NASCAR - Television Ratings Thread

OK --- I'm about 1 more smart-ass post from a couple of people from either putting you both on moderation, or pinning you both in The Podium
and letting you cut each other's throats in there.
So, please either ignore each other or just "agree to disagree" and leave each other alone.
First and last warning.
 
:D
TexasRaceLady said:
OK --- I'm about 1 more smart-ass post from a couple of people from either putting you both on moderation, or pinning you both in The Podium
and letting you cut each other's throats in there.
So, please either ignore each other or just "agree to disagree" and leave each other alone.
First and last warning.
Click to expand...
You should loosen up. Its fun to play the dozens. Its not like we are cussing each other out or being vulgar. In case you didnt know "play the dozens" originated in the black community with two guys going head to head in trash talk. No guns, knives, just trash talk.:D
 
TexasRaceLady said:
OK --- I'm about 1 more smart-ass post from a couple of people from either putting you both on moderation, or pinning you both in The Podium
and letting you cut each other's throats in there.
So, please either ignore each other or just "agree to disagree" and leave each other alone.
First and last warning.
Click to expand...
I'll end this right now with one last comment. Some in here who have worked or do currently work for in some capacity for NASCAR can't seem to get it through their thick heads that the fans pay the bills. Without them we wouldn't be racing, we wouldn't have the chance to voice our opinions. Fan input at this stage of the downward spiral is important, I consider myself a huge fan of NASCAR at the local and national level. Many fans display their displeasure at where NASCAR is heading, myself included, but because some here consider themselves the be all tell on the subject, our fan input is looked upon as trivial b.s.. Well that's not the case apologists, fans always have the last word whether you like it or not.
 
Not addressing anyone personally but your input isnt trivial BS, NASCAR has listened to the fans the last 5 years probably to a fault, Polls, Fan Councils etc so some on here dont really understand what influnces the direction of the sport right now, the fans are a HUGE part of it.
 
Spotter22 said:
Not addressing anyone personally but your input isnt trivial BS, NASCAR has listened to the fans the last 5 years probably to a fault, Polls, Fan Councils etc so some on here dont really understand what influnces the direction of the sport right now, the fans are a HUGE part of it.
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Good glad hear it.:)
 
Spotter22 said:
Not addressing anyone personally but your input isnt trivial BS, NASCAR has listened to the fans the last 5 years probably to a fault, Polls, Fan Councils etc so some on here dont really understand what influnces the direction of the sport right now, the fans are a HUGE part of it.
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looking forward to next year. They did wonders in the trucks, cleaned up the Xfinity cars, knocked the F-1 right out of em with the body changes, the cup cars are a different animal. They thought the larger spoiler would slow then down and make them easier to handle at the supers. SHR didn't get the memo.
 
Spotter22 said:
Not addressing anyone personally but your input isnt trivial BS, NASCAR has listened to the fans the last 5 years probably to a fault, Polls, Fan Councils etc so some on here dont really understand what influnces the direction of the sport right now, the fans are a HUGE part of it.
Click to expand...

I agree with you on this EXCEPT when it comes to the schedule/tracks in all 3 series. SMI and ISC have so much invested into it that It's hurting their own cause.
 
from sportsmediawatch

NASCAR Hits Lows at Talladega
Least-watched edition of race since at least 2001

NASCAR Talladega ratings tied a two-decade low on NBC.

The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs from Talladega (Ala.) earned a 2.2 rating and 3.51 million viewers on NBC last Sunday, down 21% in ratings and 26% in viewership from last year (2.8, 4.73M) and flat and down 2% respectively from 2016 on NBCSN (2.2, 3.58M).

Aric Almirola’s win tied the lowest Cup Series rating at Talladega since at least 1998, matching 2016. It was also the least-watched edition of the race since at least 2001, falling below the previous low set in ’16.
 
Spotter22 said:
No I'm not, its well documented.
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You can't be serious...honestly...

Fans asked for cars that look like the ones you can buy from a dealer and we have stickers on the front
Fans asked for drivers with personalities and NASCAR fines them when they dare speak their mind
Fans asked for more short tracks and less cookie-cutter tracks and we are going in the opposite direction
Fans asked to get rid of the chase or whatever it is called now and after 10 years is still here
Fans said no more gimmicks and we have "stages", lucky dogs, wave around...
 
Spotter22 said:
No I'm not, its well documented.
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I am not attempting to be argumentative or a smart Alec in anyway but where is this info documented? I know the RTA has had some input and I believe the networks and sponsors have had input but the fans want so many different things IDK how you would even know what they want.
 
