2017 NASCAR Season - Television Ratings Thread

A question for the board. I know that some people blame Nascar's loss of fans primarily on fad fans that came en masse and then walked away over a period of years. I figure most of the fad fans have been gone for 10 years so why does Nascar fan base continue to shrink at a noticeable rate?
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
A question for the board. I know that some people blame Nascar's loss of fans primarily on fad fans that came en masse and then walked away over a period of years. I figure most of the fad fans have been gone for 10 years so why does Nascar fan base continue to shrink at a noticeable rate?
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It's not just the fad fans. It's people who were going to races for decades that are being run off. Aggressive changes which change the appearance and flow of races. It's just too many little things and I've heard people say what's the point of trying to keep track of what they're doing now, they'll switch it again.

I'm ok with it. I try to adapt to what they're doing. But a lot of fans have been shut out with the tv deals as well. I believe that's a huge thing. If you're only able to watch 40% of the races... what's the point of putting your money into traveling to races?

Just my opinion of how many see what has gone on with NASCAR.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
A question for the board. I know that some people blame Nascar's loss of fans primarily on fad fans that came en masse and then walked away over a period of years. I figure most of the fad fans have been gone for 10 years so why does Nascar fan base continue to shrink at a noticeable rate?
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An increasing number of life celebrations.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
A question for the board. I know that some people blame Nascar's loss of fans primarily on fad fans that came en masse and then walked away over a period of years. I figure most of the fad fans have been gone for 10 years so why does Nascar fan base continue to shrink at a noticeable rate?
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Don't know what you're talking about. If it weren't for the enhancements this sport would've been dead already. TV ratings and sponsorship dollars are still flying high and hundreds of thousands of folks, maybe more, are streaming every race - legally or otherwise.
 
NASCAR Apologist said:
Don't know what you're talking about. If it weren't for the enhancements this sport would've been dead already. TV ratings and sponsorship dollars are still flying high and hundreds of thousands of folks, maybe more, are streaming every race - legally or otherwise.
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Very good points as if NASCAR had not been so proactive in giving the fans what they'd been asking for the series may have ceased to exist.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
A question for the board. I know that some people blame Nascar's loss of fans primarily on fad fans that came en masse and then walked away over a period of years. I figure most of the fad fans have been gone for 10 years so why does Nascar fan base continue to shrink at a noticeable rate?
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The decline from the 2005 peak was inevitable, and over the next five or so years a lot of those fad fans (among others) did walk away. But from 2010-2013 there was a plateau in the TV ratings; they were generally stable from year to year. Things didn't decline again until the 2014 season and I think you can certainly attribute a good amount of that to the championship format. 2017 will mark the fourth straight year of the second decline period, and again, I think you can attribute an amount of that to the new race format. Certainly the new TV contract in the time period didn't help, as FS1 and NBCSN don't compare at all to the subscriber figures ESPN and TNT had during the previous contract. I'd say all of the above are pretty significant factors.
 
My wife and I were at her moms house setting up her Sling TV for her,she's 78.She dumped Spectrum cable because of cost and channels she didn't watch.I question how many sports channels will exist in a few years.They can't keep losing cable subscribers and paying out the same fees.ESPN,Fox Sports and NBC and the rest have shareholders who expect to make money on their investment.
 
Acs said:
More cable races=even less viewers=less value for team sponsors=less $$$ for teams. This is the insane catch22 NASCAR has put itself in by selling out to the TV gods. It's like they're trying to become a culturally irrelevant niche sport.
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Free TV versus pay TV is the dilemma that just about all of the major racing series are struggling with... including F1 and MotoGP in their core markets. Many markets in Europe have it worse off than we do. At least we can say NBCSN and FS1 are widely available in the USA. I think Liberty Media says the future is the internet for F1, but getting from here to there isn't easy.
 
We don't get either of those channels with our cable company, and there is only one cable company here. I don't think I will be watching much if that happens.
 
