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. Digital and social consumption is as important now, as it's ever been; probably more important now than it's ever been, he said. NASCAR moved the Brickyard 400 to September . All four Cup Series races this season have declined from the corresponding weeks of last season, though this weeks drop was the smallest thus far. Brandon Kochkodin. People do not want to watch numerous full-screen commercials while green-flag racing is taking place. 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. 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. It rewards winning, which rewards fighting for wins, which creates rivalries. Photo credit: tequilamike on Visual hunt / CC BY Well, it might be as easy as the product fans are seeing on their televisions over the course of a race. The sport mishandled the on-track racing by introducing the 550 horsepower package which caused the fanbase to lose trust. Covered race cars from the NASCAR Xfinity Series sit parked on pit road during a rain delay before the start . Racing Ratings By Phillip Bupp on 06/23/2022. 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. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images), 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. 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. Certain segments of fans, and media, began to cry that sky was falling. Related: NASCARs Daytona 500 ratings indicate a worrisome trend. News. 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. Motorsports encompass a wide variety of classes that offernumerous choices for fans ofauto racing. Jimmie Johnson was a hallmark of ruthless efficiency in his prime, winning seven titles and five in a row. The erosion is even more pronounced when you . 500 MOMENTUM:Daytona 500 TV ratings: NASCAR opener ends two-year viewership decline. On declining ratings throughout NASCAR and other sports. So if you can say that it's you and the NFL in terms of stability of your audience. . I'm just . 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. The rise of social media as a tool, pastime, or source of information and entertainment has certainly affected most sports, NASCAR included. 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 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 then, in 1979, came flag-to-flag TV coverage of the Daytona 500 and other NASCAR Cup races. (Busch would have still won.). Im not buying the its too safe bit as a cause for the decline of NASCAR. Its safe to say this is not ideal for the sport and there should be some concern on why ratings continue to fall. It didnt help that a hugely popular driver underperformed, but that shouldnt have caused this much of a free fall. Those numbers of course, dont tell the entire story. 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.. 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. Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired at the end of the 2017 season. NFLX 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. Photo credit: PresidenBertho on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA On the re-debut of the XFL, the league's TV ratings down in a pretty big way, according to Sports Media Watch. This brought even more attention and money to the sport and school was soon out. Standings. 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. While the 2023 NASCAR season kicked off Sunday with Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. racing his way into the May 21 NASCAR All-Star Race, North Wilkesboro Speedway construction crews are . Labor Day is in Darlington where it belongs, and Darlington is hosting two events again. Related: NASCARs NextGen car shows promise and one huge issue. With all the different metrics used to measure a sport these days however, it can be complicated. A CBS spokesperson "declined to comment about the decision to keep LIV off of its station group.". 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. In other NASCAR action, the Xfinity Series race at Las Vegas turned in a 0.7 and 1.28 million. 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. It was during this timethat "Bootleggers"- those whoproduce anddeliver prohibited whiskey/alcohol also had modified delivery cars that were fast enough to be able to evade, outrun and escape law enforcement should they be spotted. The XFL's ratings were disappointing in Week One. Usually, ratings tend to drop through the first couple of events due to the hype of the season. The above car is a NASCAR entry that is supposed to look like a Toyota Supra. So NASCAR racing has become just like European formula-car racing and IndyCar racing in North America. That NASCAR was doomed, soon to become nothing more than a memory. Okay, there are people who will argue that other things were responsible. No longer will teams win titles by dominating speedways; driver skill will be more of a factor, as it should be. Tiger Woods was great for golf. 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. 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. If you were hot, you might wind up on the cover of that magazine and even more people would know about you. So more people are tuned into Amazon prime or Netflix Not only in the business world, but in all sports as well. Fortunately, NASCAR is finally addressing this. 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. 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. 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. CLASH SUCCESS:NASCAR TV ratings are in, and the Clash is most-viewed since 2016. Nielsen slowly began to develop ways to measure who was watching what, and how. IndyCar is seeing huge success as an open-wheel Motorsport, just like Formula 1. Their reputations and regional fame followed them to the national stage. You will find all of your NASCAR ratings coverage at Sportsnaut. Overall, NASCAR brought in 114.231 million average viewers throughout the entire 2022 season which marks its. Statistics for NASCAR indicate that 63% 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. Below, we take a look at the NASCAR ratings over the course of the 2023 season with an up-to-date analysis of each event. Q: You say NASCAR continues to grow and like you, . There's a catch, though. The last race at. Danica turned out to be a huge bustas many people who followed the sport closely, including yours truly, predicted she would be. 