We’re liable to see empty seats at RIR tonight for the first time in 17 years, and a sour economy is only the half of it. Yeah, $80 tickets and $3.60-per-gallon petrol squeeze Joe Fan’s discretionary income. Toss in a night or two at the Red Roof, a few meals, some cotton candy and a T-shirt for the kiddies, and a family needs to take out a second mortgage to go racin’ nowadays.
Assuming it hasn’t already rescinded its loyalty oath to the sport.
Fewer people are pledging allegiance to NASCAR these days, and it’s not just because their pockets are shallower, it’s because they’re estranged. They’re like the hippies of the ’60s — turned off and tuning out (presumably minus the purple haze). France Family U. has only itself to blame.
This isn’t the start of an obituary. NASCAR isn’t in jeopardy of becoming Linens-N-Things or Skybus. It’s not about to go belly-up. But it’s in an extended rut marked by declining turnstile counts and TV ratings (although the Nielsens are up a tick this year), and the trend continues.
Seats unwarmed by fannies are noticeable across the circuit this year — Martinsville, Atlanta, Phoenix, Texas.
Richmond, which seemingly couldn’t toss up grandstands fast enough to satisfy demand, once was immune from this sort of cloud cover.
No longer.
“There’s a lot of discussion over the last couple of years about whether fan interest has leveled off,” said Jon Ackley, who teaches a business-of-NASCAR course at VCU. “NASCAR says it has 70 million fans. The last two or three years, those numbers don’t seem to hold as much weight as they did in the past. It’s clear people aren’t watching the races as devoutly as they did in the past.”
More at Richmond Times-Dispatch
- DEI not allowed to sell #13 points
- Roush has plan to sell off one team
- DEI cannot sell the #8 to Hendrick
- Busch team Brewco to be sold to Gibbs?
- Dodge says they’re staying…at least through 2009
Fisha695 wrote:
Umm You don’t have to go to the race to be a fan, and chances are some fans can’t easily go to the races because they do not live close to a track or even in the US/Canada area.
Also It’s not just NASCAR but all racing events even on a local level, and I’m certain that its all Pro sporting events as well, but its just harder to tell with them because well its baseball season and baseball games rarely have full stands save for a few teams.
this guy is a dingbat! Nascar is the 2nd most watched sport period… Look at the ratings, it beats MLB, NBA (oh and yes even during the playoffs), NHL, Golf and so on. So yes im sure they do have 70 million fans if not more. Many would rather save there money and watch it from home.
Nascar is ruining it slowly but surely, it is hard to watch it anyway with Sr being gone, but Jr will do it someday, he is doing much better with Hendrick than TEI, you get junk cars you are going to do bad, you get good cars you will do better, as I am sure people has noticed in 2008, TEI is losing money, anyone notice all the new candy bars coming out with Sr on them?
It’s not only the candy bars, it’s alot of other strange things coming up for sale all over, TEI is losing money cause Jr left the company☺☺☺
In closing, lets make some more dumb rules Nascar and see how many more ratings you lose!!!
Not only DEI get money from that so does RCR, NASCAR, and all the sponsors that are on it too (General Motors a company that needs money bad)
Also Jag you do realize that the only race with lower ratings then last year was Texas (which was up against the first full Sunday afternoon MLB schedule, and of the 25 games it went against 19 of those teams markets had lower NASCAR ratings then last year) so thats kind of an understandable drop in ratings, However the rest of the races have been higher then last year with the exception of Phoenix & Martinsville which matched the 2007 rating.
Well fox just announced it is a sellout tonight so there you go!!!! BOOM BABY Nascar 4 life!
It all goes according to what Junior does not that i’m that way since i actually like quite a few (mostly the ones who don’t whine) drivers. I have seen people that would actually turn off the race if junior was out of it. The same happened with Sr my ex brother inlaw went to the all star race with my dad and i and Sr got wrecked and he wanted to leave of course we didnt and he went out to the truck and pouted.
George you know what you say to fans like that? GTFO of our Sport.
Fisha true that! im a part of the Jr Nation i guess you could say lol I mean im a big fan but I Love racing and will watch no matter what happens to Jr. I rank that fan right up with the ones who only tune in to see the last 3 laps of the race… thats silly to call yourself a fan if you do that