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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. 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. You only have access to basic statistics. Labor Day is in Darlington where it belongs, and Darlington is hosting two events again. If any single event hastened the decline of NASCAR, it was Indy 2008. And I said all that without even bringing up that profoundly irritating cartoon gopher. NASCARs initial playoff brainchild was hugely unpopular, and every griping fan in comment sections of blogs everywhere had the artificial points reset near the top of their list of complaints. Photo credit: sidehike on Visual hunt / CC BY-SA It would have been nice to have heard more during the championship race from Earnhardt. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY NASCAR is the second biggest motorsport in the world after Formula 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. Gordon scored the most points overall of any driver in 2004, 2007, and 2014. Petty, one of the last ties to the storied, and colorful history of NASCAR, announced Wednesday he was moving the bulk of his family business out of Level Cross, N.C., and to Mooresville, N.C. Every year, NASCAR acts as the patron of 1,500 races across North America. Not only in the business world, but in all sports as well. We all know what Im talking about. NASCAR polled fans about the idea on their website following the 2003 season, and fans overwhelmingly rejected it. | Get full access to all features within our Business Solutions. James: Expect the unexpected on restrictor plate tracks. These figures paint a troubling trend that NASCAR is on a long term downtrend it has yet to recover from. And you hear more and more about this today. NASCAR was plenty defiant resisting this idea at their peakbut these days, theyre not in a position to ignore displeased fans. 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. For NASCAR it meant fewer butts in seats at tracks, and fewer sponsors willing to part with what little revenue they were earning. The cars already were mostly spec at that point, and the sport was doing just finebooming even. With all the different metrics used to measure a sport these days however, it can be complicated. NASCAR TV ratings were once the darlings of the sport. 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. 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. Which meant that other drivers didnt win a lot. NBC said its season viewership averages of 18 Cup races in 2019 (except for weather-affected races at Daytona and Darlington) was 2.57 million, the same as in 2018. Most notably, Sunday was an all-time low in viewership for the second race of a NASCAR season ever. Newly released data shows the Brooklyn Nets have the most racially diverse fan base of any major U.S. sports team. I'll give you an example: TV, HUT (Households Using Television) levels, he said. No longer do young NASCAR racers start at their local tracks and work their way up. Certain segments of fans, and media, began to cry that sky was falling. nascar popularity graph You may opt-out by. With Formula 1 attendance achieving around 4 million people per year in total, and NASCAR achieving around 3.5 million people per year. Talladega Superspeedway spoke out Friday for the first time after NASCAR banned the Confederate flag from all race tracks and events. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Best Running / CC BY-SA, Posted in NASCAR, Sports "On the Spongebob series that my grandsons loved so much," Fulton, 71, said. 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. It took time, maybe too much time, but NASCAR is finally addressing the three biggest reasons for the decline of the sport. Social impressions, social following, a positive buzz of our sport, which is measured by third parties, like at YouGov is up 2.5 X over the course of the last two to three years.. Why poll the fans if youre just going to ignore them? That exposure now comes not just from TV, but through streaming platforms, attendance, and even social media. This company trains racing professionals and hosts racing events. Statista. Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader, Geoff Bodine, Rusty Wallace and Trevor Boys were among several dozen drivers whose names soon became familiar, if not famous. But the true cause of that fact . The move of the Labor Day race to California was part of an ongoing trend. Yet instead of focusing their marketing on Johnsons unequaled supremacy, NASCAR chose to put all of their marketing eggs into the Danica Patrick basket, believing a swimsuit model who could drive a racecar would save the sport. 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. Follow along, because there will be a test later . Prerace entertainment such as the Sprint Experience and Foxs NASCAR RaceDay TV stage are gone. This is a BETA experience. Please email the author at nmcdonald@thestar.ca, Copyright 2023 | Powered by CityMediaInc.com, Happy Birthday, GM Canada, and thanks for the (many) ride(s), Racing Roundup: Great Grand Prix in Austin, despite actions by stewards; Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame induction video; Alonso wont drive in IndyCar in 2019 or ever. NFLX Show publisher information This article looks at several of the reasons why NASCAR is losing fans. About NASCAR. Along with that came an all-important metric: the Nielsen ratings. About This Game. 