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. For the first time in over a decade and a half, they seem to be headed in the right direction. 18. Statista assumes no NASCAR is clearly falling behind other motorsports in a new era of television. But in a lot of respects this is not unique to Nascar. As NASCAR readies for its first, and most important, event of the year, the Daytona 500 on Sunday, it sits at a crossroads. 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. Not only in the business world, but in all sports as well. Access to this and all other statistics on 80,000 topics from, Show sources information Related: NASCARs Daytona 500 ratings indicate a worrisome trend. If they hadnt, youd probably be reading articles today about the decline of Coca-Cola too. The league has been privately owned by the France family . Though fewer fans were able to attend in person, with the improvements in internet bandwidth, and the rise of more and more cable channels, some were finding other ways to digest their favorite sports. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA If you are an admin, please authenticate by logging in again. So if you can say that it's you and the NFL in terms of stability of your audience. Not only is this tolerated by NASCAR but encouraged. As Juniors fortunes continued to trend downward even while driving for the strongest team in the sport, his fan base became turned off. | 27 February - 04:08 | Reid Spencer. Most die-hard fans of NASCAR are those that have followed it the longest. In 2006, for instance, more than 19 million people tuned in to watch the Daytona 500 on TV; in 2018, only a little more than nine million watched. They are the only one of the Big 3 Motorsports that still have this happen. I hope so. 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. 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. We all know what Im talking about. The NASCAR season is held over 9 months . | 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. What other big American sport has ongoing action behind a commercial? | 28 February - 07:19 | Reid Spencer, Production Alliance Group 300: No Matter What He Drives, Cole Custer Is a Threat at Fontana, NASCAR It is now an elitist sport because only those who can afford to pay to play need apply. NASCAR did (and still does) market the possibility of spectacular wrecks. A Former Reporters Thoughts, Copyright 2023 A Great Number of Things. Interestingly, it has been said that NASCAR has been getting younger (the drivers) and older (the fans) at the same time. The problem was the tracks that replaced themnearly all of them were characterless, cookie-cutter speedways where aero package ruled the day. NASCAR rose to prominence in the 1980s and 90s as TV became more and more involved. Young fans want to watch the action. 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. The Old North State is probably the the first place most people think of when they think of NASCAR. Photo credit: tequilamike on Visual hunt / CC BY 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. Photo credit: wjarrettc on Visual hunt / CC BY most sites believe Iowa is in the top 5 in states for Nascar popularity. lire Next:10 NASCAR Drivers With The Most Wins (& How Much They Won). But that in itself wasn't necessarily the crime. Its a simple fact that everyone understands. These fans would attend a race, then go sightseeing around the town so as to make the trip more worthwhile and as a result, even more money is required to be put in the budget in order to cover the costs for a dew days hotel stay. NBC reported Monday that its broadcast of the NASCAR Cup championship race from Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida drew an average of 3.759 million viewers, its best audience for its half of the. 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). 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. 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. Nepotism isnt dead in 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.. (I started with 2017 because it's recent and covers . NASCARs viewership continues to fall after the ratings for last weekends race at Auto Club Speedway were released on Tuesday morning. You may opt-out by. NASCAR still attempts to do the best it can when it comes to getting the word out. And stage races have also not gone over well with purists. There is no denying that NASCARs popularity has waned over recent years. (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. Our share of those TVs that are tuned in is up 18%. Is PNC Park The Best Ballpark in Baseball? NASCAR needs side-by-side commercials during green-flag racing and then full-screen commercials during yellow flags. While Nielsen was undergoing its transformation other smaller agencies stepped into fill the void. NASCARs 2020 champion is also its most popular driverfor the first time since 1988. NASCAR Cup Series. IndyCars race at St. Petersberg was also up from 1.219 million viewers last season. The Williamses havent been to a NASCAR race since. nascar popularity graph He . This was a problem that actually needed to be addressed and wasnt. The franchise system has made NASCAR a closed shop. 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. 