FLRacingFan said:
The decline from the 2005 peak was inevitable, and over the next five or so years a lot of those fad fans (among others) did walk away. But from 2010-2013 there was a plateau in the TV ratings; they were generally stable from year to year. Things didn't decline again until the 2014 season and I think you can certainly attribute a good amount of that to the championship format. 2017 will mark the fourth straight year of the second decline period, and again, I think you can attribute an amount of that to the new race format. Certainly the new TV contract in the time period didn't help, as FS1 and NBCSN don't compare at all to the subscriber figures ESPN and TNT had during the previous contract. I'd say all of the above are pretty significant factors.
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I am glad you weighed in and offered your perspective as it makes sense. As I have looked over the TV ratings for the last 15 years it isn't so much the big drops from fad fans walking away that seem the most troubling but the constant negative 4-5-6-7% here and there. FOX dropping 12% this year is concerning as at some point things need to bottom out and stabilize and then post modest increases here and there.
 
So FOX and NBC wanted Nascar programming in order to grow their sports networks and increase carriage fees (I don't think this has happened) and in the process have been part of the problem in reducing the number of viewers and overall value to to sponsors? Nascar.....the king of unintended consequences.
 
When my mother-in-law complained to Spectrum Cable about her bill going up,their response was wages and salaries are going up.She is retired and lives on a fixed income.When you consider the age demographic of the NASCAR fan base,how many have stopped watching because of the money it cost.I would imagine a cable sports package would be down the list of things to purchase of typical retirees.
 
darlingtonfan said:
My wife and I were at her moms house setting up her Sling TV for her,she's 78.She dumped Spectrum cable because of cost and channels she didn't watch.I question how many sports channels will exist in a few years.They can't keep losing cable subscribers and paying out the same fees.ESPN,Fox Sports and NBC and the rest have shareholders who expect to make money on their investment.
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ESPN is floundering. They have too many channels and not enough fresh content to keep them all afloat. Also they've blatantly overcharged the Cable and Satellite companies so much that it's backfiring on them. I've also read that Disney, they own ESPN-ABC etc, is trying to stop the bleeding but not having much luck. Look it up, I did.
 
darlingtonfan said:
When my mother-in-law complained to Spectrum Cable about her bill going up,their response was wages and salaries are going up.She is retired and lives on a fixed income.When you consider the age demographic of the NASCAR fan base,how many have stopped watching because of the money it cost.I would imagine a cable sports package would be down the list of things to purchase of typical retirees.
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Everything I watch other than Nascar, Hockey and Football is on Netflix or Youtube and I don't see how cable/sat companies will exist into the future without making major adjustments.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
Everything I watch other than Nascar, Hockey and Football is on Netflix or Youtube and I don't see how cable/sat companies will exist into the future without making major adjustments.
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Cable system is to costly to maintain. Getting people to sit through 3 hours of commercials and interruptions such as Woods and showing multiple crashes of yesteryear. The TV directors are not Nascar fans and so have no concept of what content they should use. Heaven forbid that anyone would assume people tuned in to watch the current race. I am also going to assume that people don't drive across country to watch the entertainment provided. Is it safe to say most of them go to see a race?
When Nascar wakes up, they will realize that they are missing the boat and that selling the rights to the series may be fine but they should have their own production company and thus also cash in on streaming rights.
 
I wish someone like this guy was in charge of NASCAR:


Come 2024, which do you think BZF will go for? The best racing series in the country, or the beach in Barbados? Yeah, we're screwed.
 
Johali said:
ESPN is floundering. They have too many channels and not enough fresh content to keep them all afloat. Also they've blatantly overcharged the Cable and Satellite companies so much that it's backfiring on them. I've also read that Disney, they own ESPN-ABC etc, is trying to stop the bleeding but not having much luck. Look it up, I did.
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ESPN is still making billions, just not as many billions as they could be.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
So FOX and NBC wanted Nascar programming in order to grow their sports networks and increase carriage fees (I don't think this has happened) and in the process have been part of the problem in reducing the number of viewers and overall value to to sponsors? Nascar.....the king of unintended consequences.
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As Lew mentioned, F1 did the same thing. They've dropped from 600m to 400m in TV audience from 2008-2016 and going pay TV in most countries has a lot to do with it.
 
The track "Too Tough To Tame" evidently was too tough to watch for millions of viewers as it is one of the lowest rated races of the year so far and it looks to have had less than 3 million viewers. I believe that the highest rated race on NBCSN was the 2016 Brickyard with over 5 million viewers and if true the low ratings for Sunday's race can't be blamed on the lack of availability for the network.
 
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