Despite ESPN’s bullish predictions, NASCAR TV ratings continue to decline
Quote selected text Published June 26th, 2007 in NASCAR News
NASCAR’s television ratings have continued to decline this year despite the promotional push of ESPN and a news-filled four-plus months of racing, but network executives are encouraged by gains in the younger demographics.
Fox’s average viewership on nine Nextel Cup races was down 9.1 percent (9.71 million viewers vs. 10.68 million) overall compared with nine comparable races from 2006, and its rating suffered a 10 percent drop (5.8 vs. 6.4). That’s a slightly steeper decline than last year’s 7 percent drop for Fox’s entire package of races.
“I don’t see any alarms ringing yet,” said Larry Novenstern, executive vice president for media buying agency Optimedia. “NASCAR’s ratings have grown exponentially for several years. A downturn is inevitable.”
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People are tired of the DRAMA of Nascar and want real racing.
I can understand why ratings are falling. Mike Helton has put nascar on a crash course since he took over,with him its all about the big mony sponsers and less about the teams.If you look at the field there are 4 teams taht account for more then 1/2 the field.I think they should limit the teams to 2 cars only, not 4 as they say.computition has all but been eliminated form the sport ,its all about the team winning and not so much the car and driver.
Maybe its because NASCAR is turning nextel cup into the IROC
series. And the penalty against the 24/48 is rediculous.
No practice/qualify
100,000k
100 points
6 race suspension
for an offense that was purely human error
Screw you NASCAR, from F1s new fan
andrew it will not be a loss if we lose you. the true fans not the one thats started when #48 started in cup races. but for the fan who have been here for 20 pluse years. we have watched nascar grow, rule changes come and go. that goes with the trendy fans like you. jeff gordon is the biggest baby and her hasent cried likethat!
I actually think racing will not suffer without Nascar. As a matter of fact, ‘purist’ know Nascar is just a made for tv series which promotes sponsor relationships over real racing. Hot Rod Tood needs to raise hs standards a little.
NASCAR survived for 30 years prior to live television coverage. Now its almost 30 years later. There is no other racing series whose weekly ratings come close in the United States. I would rather the majority of the fly by night fans lose interest. Its those people who have caused NASCAR to become watered down with sponsors and pretty faces.
There is only drama because you perceive it to be. If everyone didn’t know so much about the drivers or weren’t so interested in them, even if you hate them, then you wouldn’t even notice. The same things that occur in NASCAR occur in every racing series in the world. You might say you have no interest in NASCAR but commenting on this blog proves other wise.
Why would IROC racing be so bad? Then it would be up to the drivers? I would prefer to see the best drivers up front instead of the best cars. IROC is failing because the invited champions can’t race in anything but open wheels and the rest are scared they’ll be embarrassed if they do show up.
Andrew, F1 is just as bad as NASCAR, if not worse, when it comes to the sanctioning body making mistakes, popping surprise rule changes or enforcing hefty penalties. All racing is different but at the same time every series is just a like.
I’m a purist. I know what NASCAR can be.
I think it is declining becuase there are TOO MANY races on cable.
If you had more races on ABC CBS NBC FOX you would have more viewers.
JMO of course.
I’ve been watching racing for a little over twenty years.
I’ll have to agree with Axel. All forms of racing have there own problems, it’s not just a NASCAR problem. The racing has gotten over run with advertising because the networks bid to give NASCAR too much money for TV rights. I enjoy the stuff Speed puts out and all the other shows the other guys do are great because they give an inside look at things. Unfortunately some of the viewers still don’t know the difference between a lug nut and a steering wheel.
The whole TV deal cuts both ways, we get racing but we get an even larger portion of advertising. Maybe they should just consider doing all the races on Pay Per View, live no commercial, and do reruns through out the week for those of us who couldn’t catch it on Sunday. Just my 2 cents..