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. Registration issued by the Sports Wagering Committee of the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation. NASCAR . HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA - NOVEMBER 17: Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M's Toyota along with his wife [+] 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. (Just in case you were wondering, Fox is unlikely to name a replacement for Darrell Waltrip if he is replaced, that is though we should find out more next month. Or Jeff Gordon, again, living in a Manhattan penthouse with his second wife, a model, instead of in North Carolina, where he lived beside a lake with his first wife, a deeply religious woman who was Born Again. (It wasnt a tough call to make, if you actually looked at her results instead of her figure.). At the start of the 21st Century NASCAR TV ratings meant everything. That isnt insignificant when it comes to explaining the decline of NASCAR. North Carolina has also produced more NASCAR champions than any other state, including household names such as Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Dale Jarrett, Junior Johnson, Scott Riggs, Kyle Petty, and Rick Hendrick. A driver dominates a race until the last lap and then gets crashed on purpose by the guy who goes on to win. Last years season-opener at Barber only averaged 914 thousand viewers which is almost an extra 500 thousand. However, the second race of the 2022 season saw a more significant drop in viewership compared to previous seasons. of We then plotted the data on a map to help to visualize the most popular regions across the country. The broadcasts have also improved. Photo credit: royal_broil on Best Running / CC BY-SA Related: NASCARs NextGen car shows promise and one huge issue. Jimmie Johnson was a hallmark of ruthless efficiency in his prime, winning seven titles and five in a row. liability for the information given being complete or correct. There are not many. So no, Johnsons domination wasnt directly a factor in the decline of NASCAR but their failure to market it most definitely was. Nielsen slowly began to develop ways to measure who was watching what, and how. The #48 team should have been a gold mine. 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. You also dont often see post-race fisticuffs after races at Kansas or Vegas like you might at Martinsville or Bristol. Get the best reports to understand your industry. No longer tied to a box atop the TV or a diary that viewers filled out, the company started to figure out how to report who was watching on TV, on cable, and on streaming platforms. 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. Published by Statista Research Department , Dec 9, 2022 The statistic depicts the average viewership of the NASCAR Cup Series in the United States from 2014 to 2022. But theyve also improved the schedule, the broadcasts, and the method of determining a champion. Yes, a team can still dominate all season and lose a championship to a flat tire, but at least its not just an artificial points reset. His father, NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, won the award a record 16 times during his career, including 10 . 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. with the Indiana Gaming Commission (IGC) under certificate of registration number SWR-000148, approved by Here is a full ranking of NASCARs popularity by state: West Virginia is the so-called NASCAR state with the most interest in the motorsport. A fan of cars and bikes, and most anything with an engine, he divides his time between work and family. While Nielsen was undergoing its transformation other smaller agencies stepped into fill the void. 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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. Its largely forgotten now, because the sports current elimination format playoff system at least had some thought put into it. or Disney plus; there's more competition for those eyeballs then there's ever been. 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. These are bold changes, but this variety of tracks will test drivers and teams at every level. Not all, of course, but most. Fox reported a modest 2% increase in viewership of comparable Cup race from 2018 to 2019, but it needs to be noted that Foxs part of the schedule does not collide with NFL and college football, which NASCAR fans also enjoy watching. USA Today Sports' Jeff Gluck looks ahead to the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway and the story lines that fans should keep an eye on during the week. 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. And one other thing about NASCAR in those days: the races were open to anybody who could qualify. Statistics for NASCAR indicate that 63% are male, 20% are minorities and 47% are between the ages of 18 and 44, with the majority of this age bracket being in the older end, the number of which is also dropping yearly.