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. Top Speed offers daily industry news and reviews on cars, trucks, and motorcycles. On the re-debut of the XFL, the league's TV ratings down in a pretty big way, according to Sports Media Watch. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA Formula 1 does not have a single commercial during their races on ESPN. A fairly new challenge that spectator sports now have to contend with is the rise of the various streaming services that offer varied content that is available across a variety of platforms. The move of the Labor Day race to California was part of an ongoing trend. NASCARs popularity is down and the ratings reflect it. This brought even more attention and money to the sport and school was soon out. The NASCAR ratings for the 2022 season are the best they have been in four years. While viewership was down overall, it should be noted that the share the percentage of homes tuned to the race in the average minute out of the total number of homes using televisions increased 8% from last year and 11% from 2019. The Great Recession that swept across the landscape starting in 2008 changed everything. 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. This year's NCAA tournament ratings were down 11%. NASCAR TV ratings were once the darlings of the sport. As Juniors fortunes continued to trend downward even while driving for the strongest team in the sport, his fan base became turned off. NASCAR's viewership for the first half of the 2022 season is the highest since 2017. ), and a race at the concrete venue of Nashville for the first time. This means that fewer televisions are being turned on around the country; however, the percentage of those people watching NASCAR is increasing. 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. The NBA ratings are down 13% from last year's disastrous season going into the final week of the 2020-2021 regular season. Photo credit: sidehike on Visual hunt / CC BY-SA TV ratings for the Richmond race were said to be down 12% from the same race in 2015 and 44% from 2014. . 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,. This year's Daytona 500, for example, drew 4.8 million viewers a. NASCAR polled fans about the idea on their website following the 2003 season, and fans overwhelmingly rejected it. Far from it. The 2023 NASCAR season is underway and it is bound to be very exciting in the second year of the NextGen car. Drivers. It was a successful year as the sport averaged over three million average viewers per race. . NASCARs NextGen car shows promise and one huge issue, NASCARs Daytona 500 ratings indicate a worrisome trend. Related: NASCAR power rankings during the 2023 season. After a marked decline in the middle of the previous decade, NASCAR's television numbers have been on the rebound over the past five years. They are included along with social media engagement, streaming, and the like. Its a simple fact that everyone understands. 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 . The season ended with two flat tires. A driver dominates a race until the last lap and then gets crashed on purpose by the guy who goes on to win. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images). Photo credit: tequilamike on Visual hunt / CC BY Yes, NASCAR actually believed an artificial points reset after two thirds of the season was the move that was going to catapult them past the NFL. When not at work, Karlo spends his time at home, with family, either being the cook or fixit guy in his house. Then they sharply declined in Week Two. After years of seeing its once enormous audience dwindle to almost nothing, NASCAR is finally righting the ship. 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). But that in itself wasnt necessarily the crime. 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 the season will conclude at Phoenix again, a more exciting venue than Miami where the finale had been for years. You also dont often see post-race fisticuffs after races at Kansas or Vegas like you might at Martinsville or Bristol. 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. For instance: The non-stop promotion of Danica Patrick, as if she was the Second Coming (she wasnt), turned off a lot of fans. In the early 2000s, NASCAR was soaring. 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. (Photo by ISC Images & Archives via Getty Images), ISC Archives/CQ-Roll Call Group via Getty Images, landscape. Even though the Confederate battle flag was banned within Talledega Speedway on Sunday, outside the track, the initials "PC" stood for "publicly Confederate.". In NASCARs pre-1990s heyday, when it was still very much a regional sport, manufacturer identity was a big thing. So if Im right, in a few years NASCAR may become Americas summer sport again. 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. In todays world TV ratings arent the big deal they once were nor the only thing that matters. And while 2020 has been anything but usual especially in the sports world, NASCAR was the one sport that didnt suffer a significant ratings drop. Tiger Woods was great for golf. It makes a world of difference watching on TV. Last year, nearly 70 million unique viewers tuned in to . 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. Lack of manufacturer identity may have been a reason some hardcore fans left the sport in the early 1990s, but that doesnt seem to me to be a valid reason for the sports popularity plunge since 2005. 