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. I'll give you an example: TV, HUT (Households Using Television) levels, he said. In addition, the Charlotte Motor Speedway and the fact that the majority of NASCAR teams are based out of Charlotte, or nearby, makes North Carolina the unofficial home of NASCAR for many. In addition, the current playoff format, while far from perfect, isnt nearly as unpalatable as the Chase was. James: Expect the unexpected on restrictor plate tracks. Still with me? 4 million viewers in 2015,. Artificiality (11%) Slower cars (5%) Ferrari's struggles (1%) Rise of alternative championships (2%) Over-regulation (11%) Lack of interest in drivers (4%) New media (4%) Business and politics (8%) Total Voters: 450 An F1 Fanatic account is required in order to vote. Gordon scored the most points overall of any driver in 2004, 2007, and 2014. the It could be just Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon up in the booth, which would sound like a library compared to NBC.). Even more so than in baseball, the on-screen product is affected with the layout of a 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. For all the latest tips, predictions and special offers directly into your inbox once a week. It was the insistent implementation of it over loud objections of fans. But NASCAR's popularity and success didn't happen overnight. Prerace entertainment such as the Sprint Experience and Foxs NASCAR RaceDay TV stage are gone. Formula 1 and IndyCar are on the rise while NASCAR is slowly declining on a weekly and yearly basis. --The experience is different. After years of seeing its once enormous audience dwindle to almost nothing, NASCAR is finally righting the ship. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images). Gordon World of Outlaws card was only available as part of a complete. This is all just ultimately my opinion, but its a carefully considered one. unsubscribe link. They are now just one part of a bigger picture: one pixel of a screenshot. (WBRC) CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Charlotte Observer) - Dave Fulton compared himself to Mr. Krabs. . 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. In that race, caution flags were flown almost every ten laps for tire wear, as Jimmie Johnson limped to a victory. 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. As a result, teams with more resourcessuch as Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racingwon big for years. They are included along with social media engagement, streaming, and the like. June 12, 2022 . The numbers are based on proportion of searches rather than total searches, so the population of each state is accounted for in the data. NASCAR was founded in 1948. Getty Chase Elliott receives the Most Popular Driver Award. YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, & Instagram Statistics - SocialBlade.com In fact, attendance figures and TV ratings show that it is. . 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. But the true cause of that fact . Ill submit that this is a reason a few fans I know stopped watching the sport. NASCAR founded On February 21, 1948, the National Association for Stock Car Racingor NASCAR, as it will come to be widely knownis officially incorporated. You also dont often see post-race fisticuffs after races at Kansas or Vegas like you might at Martinsville or Bristol. 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. Since early in the millenium, however, interest in NASCAR both at the speedways and on television has dropped off. If you feel like you're losing control over your gambling experience, call Photo credit: PresidenBertho on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA I expect that will be a boon to NASCARs future. Photo credit: balpeck on Best Running / CC BY-SA 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. Rebel Penguin ApS 2023 (a subsidiary of Gaming Innovation Group Inc.) North Carolina is close behind. They do not want to watch commercials over and over again. 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 is super popular because of three reasons. Last years season-opener at Barber only averaged 914 thousand viewers which is almost an extra 500 thousand. In NASCARs pre-1990s heyday, when it was still very much a regional sport, manufacturer identity was a big thing. Yes, all of those factors might have contributed to the decline of interest in NASCAR, But, in the end, I think the franchise system and the ride-buying are what did NASCAR in. That metric is down 16% over the last 24 months. Directly accessible data for 170 industries from 50 countries and over 1 million facts: Get quick analyses with our professional research service. Then you can access your favorite statistics via the star in the header. Just because no one has been killed at the Cup level since Earnhardts death doesnt make it less so. [Online]. Weekly races at smaller locales have come off even worse. 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. And maybe this time, they will have learned from their mistakes. The truth was of course far from that. The news sort of heads downhill from there. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY Register in seconds and access exclusive features. Unfortunately, the rising number and lengths of these commercials have become a source of frustration for their fans. Dynasties like Johnsons arent bad for a sportunless the sport doesnt know how to market them. 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. With Formula 1 attendance achieving around 4 million people per year in total, and NASCAR achieving around 3.5 million people per year. Most Popular Driver - NASCAR Cup Series | Official Site Of NASCAR Skip to content Top Nav Tickets Shop Quick Links: Fantasy Live Schedule Auto Club Results Las Vegas Schedule Las Vegas Entry. Elliott is a great driver and a likable kid, and he doesnt take any craphe doesnt shy away from wrecking a driver like Denny Hamlin if the situation called for it. 