nascar ratings declinenascar ratings decline

However, by the time NASCAR was peaking in the early 2000s, there already wasnt much manufacturer identity left. There are not many. NASCAR has managed to hang on to lucrative TV contracts despite its ratings decline. Since early in the millenium, however, interest in NASCAR both at the speedways and on television has dropped off. It's no secret that NASCAR is experiencing a variety of issues related to its popularity, despite a slight recent uptick in TV ratings. The event was down 5.6% compared to last year at 4.570 million average viewers on FOX. 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. So if you can say that it's you and the NFL in terms of stability of your audience. Most notably, Sunday was an all-time low in viewership for the second race of a NASCAR season ever. 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. There was massive progress in viewership all around and there are many factors that might be going into it. 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. Professional sports adapted as well, understanding, and learning, how to measure viewership and show that value to their stakeholders. The coverage goes through the entire event. Our share of those TVs that are tuned in is up 18%. That would have a big effect on viewership overall. This ability to adapt however seems insufficient as NASCAR has recorded a staggering 50% viewership drop in the last 5 years along with substantial admission decline that has varied from 12 -30% percent from 2012 to 2018. 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. It may seem good on the surface, but there's more beneath that makes this concerning. 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. Translation: the drivers are paying for the pleasure of racing. It was the first NCS race on the dirt in 50 years. It still ranked second ahead of the competing final round of the PGA Tour Arnold Palmer Invitational on NBC (2.4, 3.86M). Basicallythe first 2 races of 2015 have already soundly beaten the first 4 races of 2012 by 4.7 million viewers. 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. This year's NCAA tournament ratings were down 11%. . . That NASCAR was doomed, soon to become nothing more than a memory. I wonder why Truck Series and Xfinity viewership(even from 2019) is up but Cup Series viewership is down. In terms of tier one sports properties, he said. NASCAR has struggled with the 18-49 demographic and while IndyCar doesnt have as many overall viewers, the percentage of those viewers being in that demographic is higher. TV ratings for the Richmond race were said to be down 12% from the same race in 2015 and 44% from 2014. . 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. 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. Its not so much that the points reset NASCAR introduced in 2004 was a monumentally stupid idea. 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. So that's a positive viewership increase of 2%. In NASCAR's pre-1990s heyday, when it was still very much a regional sport, manufacturer identity was a big thing. Keep in mind that excludes the Monday rainout at Talladega. NASCARs TV ratings began to fall; the once all-mighty numbers began to show not an increase, but a decline. NASCAR made an absurd amount of money with their television contracts in the 2000s, but that ultimately cost them a sizable chunk of the audience when networks were forced to make it worth their while. 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. And those ways that didnt always involve traditional broadcast TV. There are still 11 races on intermediate tracks, but its finally moving in the right direction. By virtue of his fathers untimely passing, Dale Earnhardt Jr. instantly found himself with a larger fan base than any three drivers in NASCAR. Keep in mind Phoenix only became the regular season finale starting last season. As streaming services provide instant entertainment whileNASCARhas scheduled andlengthy race events,thecomparison is similar toordering drive-thru (cheap and convenient) versusdining at a fine restaurant (pricier and takes longer before you can eat). 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. Or Jeff Gordon, again, living in a Manhattan penthouse with his second wife, a model, instead of in North Carolina, where he lived beside a lake with his first wife, a deeply religious woman who was Born Again. That exposure now comes not just from TV, but through streaming platforms, attendance, and even social media. NASCAR still attempts to do the best it can when it comes to getting the word out. 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. 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. 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 They are included along with social media engagement, streaming, and the like. Schedule/Results. Dover is a 1-mile track, and 11 laps does not take long. The future of IndyCar seems to be brighter when it comes to younger people. 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. As a result, teams with more resourcessuch as Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racingwon big for years. 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.. Having followed the sport in the time frame when it began, I can offer what I believe are the real reasons for the decline of NASCAR. Ratings were like Bible verses, an almighty Gospel preached to stakeholders on how much of NASCAR was reaching the masses. Furthermore, their retirements are probably not the sole reason for NASCAR's viewership issues either. TV ratings are no longer the end all be all for NASCAR. 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.. 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. Many former fans consider this state of affairs to be ridiculous. 