Not only were the TV ratings the smallest ever for the Brickyard 400, The Indianapolis Motor Speedway doesn’t release attendance figures, but it was obvious in looking around the facility that Sunday’s crowd was the smallest ever for the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.
A best-guess estimate was about 225,000, so let’s keep things in perspective. That’s still the biggest crowd for any Cup race all season, but it’s far from a sellout for a facility that has 257,000 seats.
Many seats on the lower rows of the frontstretch were empty, along with blocks of open grandstands in Turns 2 and 3.
- Dover race falls well short of sellout
- NASCAR cutting down on ‘creativity’ with Car of Tomorrow
- Alonso and Renault Fuming over Penalty
- Bristol may add more seats
- Is NASCAR alienating its core audience?
Bye, Bye, Neckcar!
But does this count the THOUSANDS of people gathered in the infield?
I have heard figures of up to 100,000 in the infield alone
Therefore this doesnt carry too much weight
but does indicate Brian France is slowly but surely screwing the sport of NASCAR over.
Andrew, I don’t know if this counts the infield figures or not… Whether it does or not, empty seats and low ratings are the trend this year in NASCAR almost everywhere. Hopefully Brian France will realize that these things can be directly attributed to fans being turned off in part because of the way the sport is run right now and he’ll make some changes for the good of the sport.
I think empty seats is what will really get his attention because it hits him in the only place he cares about: His wallet.
It being on ESPN [cable] doesn’t help either.
It has nothing to do with ESPN.
They had Nascar for 20 years before they go out bid by TNT, NBC and FOX. and back then the raitings where high and the tracks where packed.
Ratings and Attendace started to drop 1 or 2 years ago when Nascar Stoped caring about the fans at the track and more about TV. Races now start later then they did, so Attendace as gone down as fans are not buying a ticket to see a race start at 1:30-3 local time when it did start at noon - 1pm.
my bad. above post is suppose to say mike.
I typed out andy for the body and by mistake it went to the name. was replaying to andy.
Sorry about that Andy
Mike, it does have something to do with ESPN… It’s not broadcast TV like NBC, FOX, etc… ESPN might be available in 80% of homes in the USA. Fox is available in darn near every home with a TV.
Look at Monday Night Football on ESPN. Its ratings were down last year. A lot of that could be that people would rather slam their fingers in a car door than listen to Joe Theismann, but I’m sure a majority of it was that people just couldn’t get the game because they didn’t have cable or dish. Look at the NFL Network games… People WANTED to watch those and couldn’t because their Cable Co was fighting with the NFL over carrying the channel! It has a lot to do with being on cable.
Do you really think that NASCAR ratings were as high 20 (or even 10 for that matter) years ago as they are now? You have any numbers to back that up, or are you just guessing? Yes, tracks were “packed” 20 years ago, when places like Atlanta held half the number of fans they do today. 20 years ago is when I moved to Georgia and we would sit on the hillside of what used to be turn 3 before the reconfiguration and watch the race for free. There were no mega-luxury boxes, enormous grandstands and nowhere near the number of fans that go to races today. Heck, they didn’t even have real security in 1987! We used to go out on the track and drive our personal cars after dark!
I agree one of the reasons your starting to see empty seats is that most of these tracks are adding seats all the time and at some time your going to have more seats that butts to set in them (some tracks will never have enough seats) as for the TV ratings remember that now days we yave several other ways to tune in to the race like trackpass, directv’s hot pass and in my area several radio stations including XM satelite (and I listened/watched all of them at once. with so many chioces these days you dont have to be in front of the TV to catch the race. My friend takes his wireless laptop on the lake in his boat and watches on trackpass.
Uh, has anyone been to a race lately? The ticket prices are outrageous.
I’d go with that first. At Watkins the seats we get in the grandstand
to the inside of pit road are like 160 a piece [[and that's a Cup/
Busch weekend, plus the Rolex cars]], plus the parking pass for pit
terrace parking is fifty [[and if you don't get that you have to either
walk over a mile or try to get a golf cart at the gates, which can
take hours. And cab drivers in NYC have nothing on the people who
drive those things around; it's dangerous, man]].