IanMcVittie said:
I am not attempting to be argumentative or a smart Alec in anyway but where is this info documented? I know the RTA has had some input and I believe the networks and sponsors have had input but the fans want so many different things IDK how you would even know what they want.
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Yep.

Sometimes the most vocal are looked upon as holding the popular opinion. That's seldom the case IMO.
 
IanMcVittie said:
I am not attempting to be argumentative or a smart Alec in anyway but where is this info documented? I know the RTA has had some input and I believe the networks and sponsors have had input but the fans want so many different things IDK how you would even know what they want.
Click to expand...
Its documented
mathematician said:
You can't be serious...honestly...

Fans asked for cars that look like the ones you can buy from a dealer and we have stickers on the front
Fans asked for drivers with personalities and NASCAR fines them when they dare speak their mind
Fans asked for more short tracks and less cookie-cutter tracks and we are going in the opposite direction
Fans asked to get rid of the chase or whatever it is called now and after 10 years is still here
Fans said no more gimmicks and we have "stages", lucky dogs, wave around...
Click to expand...
I'm completely serious, just because you didnt get what YOU wanted doesnt mean others agreed with you. You can read all about NASCAR and its interaction with the fans and thier opinions, Google is your friend.
 
Spotter22 said:
The rules package coming up for 2019 was Directly dictated from the feedback and reaction of the fanbase after the All Star Race.
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As part of the NASCAR Fan Council, I can't help but feel that I had a hand in that decision. There are many other things that I've voiced my opinion on within the Council where I've been opposed to their moves or ideas. We can't all get what we want, and when we don't, we sure do complain about it. We're NASCAR fans. That's how we roll.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
As part of the NASCAR Fan Council, I can't help but feel that I had a hand in that decision. There are many other things that I've voiced my opinion on within the Council where I've been opposed to their moves or ideas. We can't all get what we want, and when we don't, we sure do complain about it. We're NASCAR fans. That's how we roll.
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Sometimes it falls my way and sometimes it don't. Sometimes I agree with other posters and sometimes I don't. Through it all this old world just keeps on spinning.
 
Spotter22 said:
The rules package coming up for 2019 was Directly dictated from the feedback and reaction of the fanbase after the All Star Race.
Click to expand...
What about all the other things I listed?

And seriously the Fan Council is a joke. They only use the "suggestions" that match their own ideas and their own agenda and then they can brag that they listen to the fans. Honestly we should all be better than falling for that...Oh and judging from attendance and ratings they really have been listening good to their fans.

Anyway enjoy this "politically correct" NASCAR 2.0 and give me a shout once ratings fall below 1.0.
 
mathematician said:
What about all the other things I listed?

And seriously the Fan Council is a joke. They only use the "suggestions" that match their own ideas and their own agenda and then they can brag that they listen to the fans. Honestly we should all be better than falling for that...Oh and judging from attendance and ratings they really have been listening good to their fans.

Anyway enjoy this "politically correct" NASCAR 2.0 and give me a shout once ratings fall below 1.0.
Click to expand...

Dude, get in line, your a novice at complaining around here. :D
 
I am on record as saying I like the racing this year but if the majority of fans want to see something else I understand.

I don’t have a problem with the majority ruling but it was more the “documented” part I was curious about. In today’s day and age it is easy to get quick feedback on something so I’m guessing there must have been poles on social media.
 
mathematician said:
What about all the other things I listed?

And seriously the Fan Council is a joke. They only use the "suggestions" that match their own ideas and their own agenda and then they can brag that they listen to the fans. Honestly we should all be better than falling for that...Oh and judging from attendance and ratings they really have been listening good to their fans.

Anyway enjoy this "politically correct" NASCAR 2.0 and give me a shout once ratings fall below 1.0.
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The fan council isnt a joke and they are weighted accordingly with other factors. I'll call you when it suits you personally, wait by your phone
 
IanMcVittie said:
I am on record as saying I like the racing this year but if the majority of fans want to see something else I understand.

I don’t have a problem with the majority ruling but it was more the “documented” part I was curious about. In today’s day and age it is easy to get quick feedback on something so I’m guessing there must have been poles on social media.
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this is from 2013

https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...ocial-media-twitter-facebook-bristol/2864237/
 
StandOnIt said:
this is from 2013

https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...ocial-media-twitter-facebook-bristol/2864237/
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Very interesting as to be blunt I just don’t have a good handle on what things like social media mentions mean. A woman was telling me the other day that due to her daughter’s content and followers on Instagram different companies wanted to send her things and for her to be a social media influencer.