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. I have been around and covered NASCAR for over two decades. The NBA ratings are down 13% from last year's disastrous season going into the final week of the 2020-2021 regular season. The full Xfinity Series season averaged 1.04 million viewers, up 9% from last year (952K) and 2019 (954K). But the initial Chase, an artificial and contrived points reset, was despised by fans. The markets simply couldnt support them anymore. Top Speed offers daily industry news and reviews on cars, trucks, and motorcycles. You can contact him here or on the Sports Media Watch Twitter page. 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. 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. I wonder why Truck Series and Xfinity viewership(even from 2019) is up but Cup Series viewership is down. For instance: The non-stop promotion of Danica Patrick, as if she was the Second Coming (she wasnt), turned off a lot of fans. 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. NASCAR ratings have been on the decline over the last decade as they have taken a significant drop. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Visualhunt / CC BY-SA 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. In some ways the Recession came at a most inopportune time for sports TV. 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. Not all, of course, but most. I also think it's healthy just in terms of the interest. But it's an uphill fight for us and a lot of other sports properties. You also dont often see post-race fisticuffs after races at Kansas or Vegas like you might at Martinsville or Bristol. 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. Next:10 NASCAR Drivers With The Most Wins (& How Much They Won). Furthermore, their retirements are probably not the sole reason for NASCAR's viewership issues either. FOX has been touting the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season to date as the "best ever." Sorry, I'd give that honor to 1992 and wouldn't even provide 2021 to date a spot on my top-10 list of modern-era. And it will be pretty hard to turn back the clock on either of those. Last years Xfinity race at the track aired on FS2 and had a 0.21 and 341,000. The 2016 race from Homestead had 6.1 million viewers, the 2015 race had 7.643 million. 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. Photo credit: wjarrettc on Visual hunt / CC BY There are not many. Where . The . NASCAR averaged 4.570 million viewers for Sunday afternoons event at Auto Club Speedway. 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. No longer do young NASCAR racers start at their local tracks and work their way up. Young fans want to watch the action. Is PNC Park The Best Ballpark in Baseball? 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. Since earning a 7.7 rating and 13. American Hartford Gold. Related: NASCAR power rankings during the 2023 season. It was, but even that wasnt the point. 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. Follow along, because there will be a test later . A shot that shows the overall value sponsors receive. In 2019, that number had dropped to just 2.92 million. 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's viewership for the first half of the 2022 season is the highest since 2017. [Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 3.9]. What are the biggest differences between these sports? Ill start with a few things that I dont believe caused the decline of NASCAR, then Ill share what I think really did. It's no secret that NASCAR is experiencing a variety of issues related to its popularity, despite a slight recent uptick in TV ratings. It took quite a few years of longtime fans bitching about that, but NASCAR did finally move the Labor Day Southern 500 back to Darlington. People rooted for car brands as well as drivers, and car companies believed in the whole win on Sunday, sell on Monday mantra. Photo credit: eliduke on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA It was the first time in a while where we didn't have a decline on NBC. 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. 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 A Former Reporters Thoughts, fly into a catch fence and injure spectators, I really got the point across with this one, that profoundly irritating cartoon gopher, baseball exploded in popularity after the opening of Camden Yards, that didnt suffer a significant ratings drop, Professional Cornhole Beyond The Parking Lot, Staying Green ex-Patriots Champion Jarvis Green, Terry Kath 1946-1978: The Heart of Chicago. 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. A leading business development, project manager in the auction and liquidation industry, and consultant for various local and national government offices in the Philippines. These Are The Reasons Why NASCAR Is Losing Fans, "Bootleggers"- those whoproduce anddeliver prohibited whiskey/alcohol, colorful beginnings to what is now a billion-dollar sporting event, 15 Abandoned And Forgotten NASCAR Race Tracks, 15 Rules Every NASCAR Employee Has To Follow, 10 NASCAR Drivers With The Most Wins (& How Much They Won), A New Toyota Celica Concept Shows What A Pure Toyota Sports Car Could Be Without BMW, A Modern Plymouth Road Runner Like This Could Shake Up Today's Pony Car Market, EXCLUSIVE: This Toyota 2000GT Rendering Brings An Icon Into Modern Day, The 5 Worst Ford Mustangs To Buy Used (Plus The 5 Best), 10 Used German Performance Cars We'd Buy Over An American Muscle Car Any Day. The 2021 campaign includes six road course races, a dirt race at Bristol (! NASCAR averaged 4.570 million viewers for Sunday afternoon's event at Auto Club Speedway. And as recently as 2013, the race drew 16.5. 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). I think that the momentum is good. NASCAR Home. In the early 2000s, NASCAR was soaring. NBA players take a knee during National Anthem, screen image Get woke, go broke. You may opt-out by. Compared to NASCARs 18-49 demographic, IndyCar has an average of 24%, while they are at 20.1%. That is a decrease of nearly 50%, and in some races this kind of decline could be seen in the stands too. 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. 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?. Im not sure why people would think this, although Id actually had some heated debates with Tom Bowles at the Frontstretch about it. 