I mean yeah the fans aren’t happy, but if a Cup race rolls into town
people still want to go because even if the race is sh__ty it’s still
an awesome experience. I’d really just put it more down to how expensive
the tickets have become.
I think it’s the cost of the whole deal that has driven so many of us away. When you spend close to $ 1000 for a race weekend that adds up fast. The fan base has gone through some major transformations also, it was too damn expensive and just not as much fun at the track anymore. I haven’t been to a race in person in about 7 years because of it. The TV deal is another thing in itself, TV has become so cheap to get programing that I can’t understand people complaining about not getting the races because it’s on cable and they don’t get cable. I spent a small fortune in the early 90’s getting a sattellite dish put up so I could watch the races. Come on people I’m talking about one of those 8 foot rascals. Surely some of you complainers can afford $75 a month to get Dish/ DIRECTV. That’s still cheaper than going to a race and the beer doesn’t cost $6 a cup either, no lines for the Port-O-Pot, and last but not least no drunk sitting behind you that won’t shut up about how great his mediocre driver is..
I am a true Dale Earnhardt fan, please note there is no Jr. after that, now don’t get me wrong I like Jr., but when we lost Dale we lost that excitement factor in the race. Hell it didn’t matter if he was racing for the win or for 24th place, it was going to be exciting. There’s just something missing from NASCAR lately and I hope someone figures it out soon because I’m getting tired of sleeping through most of the races.
And that’s all I got to say about that.
Racing was actually designed for the fan…not the tv or the sponsors. I think it does have something to do with Nascar embracing the sponsors and the tv ratings. The fans now spend a fortune to get there, wait for 6 hours to see a race with 14 caution flags and spend 4 hours getting out of the parking lot to get home.
I stopped going to Infinion years ago because of the time, the crowd, and caution flags. I now stay home and bbq with a cold beer and the a/c blasting. During caution flags, I get up and do things around the house.The crowd is just unreal………
Tracks may be adding seats, but, everywhere except Indy….they do count attendence.
I’m pointing at the ticket. Sure, over-seating is probably factor (as said above, bristol can probably add another 4 stories worth of seats and still be a yearly sell-out)
But priced are insane. Let’s get a ticket cap at like 150 bucks or something. I mean we live an hour from TMS, so we save on hotel expenses (gas is still cheaper than a 75 dollar/night room), but look at the face price for tickets.
tickets + travel fuel + hotel + consessions + suveniors + away-from-track food = way to much $$$!
as a revision to what i just said- lets say you pay 114 for a cup ticket (that’s what the ones for TMS sell for on face price), if you go through ticketmaster that becomes an easy 150-160, a 300 mile trip to the track at 18 MPG and 2.87/gal is 48 bucks, hotel at 60 a night for 2 nights, 15 bucks on consessions, 35 on soveniors, and say 30 bucks at the local Arby’s. That’s 400 bucks, just for a cup race for one person! I wont even bother calculate for 2 people for a busch/cuip weekend including quals and all.
The attendance may be down because its a new date. The race is one week earlier then last year.
NHIS which is known for selling out way before the Cup race sold out 2 days before the July
Cup race. I heard somewhere else that Indy had a crowd off about 270,000 people. Still a huge
crowd even if it was 225,000 people.
i heard what shaun heard as well, and i thought i heard it on espn. because they said the number and i said “whoa, that sucks, indy holds ’bout 400,000.” people have always gathered in the infield at indy for nascar. but then again we all know ticket sales are down pretty much across the board. i know tms got its 2nd date so that could be to blame, but it’s been low lately, too.
Agreed that tickets are absurdly expensive. I have only been to a handful of races at ATL in recent years and I only live about 45 minutes away from the track. One was a cup race that I won tickets for on the radio (Fall of ‘05), one was a Busch race around that time, and one was last year’s Truck/IROC race (also because I got luxury box tickets from a friend of my mom’s).