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. So to the extent that you can be flat or even up a couple of points it says a lot just about fan interest in the sport.. 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. Even before the recent political turmoil in the sport, NASCAR was hemorrhaging fans and supporters, with viewership numbers dropping every event. Furthermore, their retirements are probably not the sole reason for NASCAR's viewership issues either. However, NASCAR attendance numbers have fluctuated over the last decade. Those numbers of course, dont tell the entire story. The markets simply couldnt support them anymore. I can also dispute other reasons for it that I see being offered today. By then, hardly anyone will have a standard TV, anyway, because every event will be streamed, and ratings wont matter. 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). However, the second race of the 2022 season saw a more significant drop in viewership compared to previous seasons. But the initial Chase, an artificial and contrived points reset, was despised by fans. The erosion is even more pronounced when you . After two DNFs in the first two Chase events resulting from simple bad luck, just like that his title hopes were gone. 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. NASCAR has managed to hang on to lucrative TV contracts despite its ratings decline. NASCAR moved the Brickyard 400 to September . There's a catch, though. . 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. There's a lot of people that are looking around and understand that the economics of our sport probably are in a better place now than they've been in a long time.. This article looks at several of the reasons why NASCAR is losing fans. Drivers. The above car is a NASCAR entry that is supposed to look like a Toyota Supra. 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. The NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway averaged 4.315 million average viewers on FOX last weekend. 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. Schedule/Results. The XFL's ratings were disappointing in Week One. IndyCar always has side-by-side commercials during green flag racing. 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. Men in particular were more put. I hope so. The crowd sold out it's 30% capacity soon after the event was . Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY By virtue of his fathers untimely passing, Dale Earnhardt Jr. instantly found himself with a larger fan base than any three drivers in NASCAR. Next:10 NASCAR Drivers With The Most Wins (& How Much They Won). The sport mishandled the on-track racing by introducing the 550 horsepower package which caused the fanbase to lose trust. NASCAR's TV ratings began to fall; the once all-mighty numbers began to show not an increase, but a decline. The 2016 race from Homestead had 6.1 million viewers, the 2015 race had 7.643 million. American Hartford Gold. 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. It was not a great race. Many former fans consider this state of affairs to be ridiculous. 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. Those moments generate interestand rivalries, which every sport needs. 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. Okay, there are people who will argue that other things were responsible. 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. I wonder why Truck Series and Xfinity viewership(even from 2019) is up but Cup Series viewership is down. Sundays NASCAR Cup Series race from Las Vegas averaged a 2.6 rating and 4.36 million viewers on FOX, marking the lowest rated edition of the race since it debuted in 1998 and the smallest audience since at least 2001 (viewership prior to 2002 was not available). Now, only the economic elite are allowed to enter the Inner Sanctum and if theres one thing NASCAR used to abhor, it was elitism of any kind. Its not often noticed, but it was definitely noticed by Jeff Gordon fans: had NASCAR not implemented the Chase, the driver of the iconic #24 could have been the one standing aside Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty today with seven titles, instead of his protg Jimmie Johnson. | HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA - NOVEMBER 17: Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M's Toyota, celebrates after [+] winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Ford EcoBoost 400 and the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Homestead Speedway on November 17, 2019 in Homestead, Florida. It rewards winning and risk taking, where the Chase rewarded points racing and avoiding risk. But there is a big difference between changing your own spark plugs and battling your way to the front at your local speedway in hopes of catching the attention of a NASCAR car owner and calling up that same NASCAR car owner on the phone and saying two words to him: How much?. Anyone who was watching then could tell you that wasnt unusual at all. Young fans want to watch the action. 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. But in a relatively short time, NASCAR corrected the car and the multiple issues with its design, and while the cars dont differ by manufacturer like they once did, at least were not seeing disastrously awful races just because of the cars construction. Photo credit: Ford Racing on VisualHunt / CC BY Just ten years later, there were 13 such eventsnearly half the schedule. I expect that will be a boon to NASCARs future. It was a radical change to a sport that didnt need radical changes. The one thing, though, that all those racing drivers had in common Petty, Pearson, Parsons, Bodine, Waltrip, Earnhardt, Wallace and the rest is that they all started racing on local tracks and created reputations for themselves as hard chargers who were winners. 