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. Sunday's 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). Im not buying the its too safe bit as a cause for the decline of NASCAR. Then they sharply declined in Week Two. 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. The problem was the tracks that replaced themnearly all of them were characterless, cookie-cutter speedways where aero package ruled the day. Related:15 Rules Every NASCAR Employee Has To Follow. Even before the recent political turmoil in the sport, NASCAR was hemorrhaging fans and supporters, with viewership numbers dropping every event. This was a problem that actually needed to be addressed and wasnt. Racing is still pretty danged dangerous. 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 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. If any single event hastened the decline of NASCAR, it was Indy 2008. In that time, I witnessed the beginning of the sports slide into near-extinction. 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. 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. 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. 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. And the same is true for NASCAR. People do not want to watch numerous full-screen commercials while green-flag racing is taking place. NASCARs popularity is down and the ratings reflect it. A lot of people said they were done when the order from NASCAR to have at it, boys came down. In addition, the current playoff format, while far from perfect, isnt nearly as unpalatable as the Chase was. By the measurements used today, NASCAR then is in a very good place. Auto Club Speedway's racetrack seems to be adored by every . And one other thing about NASCAR in those days: the races were open to anybody who could qualify. Weekly races at smaller locales have come off even worse. Hes tasked with not only getting exposure for the sport but measuring that exposure and translating in a way that shows value to stakeholders. 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. 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. 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. He is likely to build a fan base fast. 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 NASCAR ratings for the 2022 season are the best they have been in four years. Earlier this month, NASCAR said the Confederate flag no longer will be allowed at its events. Kyle Busch, NASCARs black hat, won his second title. If they hadnt, youd probably be reading articles today about the decline of Coca-Cola too. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images). He pointed out that despite the ratings decline, NASCAR achieved a "double-digit share increase" last year. 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. 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. IndyCar always has side-by-side commercials during green flag racing. Since early in the millenium, however, interest in NASCAR both at the speedways and on television has dropped off. NASCAR Las Vegas ratings hit a new low. Why poll the fans if youre just going to ignore them? Up until the middle of the 21st century the measured pairs of eyeballs watching NASCAR on TV were counted, analyzed and, for the most part, cheered. Longtime, big-name sponsors are leaving the sport while. Translation: the drivers are paying for the pleasure of racing. 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. 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. And stage races have also not gone over well with purists. 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. 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. It would have been nice to have heard more during the championship race from Earnhardt. Photo credit: PresidenBertho on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA What might have been acceptable, even colourful, in the last century just doesnt cut it today. Gordon wasnt the only driver who turned in a spectacular season-long performance only to have it nullified. Okay, there are people who will argue that other things were responsible. Photo credit: brandonzeman on Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA The fan base that is paying attention to our sport now than probably two or three years agopart of that is the economic model of our sport is a little bit more sounder, on solid footing; the introduction to the Next Gen car, it brings on new owners like Justin Marks and Michael Jordan, Pitbull et cetera. NASCAR finale sees modest gain as season posts modest drop, Ratings: NASCAR, college hoops, soccer, NHL, XFL sees big drop in Week 2, but on par with last years USFL, LeBron injury ill-timed as Lakers continue to draw, Small sampling for LIV; PGA Tour wins head-to-head in rout. Ratings fell 19% and viewership 21% from last year, when it was the second race of the season (3.2, 5.50M). Even though the Confederate battle flag was banned within Talledega Speedway on Sunday, outside the track, the initials "PC" stood for "publicly Confederate.". Bowlesy thinks there needs to be an element of risk for racing to be exciting; I dont tune in to races to see a car potentially fly into a catch fence and injure spectators. Not only is this tolerated by NASCAR but encouraged. The fan backlash was loud and intense. 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. Tiger Woods was great for golf. But the ratings decline is hitting all of the leagues hard (including MLB, which has not embraced the movement on the field nearly as much as the WNBA, NBA, and NFL). As Juniors fortunes continued to trend downward even while driving for the strongest team in the sport, his fan base became turned off. It was not a great race. There are still plenty of obscene profit breaks, but its far less aggravating when you can still see the action and leader board on part of the screen. OK, here we go. Many former fans consider this state of affairs to be ridiculous. NASCAR Home. The half-mile dirt track was a success on many levels. For any fan that needs racing to be dangerous, there are still four restrictor plate races on the schedule. Ill start with a few things that I dont believe caused the decline of NASCAR, then Ill share what I think really did. 