The TV ratings will continue to drop as all the fair weather fans leave or as the rest of us get fed up with commercials.
only so much stuff happens in Nascar they race 1 time a week to have a .5 hour show everyday about it is just dumb espn should look at other racing options O i have an idea they should do more stuff on the only thing that had any kind of growth on espn as far as ratings go in 2006 let’s see what was that O ya NHRA drag racing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(show sportsman 2)
IROC is failing for the same reason Nascar is losing viewers. Identical cars on ovals is boring. (The COT will make that worse.) The proof is they have to throw BOGUS flags to make the races look interesting, purist don’t buy into this.
They have to lock in 35 qualifiers or these ‘champions’ may not qualify.
With the COT Nascar will become the IRL. One Car.
i say bring the races back on fox i like darell waldrip and jeff hamond anyway. they really made nascar prerace show funny and entertaining. plus the ones that dont have cable or satelite get to keep watching.thats one of the reason the ratings went down no cable/satelite no race.. my mom and dad inlaw dont get to watch the race when its on tnt or espn. they cant afford the cable.
I believe the ratings are falling because there is not enough racing in NASCAR. 300 laps is a little too many.
I they make the race 120 - 150 laps you force cars to race a much as possible all the time. The other factor is the Caution rule or yellow flag rule, what is the point of building a lead over other cars when is going to be eaten away at the first yellow flag.
and lastly, NASCAR need more road courses: I believe the point of racing is to see which team is the best overall not over an oval.
In any case, NASCAR races over TV are too long to be seated for almost and sometimes over three hours. Even for couch potatoes standards seems like a waist of time especially between laps 50 and 250.
I just think it gets tough for any race fan (couch potato watcher or 20 year religous watcher)
You work Monday through Friday (maybe even Saturday) putting in long hours in the hot sun to come home and do nothing but eat,
spend a few moments with the family and go to bed. Saturday rolls around and you hit the local track, your busy from the crack of dawn getting your car ready or helping your buddy get his ready. Racing during the evening. So when sunday rolls around you don’t
have time to watch NASCAR (besides the fact you don’t have cable, why pay for it when you don’t have time to watch it anyway)
Your busy wrenching on the sh!t you wrecked last night, grilling lunch for the in-laws who came over
today and playing catch with the kids in there somewhere because they need your attention too.
Ok, so this is just one more reason along with all the other millions of reasons for not being able to watch.
Pay-per-view would be beautiful. I’m really afraid NASCAR has become such deep bed fellows with the TV broadcasters to ever do anything besides produce a product that does anything besides sell stuff.
NASCAR could make stock car racing so great that all the haters who waller in their open wheel series couldn’t say a damn thing. It doesn’t seem like NASCAR wants to be great for some reason. I hope I’m wrong.
Well NASCAR was built on the same thing every other dirt/asphalt track was the love for racing and driver who drive anything they can and fast. The length of the race has been the same for 30 years so why change. Racing back to the caution is a safety thing. I mean almost every other series does the same thing either from the last lap or if they can freeze the field, I can’t stand some of things that NASCAR has done lately but they have been handing out penalties since there was NASCAR. Just the fact that you can watch each driver closer these days and see what they did and the penalties. Oh yeah the Hendrick camp has been bending rule for years and when u do that sometime they find what you did and how you did it. I mean thats part of the racing world, I mean didn’t NASCAR prove this at Daytona with the penalties there. The rule book has some safety thing added over the years and different car type spec but basically it all comes done to NACSAR is tired of the bending of the rules and has said you do it be prepared. The T.V. change with society and to me i think that ticket for the races are way to much for the cheap seats!! So lower ticket price put NASCAR on FOX and CBS and ABC and let the racing begin, I mean paper view that will lose more viewers but then again it will show the true fans, I mean i have to tape races because of the race sat. night and no time sunday but that be a pain on paper view!!!
NASCAR IS OUT! EVERYBODY STARTS WATHING FORMULA 1!!! THAT’S WHY.