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. Hes tasked with not only getting exposure for the sport but measuring that exposure and translating in a way that shows value to stakeholders. The truth was of course far from that. View 2021 Bristol tv ratings below. Ill start with a few things that I dont believe caused the decline of NASCAR, then Ill share what I think really did. 1) Just like all the other major racing series in the world, NASCAR has become a money deal. Is PNC Park The Best Ballpark in Baseball? IndyCar is seeing huge success as an open-wheel Motorsport, just like Formula 1. 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. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Visualhunt / CC BY-SA Three of the four drivers in the championship race were also in the 2018 race, and three of the four drivers were in Toyotas. The NFL only went down 9%, but please, tell me about anthem kneelers. The 2021 campaign includes six road course races, a dirt race at Bristol (! 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. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images). Gordon scored the most points overall of any driver in 2004, 2007, and 2014. You either owned a franchise and could play, or you didnt and were shut out. Along with that came an all-important metric: the Nielsen ratings. All eight CBS-owned CW affiliates have "declined to air" LIV Golf's tournaments, according to Rice & Hayes of DEADLINE. Not all, of course, but most. Standings. So that's a positive viewership increase of 2%. Thats exactly what NASCAR did when they took the Labor Day race out of Darlington and sent it to Auto Club Speedway in California. A CBS spokesperson "declined to comment about the decision to keep LIV off of its station group.". So more people are tuned into Amazon prime or Netflix 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. The Patriots domination was great for the NFL. I'm just . 500 MOMENTUM:Daytona 500 TV ratings: NASCAR opener ends two-year viewership decline. While NASCARs ratings were a record low for a second event of the season, the NTT IndyCar Series found themselves with a massive jump in ratings. No longer do young NASCAR racers start at their local tracks and work their way up. Yes, a team can still dominate all season and lose a championship to a flat tire, but at least its not just an artificial points reset. The XFL's ratings were disappointing in Week One. A leading business development, project manager in the auction and liquidation industry, and consultant for various local and national government offices in the Philippines. Since this is a non-ideological blog, I wont get into the things that the NFL, NBA and MLB have recently done to drive away a significant portion of their fanbases. If it did, I would really appreciate your support. The coverage goes through the entire event. So that's household using televisions. 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). Viewership and attendance of NASCAR have been on the decline ever since 2006, and some think the 2021 boost was only due to people seeking more outdoor activity . Meanwhile, NASCAR ratings . Now, they buy their way in. The Fox's coverage of the race won by Michael McDowell on the last lap averaged a 2.8 rating and 4.83 million viewers per Sports Media Watch. The same race last year attracted 4.154 million viewers, and the 2017 race drew 4.662 million both of which had established respective viewership lows for the 36th and final race of the too-dang-long Cup season. At the start of the 21st Century NASCAR TV ratings, meant everything. And one other thing about NASCAR in those days: the races were open to anybody who could qualify. On Monday, the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt track hosted the NASCAR Cup Series. Thirty-five percent of participants said they were now watching less sports due to political and social messaging, whereas only 11 percent said they now watch more. The previous two races the Daytona Roval and Homestead-Miami posted double-digit increases over the same Cup Series stops last season, but those races had the benefit of moving up from the lower-rated summer portion of the schedule. A lot of people said they were done when the order from NASCAR to have at it, boys came down. It rewards winning, which rewards fighting for wins, which creates rivalries. In fact, the current car lends itself to some pretty good racing. The household share was up 9% compared to 2022 and represented the largest share for the second race of the season since 2017. The decision . NBA players take a knee during National Anthem, screen image Get woke, go broke. "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 . In 1994, there were six events held at intermediate tracks of 1.5-2 miles in length. However, these deals may be stopping the brand from adapting to consumers' changing viewing habits. 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. Fans might be tired of the novelty of the playoffs. They hate all of the commercials. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images), Nascar's TV Future May Or May Not Include Streaming Its Top Tier Races. Jimmie won a lot. What are the biggest differences between these sports? 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). 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