As far as the racing goes next year I will watch it and make a decision on whether the changes make me watch more or less races. One thing for certain is that if this is what the fans want we should see an improvement in the numbers sometime after the 600 next year.
 
mathematician said:
from sportsmediawatch

NASCAR Hits Lows at Talladega
Least-watched edition of race since at least 2001

NASCAR Talladega ratings tied a two-decade low on NBC.

The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs from Talladega (Ala.) earned a 2.2 rating and 3.51 million viewers on NBC last Sunday, down 21% in ratings and 26% in viewership from last year (2.8, 4.73M) and flat and down 2% respectively from 2016 on NBCSN (2.2, 3.58M).

Aric Almirola’s win tied the lowest Cup Series rating at Talladega since at least 1998, matching 2016. It was also the least-watched edition of the race since at least 2001, falling below the previous low set in ’16.
Click to expand...
I was wondering how the ratings were considering the football games on toward the end of the race were complete beatdowns.
 
IanMcVittie said:
Very interesting as to be blunt I just don’t have a good handle on what things like social media mentions mean. A woman was telling me the other day that due to her daughter’s content and followers on Instagram different companies wanted to send her things and for her to be a social media influencer.

As far as the racing goes next year I will watch it and make a decision on whether the changes make me watch more or less races. One thing for certain is that if this is what the fans want we should see an improvement in the numbers sometime after the 600 next year.
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I wouldn't use that for my criteria. But some do.
 
It doesn't make a tinkerer's damn to me, they can change the car every year as far as I am concerned (and they usually do) keeps it from being boring.
 
Spotter22 said:
Its documented

I'm completely serious, just because you didnt get what YOU wanted doesnt mean others agreed with you. You can read all about NASCAR and its interaction with the fans and their opinions, Google is your friend.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with either of you in this argument. @mathematician is making a bunch of overly simplistic, (and yes) undocumented claims of what "the fans" have asked for. The fanbase is not a monolithic group who all think in lockstep, which you have pointed out correctly.

However, you are exaggerating the degree to which the fans are steering the ship. There has been a faction within NASCAR that favored high downforce / lower power racing for years. Brian France was among them. There has been an opposing faction pushing just the opposite. Both were tried in 2015, and low downforce won in the media at the time, and became the direction and philosophy of the series for 3+ years. Now the high downforce crowd has pounced on some of the negative factors facing the sport and pushed things back in their preferred direction. They won, for now.

The ASR package was sold to the public, quite deliberately. The initial clamor about it was that it was just a way to spice up the lackluster exhibition race. It was a low bar to get "fans" to react positively, as that event had been underwhelming for years. Only after was there a concerted PR effort to sell it as something that should be used more widely.

The "aw shucks, we're just giving the fans what they asked for" routine is laughable. Yes, on many minor points NASCAR reacts directly to fan input and makes changes. They aren't naive enough to just sit back and wait for the fans to tell them how to run their business though.

It was claimed that stages were what the fans had asked for, when nobody had a clue what they were before it was announced. Same for elimination playoff rounds.
 
Gnome tells a bit of a story. What fans asked for was less commercials. What they got was stage racing and more side by side spots. And if one remembers a ticker that took up a third of the screen blinking the latest buy me item that was removed. I would call it a compromise between big corporations and racing fans. By the same token almost everybody agrees that the racing has stepped up because of the stages and the fake cautions for commercial breaks and ending laps drama were eliminated. The Aero package didn't just show up for the All Star race and all of a sudden become something that needed to be sold, the crowd loved it.. An aero package very similar to what was used the year before at the very successful record setting Xfinity Indianapolis race was used at the All Star race. It did the same thing at a one lane follow the leader track at Charlotte as it did at Indianapolis, closer racing. The package was tried three times this year in the Xfinity series, and that data along with the cup experiment is what we have next year with the different configuration changes to the 2019 car. It isn't about high or low downforce, it is about closer racing which the majority of fans prefer.
 
While we disagree on the merits of the package, you and I are both describing in different ways how it was a concerted effort long in the making.

NASCAR deserves credit for selling stage racing. While I don't like them, I'm objective enough to see that a clear majority of fans are somewhere between neutral to positive on them. But the fans didn't tell NASCAR they wanted segmented races and NASCAR said ok, here you go. The leaders of the industry devised them to meet various objectives, and part of that was figuring out how to get the audience (and other factions such as the drivers) to accept them. They were successful in that instance.
 
