs top tier Cup series 12 of the 32 races had ratings that were higher over last year and had more viewers; that included a six race stretch leading up to Talladega that saw a consecutive increase in viewership each week. So what caused the decline of NASCAR to the point where the sport is desperately trying to remain relevant? These are bold changes, but this variety of tracks will test drivers and teams at every level. There were often timesand Im not exaggerating thiswhen a viewer would see maybe five laps of racing, a two-minute break, and then just two more laps of racing before another break. At the start of the 21st Century NASCAR TV ratings, meant everything. 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. Admittedly, several of these rule changes have been beneficial to the sport, but some have unfortunately come across as marketing stunts that have turned away fans. That isnt insignificant when it comes to explaining the decline of NASCAR. The NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway averaged 4.315 million average viewers on FOX last weekend. And it will be pretty hard to turn back the clock on either of those. Or at least to give the appearance of it. Chase Elliott, like his 1988 champion father Bill, is from Dawsonville, Georgiathe Southeastand he has the lineage factor as the son of a well-liked champion. Still with me? Ratings fell 19% and viewership 21% from last year, when it was the second race of the season (3.2, 5.50M). 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,. No longer tied to a box atop the TV or a diary that viewers filled out, the company started to figure out how to report who was watching on TV, on cable, and on streaming platforms. Three of the four drivers in the championship race were also in the 2018 race, and three of the four drivers were in Toyotas. 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. . Photo credit: PresidenBertho on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA Last Sundays Cup Series finale from Phoenix averaged a 1.95 rating and 3.21 million viewers on NBC, up 4% in ratings and 5% in viewership from last year (1.9, 3.06M) and the highest rated and most-watched fall Phoenix race since 2018 (2.0, 3.31M). That's the first time in a decade that that has happened, Hebrst said. Meaning that in todays world even the smallest increase in a TV rating is a really big deal when considering how overall viewership is measured. With the current playoff point structure, drivers are also somewhat rewarded for strong season-long performances as wellwhile the Chase completely disregarded excellence during the season. NASCAR should post improved viewership numbers in 2022. In terms of tier one sports properties, he said. Just because no one has been killed at the Cup level since Earnhardts death doesnt make it less so. 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