It’s just too darn expensive for me to go nowadays, unless I get free tickets! Plus when you add in the benefits that other people mentioned (no waiting in line for the can, A/C, etc…) it makes more sense to stay home. On the bright side, tickets are about as expensive as good seats for a Falcons game, but there’s free parking and you can BYOB as long as it’s not in glass bottles
They screwed up the Brickyard 400 when they switched it from Saturday to Sunday. The ESPN deal does factor into it. I went to the first 10 races there but I haven’t gone lately. A buddy of mine buys the tickets from me now or else we’ll trade tickets for another event. It’s not as cool as it used to be. I still drive 12 hours to Charlotte or Atlanta but I won’t drive 3 hours to Indy.
Lets see , if 1/2 those fans paid $100 a ticket and 1/2 paid $70 and 50,000 in the infield payed $50 then the ticket sales were still around 22 million dollars? Doesnt sound like anyones going broke to me. I love when they complain about shrinking nascar crowds and say the sport is dying. B.S.! If the Super Bowl tickets were all $100 and you had a 250,000 seat stadium , I bet it wouldnt sell out. So nascar crowds still kick the crap out of everything else. Heck , theres more people in line at the bathroom during most of an Atlanta race , than are at the average Braves game. So there!. But , I do tthink that the prices have gotten stupid. The tix are high , but the camping is tottaly stupid. $30 dollar campsites are now $300 and the $100 ones are like $750 now. And they will arrest you if you try to get !20 for your $100 ticket.
I don’t think alot of you have watched racing
for to many years. The reason the ratings have
gone down is because of all the stupid rules,
all the dumb fines, The drivers can’t race like
they did back in the day, They say one thing
wrong and bam $5000 fine. Nascar is getting to
be a sissy sport anymore, not fun watching.
I have been going to MIS speedway for 15 years.
and stopped going 2 years ago, no fun anymore.
Mike Helton and France have sold out the roots
of nascar and ruined the sport.
Except we’re talking about why people don’t go to the races anymore
and not why the ratings have gone down. So, y’know, it’s really not
indicative at all of how long we’ve been watching racing. In fact
many must have been watching it atleast several years or they wouldn’t
be able to follow the trend of how ticket prices have skyrocketed.
NASCAR has been on the decline for more years than just this year. Here are the reasons why.
1.FOX is terrible with the NASCAR coverage, especially when DW can not keep his trap shut about tony stewart when he was a dirty driver himself.
2.ESPN is in more households than FX or Speed.
3.Boring tracks like California, Texas, phoenix, Kansas, Chicago, Pocono, St. Louis and others.
4.Dropping the exciting tracks like North Wilksboro, Rockingham, Darlington and other small tracks.
5.Not penalizing drivers for rough driving. Shoot, my dad drove on a NASCAR snaction body track in the late 1970s, and anybody who were rough driving usually get parked for the rest of the night, suspended for a couple of weeks, or be suspended for the rest of the year. Kurt Busch should be suspended completely for the rest of the year, or be banned completely from racing since he could have killed somebody. Any driver who are driving dirty should be parked no matter who it is. Dale JR, Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Juan Pablo Montoya, Jeff gordon, you name it.
6.Only allow the top fastest cars that qualified on time to race. Get rid of the top 35 in owners points and provisionals. Look at what is going in in NASCAR and Busch series now? Too much of a runaway in the points standings. Jeff Gordon has over 300 points lead, and if he does not qualified for a race? Then, he could afford to miss a race or two. Same with Carl Edwards in the Busch series.
7.Cheating: I remember Junior Johnson’s team caught cheated. JJ, the crew cheif and the car have been kick out of racing for several races. Take a look at the 48 team of Jimmie Johnson? It is a continueing of cheating on the crew cheif’s part. The only way to stop the dirty driving and cheating is to be much tougher, and start suspending teams and drivers from racing.
8.Many of the drivers these days are being too concieted. Take a look at the ones who are not like that? Mark Martin, Bill Elliott, Elliott Sadler, Hermie Sadler, Jason Keller, Ted Musgrave, Johnny Benson, Richard Petty, etc. Look at these drivers? They are either running part time, put on the back burners, or relugated to the lower ranks.
9.Too many youngsters in NASCAR that does not have the experience your seat time in a full body stock cars. Kyle Busch, Reed Sorenson, Kurt Busch, and others do not have the experience in these cars. The owners are the ones killing NASCAR as well.