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. 1) America's weird taste in sports Reddit user droolingtortillas. It is best known for organizing stock-car racing. Sometimes theyd follow the circuit for two or three weeks at a time. Commission, a sports betting vendor registration, under registration number #100400, issued by the Director With Iowa and Vermont making up the remainder of the top five. 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. I was critical of the Chase in plenty of columns, but I felt like I really got the point across with this one about it. USA TODAY Sports asked about 200 fans at tracks, on the phone and on social media who have reduced their racetrack trips to explain why. Photo credit: Darryl W. Moran Photography on Visual Hunt / CC BY-ND On the chaotic day of January 6, 2021, it was not really clear what Donald Trump and his allies were trying to accomplish in challenging the confirmation of Joe Biden's election in Congress, even. Related:15 Rules Every NASCAR Employee Has To Follow. Much like Kyle Petty, he ultimately became more known for his good-guy personality and his lineage than for his achievements on the racetrack. NASCAR is the second biggest motorsport in the world after Formula 1. 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. 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.. Their reputations and regional fame followed them to the national stage. NASCAR rose to prominence in the 1980s and 90s as TV became more and more involved. So fans can choose what race to watch online. 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. A fan of cars and bikes, and most anything with an engine, he divides his time between work and family. 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. Secondly, the interaction and dynamics of the car and the drivers are intriguing when they are inches close to each other on the track. It may leave behind fans stuck in the past. Las Vegas Entry List. People rooted for car brands as well as drivers, and car companies believed in the whole win on Sunday, sell on Monday mantra. 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. One-third of its viewers make more than $100k, compared to about 19 percent of the general population. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY Final five-wide salute on Auto Club's 2-mile configuration . For instance: The non-stop promotion of Danica Patrick, as if she was the Second Coming (she wasnt), turned off a lot of fans. IndyCar is seeing huge success as an open-wheel Motorsport, just like Formula 1. data than referenced in the text. 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%. But the initial Chase, an artificial and contrived points reset, was despised by fans. | 3 March - 20:00 | Christian Jope, Roma vs Juventus: Crunch Class in Seria A this Sunday, International Soccer 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. 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. It has hundreds of thousands of passionate and fiercely loyal fans. I have been around and covered NASCAR for over two decades. I can also dispute other reasons for it that I see being offered today. Hes tasked with not only getting exposure for the sport but measuring that exposure and translating in a way that shows value to stakeholders. Another reason why NASCAR is losing popularity is due to the fact that there are just too many races. 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?. Fans said tickets are the smallest impact on their financial decision, because ticket prices are dwarfed by the cost of hotel rooms and transportation to events. In todays media world they are now just a small part of what is used to measure the popularity of the sport. NASCAR TV ratings were once the darlings of the sport. 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. Its possible that the most popular driver not performing well hurt the sport, given the sports fan demographic. There are certainly many factors to suggest that the popularity and the fanbase of NASCAR are dwindling. (Chris Graythen / Getty Images) 29% of sports fans said they're more likely to watch a NASCAR . 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. The ideal entry-level account for individual users. Photo credit: royal_broil on Best Running / CC BY-SA 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. NASCAR averaged 4.570 million viewers for Sunday afternoons event at Auto Club Speedway. NASCARs NextGen car shows promise and one huge issue, NASCARs Daytona 500 ratings indicate a worrisome trend. Now72 years old, the racing organization has managed to evolve through the decades in order to meet the changing trends, technology, and preferences that directly affect the sport. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY-SA, Posted in NASCAR, Sports The 2016 race from Homestead had 6.1 million viewers, the 2015 race had 7.643 million. (Busch would have still won.). Dover is a 1-mile track, and 11 laps does not take long. Wallace ranks among the public's most well-known drivers, according to a new Morning Consult poll. NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 25 NASCAR Cup Series drivers as the calendar turns to 2022 and the new season is upon us. It was a radical change to a sport that didnt need radical changes. Though the couple'shealth insurance has gone from $300 to $800 a month, finances are not the main reason they stopped traveling to events. 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