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. I cant imagine any fan of Dale Earnhardt Sr.and there were a lot of themnot wanting to see the sport take every measure it could to keep drivers safe after Daytona 2001. That's the first time in a decade that that has happened, Hebrst said. And then, in 1979, came flag-to-flag TV coverage of the Daytona 500 and other NASCAR Cup races. As Ive said, the sport is finally addressing its venue problem. 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. 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. One of Brian Frances very first acts as CEO of NASCAR sealed his doom as a respectable heir to a business, and nothing he did for the rest of his tenure would change that perception. I think thats some pretty solid footing.. The crowd sold out it's 30% capacity soon after the event was . 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. Declining television ratings have been a near-constant part of the NASCAR conversation for years. 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 NASCAR rose to prominence in the 1980s and 90s as TV became more and more involved. 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. 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. 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 . NASCARs viewership continues to fall after the ratings for last weekends race at Auto Club Speedway were released on Tuesday morning. Compared to the fourth Xfinity race of last season, from Phoenix, ratings fell a tick (from 0.8) but viewership increased (from 1.19M). The 2019 season was run as regularly scheduled as well. https://t.co/Zf4L7g5im4 Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) July 10, 2018 Gordon wasnt the only driver who turned in a spectacular season-long performance only to have it nullified. 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 sport mishandled the on-track racing by introducing the 550 horsepower package which caused the fanbase to lose trust. But that in itself wasnt necessarily the crime. Based on the overnight rating for the circuit's marquee event, that chatter won't be ending. Photo credit: sidehike on VisualHunt / CC BY-SA 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. Much like Kyle Petty, he ultimately became more known for his good-guy personality and his lineage than for his achievements on the racetrack. For any fan that needs racing to be dangerous, there are still four restrictor plate races on the schedule. Created and Designed by, Solving NASCARs Racetrack Problem, Part 2 Happy Hour Motor Speedway, on What Caused 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. Meanwhile, NASCAR ratings . 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. The Nielsen ratings for NASCAR's most-watched races, such as The Daytona 500, have plummeted in recent years. However, the second race of the 2022 season saw a more significant drop in viewership compared to previous seasons. But plate racing still sucksnot only do plates produce multi-car crashes every event, they pervert the standings because of it. We all know what Im talking about. Now, they buy their way in. 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. They do not want to watch commercials over and over again. As Juniors fortunes continued to trend downward even while driving for the strongest team in the sport, his fan base became turned off. 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. It would have saved a lot of time. Why poll the fans if youre just going to ignore them? In NASCARs pre-1990s heyday, when it was still very much a regional sport, manufacturer identity was a big thing. And we wont get into the murdering of the English language that goes on week after week, ad nauseum. If that contributed to NASCARs decline, however, that is on NASCAR. In other NASCAR action, the Xfinity Series race at Las Vegas turned in a 0.7 and 1.28 million. After two DNFs in the first two Chase events resulting from simple bad luck, just like that his title hopes were gone. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA Weekly races at smaller locales have come off even worse. 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 Las Vegas ratings hit a new low. Comments Off on What Caused The Decline of NASCAR? NFLX However, in recent years that growth has slowed. Please email the author at [email protected], 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. Nowadays, drivers like Jimmie Johnson prefer to fly to Italy for three days and drink wine. 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. Home Media FOX NASCAR hits Las Vegas low. 2) When NASCAR established the franchise system in 2016, the league essentially became a closed shop. 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. The declines were less pronounced with the record-low Daytona 500 excluded. 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. I can also dispute other reasons for it that I see being offered today. Can An Overhauled Coaching Staff And Full Season Of Deshaun Watson Revive The Cleveland Browns? WWE Insider Says Yes, Fans might be tired of the novelty of the playoffs., selling a sport that is losing popularity and has three months of overlap with football. NASCAR teams get creative with sponsors following dip in ratings, attendance Rick Hendrick is seeking a new sponsor for Jimmie Johnson amid the departure of Lowe's. Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images Standings. And one other thing about NASCAR in those days: the races were open to anybody who could qualify. 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. The. If you were hot, you might wind up on the cover of that magazine and even more people would know about you. It was the insistent implementation of it over loud objections of fans. 