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. Yes, thats actually true; read it again if you need to. . 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. Last year's 500 was still the. 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). Anyone who was watching then could tell you that wasnt unusual at all. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY 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. . There are still 11 races on intermediate tracks, but its finally moving in the right direction. You can contact him here or on the Sports Media Watch Twitter page. It may seem good on the surface, but theres more beneath that makes this concerning. Most notably, Sunday was an all-time low in viewership for the second race of a NASCAR season ever. I also suggested a solutionthat NASCAR emulate how baseball exploded in popularity after the opening of Camden Yards. Formula 1 and IndyCar are on the rise while NASCAR is slowly declining on a weekly and yearly basis. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images). Many former fans consider this state of affairs to be ridiculous. Compared to last years fourth race of the season, Phoenix, ratings fell a tick (from 2.7) and viewership 5% (from 4.58M). which is a 50 percent decline . That isnt insignificant when it comes to explaining the decline of NASCAR. The sport has grown from. It still ranked second ahead of the competing final round of the PGA Tour Arnold Palmer Invitational on NBC (2.4, 3.86M). Or NASCAR could pretty much keep things the way they are and hope to hold on to whoever watches through 2024, when the massive TV contract expires. More to the point: both sports need to be patient . The IndyCar race at St. Petersberg averaged 1.405 million viewers on Sunday. Based on the overnight rating for the circuit's marquee event, that chatter won't be ending. Advertising and sponsorship deals are the lifeblood of spectator sports, that is why the TV spots for the Superbowl are some of the most expensive in television. Which is any sports property, essentially professional sports league, that is about a million viewers or higher on a per event basis or the most stable property in terms of viewership over the course of the last two years, it's possible that we'll be able to be the most stable tier one sports property in terms of sports viewership over the course of those three years, (though) the NFL is off to a very good start. For any fan that needs racing to be dangerous, there are still four restrictor plate races on the schedule. The XFL also had a better Week 2 performance than the 2019 Alliance of American . So no, Johnsons domination wasnt directly a factor in the decline of NASCAR but their failure to market it most definitely was. 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. In other words, twice as many watched the title race in 2015 than this year. Photo credit: sarahstierch on Visualhunt.com / CC BY 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. 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. NASCAR Fans Rebel Against Confederate Flag Ban. 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. The decision . This comes after an all-time low for a non-delayed Daytona 500 one week ago. 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. As the son of one of the greatest racecar drivers in history, Junior also had an impossible standard to live up to. 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 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. They are included along with social media engagement, streaming, and the like. The NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway averaged 4.315 million average viewers on FOX last weekend. However, in recent years that growth has slowed. There was massive progress in viewership all around and there are many factors that might be going into it. Even though the Confederate battle flag was banned within Talledega Speedway on Sunday, outside the track, the initials "PC" stood for "publicly Confederate.". 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. ), and a race at the concrete venue of Nashville for the first time. 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. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images), Nascar's TV Future May Or May Not Include Streaming Its Top Tier Races. Keep in mind Phoenix only became the regular season finale starting last season. 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. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY-SA, Posted in NASCAR, Sports Basicallythe first 2 races of 2015 have already soundly beaten the first 4 races of 2012 by 4.7 million viewers. 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.. View 2021 Bristol tv ratings below. Dover is a 1-mile track, and 11 laps does not take long. Photo credit: sidehike on VisualHunt / CC BY-SA . I dont need to tell anyone who was a fan in the 2000s this, but NASCARs broadcasts at the time may have been the worst in the history of sports. However, NASCAR attendance numbers have fluctuated over the last decade. NASCAR TV ratings were once the darlings of the sport. That marks a 10% decline compared to the year-ago 87.1 million viewers, and a 16% drop compared to the analogous period during the 2018-19 campaign. 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. That's the lowest TV audience ever recorded for the. But the sports most dedicated fans were (and are) still in the Southeast, and Southerners are loyal to the core to their heritage. 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. Auto Club Speedway's racetrack seems to be adored by every . Related:15 Abandoned And Forgotten NASCAR Race Tracks. 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. 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. 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. They are the only one of the Big 3 Motorsports that still have this happen. 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. A fan of cars and bikes, and most anything with an engine, he divides his time between work and family. Ousting Brian France, who created the Chase and presided over the sports decline, was no small part of that. It was not a great race. But it was a never ending source of irritation to see five laps of racing followed by a several minute commercial break, which was then followed by another minute of a wide angle shot of the venue and This race is being brought to you by
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