Im also someone who became a disenchanted former fan myself. This is the most viewed season-opener since 2015. with the Indiana Gaming Commission (IGC) under certificate of registration number SWR-000148, approved by NASCAR since 1940's has seen the sport of One shining example was a 2010 Dover racea playoff race, no lesswhere ESPN broke away with 11 laps to go in a very much undecided event for an ad break. 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. 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. "Average viewership of the NASCAR Cup Series in the United States from 2014 to 2022 (in million viewers)." Photo credit: sarahstierch on Visualhunt.com / CC BY As a result, teams with more resourcessuch as Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racingwon big for years. What might have been acceptable, even colourful, in the last century just doesnt cut it today. NASCAR blew off fan demand for picture-in-picture commercial breakssomething theyve since embracedwhile Fox Sportss indifference to fans went completely unchecked. james mcbride spouse 6 juin 2022. lire That doesnt mean they dont have talent, or arent brave. It didnt help that a hugely popular driver underperformed, but that shouldnt have caused this much of a free fall. clothing stores in kingston, ontario. 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). As NASCAR readies for its first, and most important, event of the year, the Daytona 500 on Sunday, it sits at a crossroads. NASCAR vehicles evolved over the decades to become safer for the drivers and spectators, the result of which is that cars today are uniform, standardized vehicles with their bodies basically just shells on top of a chassis. Please do not hesitate to contact me. Photo credit: PresidenBertho on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA Sundays race at Auto Club is also down from the second race of the 2021 season. Related: NASCARs Daytona 500 ratings indicate a worrisome trend. It would have saved a lot of time. When not at work, Karlo spends his time at home, with family, either being the cook or fixit guy in his house. 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. +40 (724) 307.599 Lu - Vi: 9:00 - 18:00; nascar popularity graph 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. (It did.) unsubscribe link. And stage races have also not gone over well with purists. That would be about it. Corey LaJoie gets loose, spins Brad Keselowski. Nepotism isnt dead in NASCAR. Use Ask Statista Research Service. The fan backlash was loud and intense. However, like Johnsons dominance, I doubt that this would have been as much of a problem were it not for other factors that were far more damaging. The broadcasts have also improved. 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. And he had a very large fan base. affiliate links and make purchases, WSN earns a commission from our partners, including ESPN and various When you use this link to shop on Amazon, youll help subsidize this great websiteat no extra charge to you. He is likely to build a fan base fast. There are still 11 races on intermediate tracks, but its finally moving in the right direction. Far from it. Getty Chase Elliott receives the Most Popular Driver Award. NASCAR Cup Series driver pages: Bios, statistics, race results videos, news, photo galleries, car, team, shop gear, date of birth, rookie year ^ Cited revenue was AUD$1.547B; exchange rate of 1 euro per AUD$1.61 for 2019 season used here. In some ways the Recession came at a most inopportune time for sports TV. the Secondly, the interaction and dynamics of the car and the drivers are intriguing when they are inches close to each other on the track. They do not want to watch commercials over and over again. --The experience is different. our Terms & Conditions and our Privacy Policy and you confirm that you are 18+. 1:31 For eight years, Lanette and Jim Williams of Missouri said they traveled to an average of nine NASCAR races per season. liability for the information given being complete or correct. 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. Translation: the drivers are paying for the pleasure of racing. The six-race consecutive increase in viewership prior to Talladega is something that everyone can understand and helps reinforce just how healthy NASCAR is. But that in itself wasn't necessarily the crime. Voting is now open for the . The exception to the rule would be the Daytona 500, Richard Petty, and, thanks to a cameo in "The Dukes Of Hazzard," Cale Yarbrough. 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. When I was younger, even though they were no longer stock cars, they still resembled their factory counterparts, sometimes even using body panel. Even more so than in baseball, the on-screen product is affected with the layout of a track. 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. Founded by Bill France, Sr. in Daytona Beach, Florida, the company evolved into what the race-sanctioning institution that it is today over several decades. And the same is true for NASCAR. 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. Up until the middle of the 21 st century the. Many fans, especially those who might want to disparage the sport, dont understand that just because the TV numbers are down or not at the sky-high levels they once were, doesnt mean NASCAR is facing any sort of loss of popularity. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA Wallace ranks among the public's most well-known drivers, according to a new Morning Consult poll. And you hear more and more about this today. NASCAR racing will go on to become. That NASCAR was doomed, soon to become nothing more than a memory. Professional sports adapted as well, understanding, and learning, how to measure viewership and show that value to their stakeholders. Most of the world is filled, first and foremost, with soccer fans. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images). Oh Well, And Here Comes The NFL, Xavi Warned FC Barcelona Fans Will Kill Him If Team Plays Like In Real Madrid Win Every Week. Surprisingly, there are no active NASCAR tracks in the Mountain State, but that doesnt seem to dampen the locals enthusiasm for the sport. 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. I think thats some pretty solid footing.. 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. If you want to attribute the decline of NASCAR to arrogant leadership, look no further than that single act. or Disney plus; there's more competition for those eyeballs then there's ever been. 117656-1, Though Nielsen had been king of all things TV for generations, the truth was they were having trouble keeping up as people began to shift their viewing habits. The NASCAR season is a long and winding road held on 23 racetracks across America. IndyCar is seeing huge success as an open-wheel Motorsport, just like Formula 1. It may seem good on the surface, but theres more beneath that makes this concerning. Average viewership of the NASCAR Cup Series in the United States from 2014 to 2022 (in million viewers) [Graph]. Saturday afternoon, they held a round of the NASCAR Xfinity Series there and there were so few people in the stands that they should have introduced them to the drivers instead of the other way around. Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader, Geoff Bodine, Rusty Wallace and Trevor Boys were among several dozen drivers whose names soon became familiar, if not famous. Average finishing positions from 2017-2021 are blue. (I started with 2017 because it's recent and covers . So overall if Iowa was in the top 5 in the country 20 years ago in Nascar popularity, it still is today, because the trends you are describing is happening everywhere, leaving Iowa still where it was. The graph below shows drivers' average 2022 finishes at intermediate tracks in yellow. 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. But more importantly, the racing isnt anywhere near as exciting at the cookie cutters, as I so eloquently explained here. By the measurements used today, NASCAR then is in a very good place. The best of the best: the portal for top lists & rankings: Strategy and business building for the data-driven economy: Industry-specific and extensively researched technical data (partially from exclusive partnerships). . Accessed March 04, 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/812557/average-us-tv-audience-nascar-cup-series/. Veterans like Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick are future Hall of Fame drivers with fairly large followings, and a strong crop of young drivers are making names for themselves. 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. And one other thing about NASCAR in those days: the races were open to anybody who could qualify. "On the Spongebob series that my grandsons loved so much," Fulton, 71, said. 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. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date 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). So NASCAR racing has become just like European formula-car racing and IndyCar racing in North America. As one of motorsport's most popular race series, NASCAR has a long and colorful history that dates to the US prohibition erain the 1930s. (Chris Graythen / Getty Images) 29% of sports fans said they're more likely to watch a NASCAR . They shut down the polls and went ahead with it anyway. Early stock car racing and the birth of NASCAR After World War II, stock car racing became one of America's fastest-growing. 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. (June 16, 2022). Its possible that the most popular driver not performing well hurt the sport, given the sports fan demographic. In contrast, basketball has incredible athletes and non-stop action. Those moments generate interestand rivalries, which every sport needs. Overview and forecasts on trending topics, Industry and market insights and forecasts, Key figures and rankings about companies and products, Consumer and brand insights and preferences in various industries, Detailed information about political and social topics, All key figures about countries and regions, Market forecast and expert KPIs for 600+ segments in 150+ countries, Insights on consumer attitudes and behavior worldwide, Business information on 60m+ public and private companies, Detailed information for 35,000+ online stores and marketplaces. Nielsen slowly began to develop ways to measure who was watching what, and how. Photo credit: Ford Racing on VisualHunt / CC BY to incorporate the statistic into your presentation at any time. Last years season-opener at Barber only averaged 914 thousand viewers which is almost an extra 500 thousand. Most die-hard fans of NASCAR are those that have followed it the longest. 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. Directly accessible data for 170 industries from 50 countries and over 1 million facts: Get quick analyses with our professional research service. NASCAR is notoriously closed-mouth about its earnings, making it difficult to gauge the financial fallout of NASCAR's fading popularity. Next:10 NASCAR Drivers With The Most Wins (& How Much They Won). Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. So if you can say that it's you and the NFL in terms of stability of your audience. The time has come for NASCAR fans to make their voices heard. Anyone who was watching then could tell you that wasnt unusual at all. Jerseyball Millvilles Mike Trout and Aaron Cox, Precision Pistol Shooting For Greatness, The Power of Fun Dave Raymond, The Original Phillie Phanatic, Being Relentless The HEADstrong Foundation, Surviving Until Tuesday Sergeant Andrew Einstein. Last year, nearly 70 million unique viewers tuned in to. The Daytona Road Course averaged 4.750 million viewers during the event. In the early 2000s, NASCAR was soaring. We respect your privacy. The league has been privately owned by the France family . Business Solutions including all features. It may be difficult for younger people to imagine it, but the sport was once poised to overtake the NFL in popularity. 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%. Gordon wasnt the only driver who turned in a spectacular season-long performance only to have it nullified. NASCAR is clearly falling behind other motorsports in a new era of television. They are the only one of the Big 3 Motorsports that still have this happen. By virtue of his fathers untimely passing, Dale Earnhardt Jr. instantly found himself with a larger fan base than any three drivers in NASCAR. 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. As a Premium user you get access to the detailed source references and background information about this statistic. Ousting Brian France, who created the Chase and presided over the sports decline, was no small part of that. In todays world TV ratings arent the big deal they once were nor the only thing that matters. 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. 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. NASCAR still attempts to do the best it can when it comes to getting the word out. In that race, caution flags were flown almost every ten laps for tire wear, as Jimmie Johnson limped to a victory. They did not agree with how officials handled the aftermath of the Chase for the Sprint Cup manipulation at Richmond International Raceway, which included NASCAR CEO Brian France putting Jeff Gordon into the playoff as an extra driver. NASCAR has been around for a longer time; it attracts a bigger audience, has more races, a longer season, and is more popular internationally than IndyCar. Prerace entertainment such as the Sprint Experience and Foxs NASCAR RaceDay TV stage are gone. Las Vegas Entry List. The trajectory is good. Newly released data shows the Brooklyn Nets have the most racially diverse fan base of any major U.S. sports team. So heres what we did: We analyzed Google Trends data to compare NASCARs popularity across every state. While retired drivers still are visible within the world of NASCAR acting as team managers, commentators, or guests, without the familiar presence of these stars on the track, people can, and have lost some level of interest in NASCAR. 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. Interestingly, it has been said that NASCAR has been getting younger (the drivers) and older (the fans) at the same time. All NASCAR racing takes place on oval tracks, while all vehicles are built on a steel tube chassis, utilize a 5.8-liter V8 engine, and come with a four-speed manual transmission. I remember watching it and literally wondering if I was going to see the finish of the race. Just another site. 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. 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. No longer will teams win titles by dominating speedways; driver skill will be more of a factor, as it should be.