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. Now, NASCAR might say, Well, 3.759 million for a race in November, even if it is half as much as four years ago, is more than 0.000 viewers for no race. And ratings are slightly better overall when you include the Fox half, which is better than another plunge, as in 2018. The sport has grown from. In that race, caution flags were flown almost every ten laps for tire wear, as Jimmie Johnson limped to a victory. Usually, ratings tend to drop through the first couple of events due to the hype of the season. It is not unusual to see speedway grandstands half empty and only several million will tune in from home. (Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images). 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. And I said all that without even bringing up that profoundly irritating cartoon gopher. I expect that will be a boon to NASCARs future. Those moments generate interestand rivalries, which every sport needs. Which might explain why, despite the denials, the people who are descendants of Big Bill France, the man who started it all, are quietly shopping the company around and hoping to get out while the goings good. All Rights Reserved. Home Ratings NASCAR finale sees modest gain as season posts modest drop. By Jack Davis June 22, 2020 at 8:10am. It was a successful year as the sport averaged over three million average viewers per race. There's a catch, though. 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. 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. 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 . Digital and social consumption is as important now, as it's ever been; probably more important now than it's ever been, he said. . which is a 50 percent decline . IndyCars race at St. Petersberg was also up from 1.219 million viewers last season. Games on TNT are also down by more. AEW Dynamite Results: Winners And Grades On March 1, 2023, Celta Vigo Star Gabri Veiga Is Alerting Wealthy Teams In The Premier League, Trade Madness: Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders And Devils Spent February Making Notable Moves, Los Angeles Chargers Have Shown Keenan Allen The Money But They Wont Show Him The Door, Corner Threes Are Secret Sauce For Milwaukee Bucks Offensive Success, OKC Thunder: Upcoming Six-Game Slate Will Dictate Direction Of Season, Is Vince McMahon Secretly Booking WrestleMania 39? Affluence. 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.. Compared to the 2019 finale from Homestead-Miami, ratings fell 13% (from 2.2) and viewership 14% (from 3.74M). This brought even more attention and money to the sport and school was soon out. 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). While Nielsen was undergoing its transformation other smaller agencies stepped into fill the void. What are the biggest differences between these sports? The fan backlash was loud and intense. [Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 3.9]. It may be difficult for younger people to imagine it, but the sport was once poised to overtake the NFL in popularity. Where . (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images). 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. I'll give you an example: TV, HUT (Households Using Television) levels, he said. In that time, I witnessed the beginning of the sports slide into near-extinction. NASCAR's viewership for the first half of the 2022 season is the highest since 2017. Racing Ratings By Phillip Bupp on 06/23/2022. I also suggested a solutionthat NASCAR emulate how baseball exploded in popularity after the opening of Camden Yards. Their retirements are a reason for the ratings decline in 2018. CLASH SUCCESS:NASCAR TV ratings are in, and the Clash is most-viewed since 2016. We try to do is take the complex and boil it down to something that is more easily understood by the fanbase.. No longer will teams win titles by dominating speedways; driver skill will be more of a factor, as it should be. These are bold changes, but this variety of tracks will test drivers and teams at every level. 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 truth was of course far from that. The Decline of NASCAR, Non-Reason #1: The Cars Are Too Spec I'll submit that this is a reason a few fans I know stopped watching the sport. The news sort of heads downhill from there. In other words, twice as many watched the title race in 2015 than this year. So here are three actual reasons for the decline of NASCAR. 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. However, these deals may be stopping the brand from adapting to consumers' changing viewing habits. That doesnt mean they dont have talent, or arent brave. or Disney plus; there's more competition for those eyeballs then there's ever been. These figures paint a troubling trend that NASCAR is on a long term downtrend it has yet to recover from. NASCARs popularity is down and the ratings reflect it. 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). Q: You say NASCAR continues to grow and like you, . 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. But experts say the reasons are multitude. That metric is down 16% over the last 24 months. You can contact him here or on the Sports Media Watch Twitter page. Not all, of course, but most. 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. 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. Racing, like basketball and other sports, has seen year-to-year ratings decline. By: GP Racing. Should there be concerns with the current trend of viewership? It didnt help that a hugely popular driver underperformed, but that shouldnt have caused this much of a free fall. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-SA Interestingly, it has been said that NASCAR has been getting younger (the drivers) and older (the fans) at the same time. Nepotism isnt dead in NASCAR. Auto Club Speedway's racetrack seems to be adored by every . Not just limited to NASCAR but to many other sports as well is the gradual retirement of its well-known athletes that were the main draw for people to watch the events.

Youth Soccer Meridian Idaho, How To Cleanse Pyrite Crystal, Articles N