10.Buschwhackers in Busch races. That series needs to be for younger guys to get experience before moving up to NASCAR, but the NASCAR drivers are dominating them all.
11.Too many cars a team owner owns. Lets go back to only two cars per team like it used to be. That means Rouch, Gibbs, Hendricks and others have to drop their teams. NASCAR made it were only a few team owners to have it all instead of allowing other teams to have to compete that are smaller. These big teams are taking all the sponserships away from the smaller teams.
12.NASCAR should step in and say no to the mergers of DEI and GINNs racing. Look what happened to Joe Nemechek and Sterlin Marlin? They are experience, and are proven winners, and they get the shaft.
13.Cut back the number of races on the West coast since it costs too much money to go back and forth. It is taking a lot out of the drivers and the teams to having races like one week at Daytona, and then the next week at California or something like that.
14.Fans are the problems at the tracks as well who throws stuff at Jeff Gordon and all that. They are Dale JR fans who are doing that. Dale needs to speak out more about all this, and stop being too concieded and that he thinks he is much better driver than his daddy.
15.Dale JR needs his attitude change. The reason he did not get majority of the ownership of DEI is because of his attitude. His father worked hard to build that team. He won races and championships. Dale JR did not. JR needs to win more races, and win championships. He will not win any with his attitude and the way he drives as well. JR does not have the talent to know what is wrong with his car like his dad does. SR knows when to save his car and get it fixed. JRs problem is that he does not save his car when there is a problem, and he wrecks alot. He is a danger on the track that way.
16.Kurt Busch and other drivers put on probations and fine? Do you think doing that will teach them anything? One race suspension did not work with Kevin Harvick. Look what happened to Jimmy Spencer after him and Kurt Busch got into each other? Jimmy got a much worst punishment just for punching Kurt in the face than what Kurt did trying to run over one of Tony Stewart’s crew member. This needs to be brought up. Too many inconsistancies with NASCAR these days.
16 Whatevers!
Ones that are true, in my opinion: One, three, four, six, ten, eleven,
thirteen-but don’t cut back West coast races; rearrange the schedule
so they don’t have to go back and forth so much and build worthwhile
tracks out there.
Other than that, get over the hatred of Dale Jr. He’s never once said
he’s as good as his dad and usually says the opposite, it’s not his
responsibility to babysit Jeff Gordon, and the people who think he’s
stuck-up are idiotic. Just watch him for two minutes in front of a
camera and pay attention to his mannerisms and it becomes abundantly
clear how nervous he is because he’s humble and shy.
HaHaHa…I drive 15 minutes to the Atlanta race.
Shoot, about number 5? When will NASCAR step in to curb the rough driving? Look what happene to Dale Earnhardt? He was blocking and too agressive, and wound up dying with the fail seatbelt. I am talking about when are they going do something if Tony, Kurt, Dale JR or others going to kill somebody on the track with the rough driving?
Dale JR? He was being stubborn and too concieded trying to take over DEI. He is not that good, and he does not deserved a majority of the DEI team since he is not like his father, or like other legends like Richard Petty. Dale JR is not as good a driver as Jeff Gordon. I think people do not like Jeff Gordon because he is mostly keep his temper in check.
Drop california track and add one of the short tracks on the West Coast. I do not think Phoenix or california deserves two races, neither does Pocono and Texas.
Yes, Dale JR thinks he is hot bananas, but he is not. I thought the firey crash knocked some sense into him, but he did not. If I was in charge of NASCAR? I would make series changes to it like what I have mentioned. I would boot drivers from racing if they cheat, rough driving or do the things what Kurt Busch have done. I would not care what fans have to say if I had to suspend Dale JR from racing for a couple of weeks. Dale JR is getting away with stuff that the other drivers can not do. There is a sense of favortism in NASCAR right now, and it needs to stop and everybody should be treated equals.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway does not open the infield for the Brickyard 400 anymore
there is 250,000 permanent seat at Indianapolis Motor Speedway….at best the Nascar race would be estimated at 150-170,000 people and declining each year