There wasn't any selling involved. The package Xfinity used was developed. A controlled experiment to see if the racing could be bettered at Indianapolis and it was a record setting success.
 
The most obvious ways to determine if next year’s package is what the fans want is through traditional methods. By that I mean demographics, tv ratings and attendance but are there other ways of measuring success too?

Conversely if interest, ratings and attendance continue to plummet next year does that mean that NASCAR misread the tea leaves? Is a year with the new package a long enough time determine if it is successful?
 
using that for criteria, the latest package has failed miserably. Here we go again with one more reason trying to justify any view by using ratings, and attendance leaving out the fact that motorsports in general across the board aren't winning any popularity contests.
 
StandOnIt said:
using that for criteria, the latest package has failed miserably.
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That is exactly what many supporters of the new package have argued. NASCAR must "do something" about the racing and make changes because ratings are down.

Others cite tiny online polls about whether a single race was good as definitive proof that millions of people are in favor of a new competition package across the board.

I agree with you that TV ratings, attendance, and other metrics are far more governed by other factors, and that it won't make much difference whether they run the 2019 package, 2015 package, or you name it. However, there has to some way of measuring whether the new package is 'working', because so much of the justification for it has been that this is what will revive larger interest and popularity.
 
gnomesayin said:
That is exactly what many supporters of the new package have argued. NASCAR must "do something" about the racing and make changes because ratings are down.

Others cite tiny online polls about whether a single race was good as definitive proof that millions of people are in favor of a new competition package across the board.

I agree with you that TV ratings, attendance, and other metrics are far more governed by other factors, and that it won't make much difference whether they run the 2019 package, 2015 package, or you name it. However, there has to some way of measuring whether the new package is 'working', because so much of the justification for it has been that this is what will revive larger interest and popularity.
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This package had as much or more experimentation as the lower downforce package 5 races in competition to gather data. The lower package had a few drivers testing out different setups and asking their opinion. Probably why the large majority, over 50% of the fans have a wait and see attitude.
 
StandOnIt said:
This package had as much or more experimentation as the lower downforce package 5 races in competition to gather data. The lower package had a few drivers testing out different setups and asking their opinion. Probably why the large majority, over 50% of the fans have a wait and see attitude.
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I was wondering in an earlier post if there was some sort of traditional or non traditional metric that could be used to chart how the 2019 package was being received. I hadn’t thought about ratings going up as much as I thought about them not dropping as harshly.

IMO if it is documented that the majority of fans want races similar to the All Star race there should be some way of tracking its success,

The last thing was your comment that a large majority of fans would take a wait and see attitude for next year. If a documented majority of fans want these changes and liked the ASR why would they have a wait and see attitude.

My biggest regret is that people like me have been misunderstood. We think that doing what the 2019 package will do is fundamentally wrong. We want to see a speed contest not a slowed down form of entertainment that remove what the best of the best drivers possess. We like things this year because it is more organic.
 
IanMcVittie said:
I was wondering in an earlier post if there was some sort of traditional or non traditional metric that could be used to chart how the 2019 package was being received. I hadn’t thought about ratings going up as much as I thought about them not dropping as harshly.

IMO if it is documented that the majority of fans want races similar to the All Star race there should be some way of tracking its success,

The last thing was your comment that a large majority of fans would take a wait and see attitude for next year. If a documented majority of fans want these changes and liked the ASR why would they have a wait and see attitude.

My biggest regret is that people like me have been misunderstood. We think that doing what the 2019 package will do is fundamentally wrong. We want to see a speed contest not a slowed down form of entertainment that remove what the best of the best drivers possess. We like things this year because it is more organic.
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using the ratings for justification or some kind of concrete measurement isn't going to help your case.
 
StandOnIt said:
using the ratings for justification or some kind of concrete measurement isn't going to help your case.
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I was never looking for any justification for the rules change next year but I figured someone would come up with a way to track things. Maybe they will at some point as it is unusual for a company to make changes without monitoring the impact.

Even though I like things this year I understand if Nascar feels it needs to change to appeal to more people. I will tune in to see what it looks like and go from there.
 
IanMcVittie said:
I was never looking for any justification for the rules change next year but I figured someone would come up with a way to track things.
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Speedway Motorsports financial statements.

None of this is likely to impact viewership or ticket sales in a positive way. The majority of casual / new fans think a package comes in a FedEx Truck.
 
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