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. I can also dispute other reasons for it that I see being offered today. Its safe to say this is not ideal for the sport and there should be some concern on why ratings continue to fall. 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. 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. The NASCAR Cup Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway topped all forms of motorsports last weekend, with a 2.05 rating, 3.373 million viewers. Along with that came an all-important metric: the Nielsen ratings. Fortunately, NASCAR is finally addressing this. All Rights Reserved. Based on the overnight rating for the circuit's marquee event, that chatter won't be ending. Three of the four drivers in the championship race were also in the 2018 race, and three of the four drivers were in Toyotas. (Busch would have still won.). It was, but even that wasnt the point. And you hear more and more about this today. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. 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. NASCAR's viewership for the first half of the 2022 season is the highest since 2017. View 2021 Bristol tv ratings below. | This means that fewer televisions are being turned on around the country; however, the percentage of those people watching NASCAR is increasing. Photo credit: sidehike on Visual hunt / CC BY-SA So here are three actual reasons for the decline of NASCAR. 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. People love a winner, they love to hate a winner, and they love to see a dynasty get taken down. It may seem good on the surface, but theres more beneath that makes this concerning. 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). Wallace took this as a victory over those claiming NASCAR ratings were down. The future of IndyCar seems to be brighter when it comes to younger people. However, these deals may be stopping the brand from adapting to consumers' changing viewing habits. The disappointing ratings continue a downward trend in Daytona 500 viewership, which has been steadily declining since Fox scored 18.7 million viewers in 2005 with a household rating of 10.9 . Should there be concerns with the current trend of viewership? The television ratings for sports in 2020 reflect the poll results and the frustration many feel toward the constant sloganeering and political pandering. They shut down the polls and went ahead with it anyway. The move of the Labor Day race to California was part of an ongoing trend. 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. Created and Designed by, Solving NASCARs Racetrack Problem, Part 2 Happy Hour Motor Speedway, on What Caused The Decline of NASCAR? NASCAR star Bubba Wallace reacted to a chart on Twitter that showed last weekend's NASCAR race at Foxwoods Resort Casino as the top-watched sporting event of the weekend. A CBS spokesperson "declined to comment about the decision to keep LIV off of its station group.". Nothing against Jimmie Johnson for winning titles with the rules as written, but he only managed that feat twice. Then they sharply declined in Week Two. Bookmark this page for NASCAR ratings as another year of racing is officially underway! The. or Disney plus; there's more competition for those eyeballs then there's ever been. Yes, thats actually true; read it again if you need to. 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. After two DNFs in the first two Chase events resulting from simple bad luck, just like that his title hopes were gone. 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). If that contributed to NASCARs decline, however, that is on NASCAR. Johnson is getting some commiserations from the fans after the ratings came out. And I said all that without even bringing up that profoundly irritating cartoon gopher. 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. No longer could a late-model driver from Syracuse or Spokane get a car and a team together and show up to try to qualify for any of NASCARs races. The Daytona Road Course averaged 4.750 million viewers during the event. And forget Danica the non-stop promotion and ass-kissing of all things NASCAR by the announcers seriously, compare them against broadcasters of any other big-league sport has people who were once fans changing the channel permanently. It was the first NCS race on the dirt in 50 years. And the season will conclude at Phoenix again, a more exciting venue than Miami where the finale had been for years. So no, Johnsons domination wasnt directly a factor in the decline of NASCAR but their failure to market it most definitely was. 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 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. It was boxy, ugly, and top heavyand its shape was part of the reason for the Indianapolis debacle of 2008. It took time, maybe too much time, but NASCAR is finally addressing the three biggest reasons for the decline of the sport. The event was down 5.6% compared to last year at 4.570 million average viewers on FOX. This year's NCAA tournament ratings were down 11%. Making matters worse, within four years, the driver with the second largest fan base finished with the most points in a season twice, only to lose the title to a points reset. 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. Just because no one has been killed at the Cup level since Earnhardts death doesnt make it less so. 500 MOMENTUM:Daytona 500 TV ratings: NASCAR opener ends two-year viewership decline. 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. Ill submit that this is a reason a few fans I know stopped watching the sport. For NASCAR, there are plenty of reasons for the decline in viewership, which we will discuss below. NASCAR rose to prominence in the 1980s and 90s as TV became more and more involved. 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. Race to California was part of an ongoing trend things were responsible dont believe caused the decline in,. 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