NASCAR - Television Ratings Thread

Weird. The other interesting aspect is that the multiple delays actually appear to have helped increase the overall rating by bumping the finish closer to primetime and elongating the peak audience period. So much for complaining about the need for faster track cleanup and earlier start times, if your primary concern is TV ratings numbers.
 
NASCAR's trend towards dropping from overnight to final sure is interesting. I guess it makes sense - three of the five markets (Boston, SF, DC) that posted the biggest percentage gains are Top 10 markets, and the other two (KC and OKC) are also metered markets. NASCAR has traditionally performed better outside of the metered markets, but it's started to change over the last few years. Another sign of NASCAR losing the more traditional, rural fan over the years? Are the more rural areas more susceptible to declines in TV subscriptions? I don't want to bother looking up market-by-market data through the years but it's interesting to think about.
 
I wouldn't doubt the crossover into primetime is what played a part in the oddity of the numbers. People tuning in for primetime programming went ahead and watched the end of the race. The race watchers obviously were already there. Then factor in the casuals that won't watch another NASCAR race this year. A total potpourri of viewership in those last 30 to 60 minutes. As for viewership, I figured it would go back above 10 million.
 
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Interesting graphic
daytonachart.png
 
Through 2 weekends compared to this point in 2018:
Cup down 4.5% (wouldn't take much of an increase from a race to get them on the positive side)
Xfinity down about 13%
Trucks up about 7.5% (both truck races this year went up)
 
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I haven’t watched a single lap this year. The first thing I’ll see is the green flag at ACS. I prolly won’t watch again until September LVMS.
For me, the sport is going the wrong way. Still.
 
Not to get too far off tangent here, but I think a couple of things are at play. #1 I think the playoff points with the stages have left a lot of people confused and has made it hard to follow (the simpler you can keep things for people to understand, the better). #2, the loss of big name drivers. Since the current TV deal came to be, Dale Jr., Gordon, Stewart, Danica, Kenseth, Edwards have all moved on (I'm probably forgetting a few more drivers), and the fans of those drivers haven't established themselves as a fan of any of the current crop of drivers yet (and they may never do so).

Really can't put too much stock in just 2 weeks of numbers, but it appears they may be stabilizing some. Get through the 3 west coast swing races, will put us at 5 weeks into the season and will be able to see at that point what the trends will be.
 
BobbyFord said:
I haven’t watched a single lap this year. The first thing I’ll see is the green flag at ACS. I prolly won’t watch again until September LVMS.


For me, the sport is going the wrong way. Still.
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You don't watch? Yet you say the sport is going in the wrong direction? How would you know, if you're not watching?
 
Here we go again for another NASCAR season.

from sportsmediawatch.com
NASCAR Atlanta Rating Lowest Since 1999

One week after a record-low Daytona 500, NASCAR ratings hit a 20-year low at Atlanta.

Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Atlanta earned a 3.1 rating and 5.07 million viewers on FOX, down 6% in ratings and 10% in viewership from last year (3.3, 5.61M) and down 18% and 23% respectively from 2017 (3.8, 6.60M).

Excluding rainouts, Brad Keselowski‘s win ranks as the lowest rated Atlanta race since 1999 (2.6) and the least-watched since 2003 (4.73M).
 
mathematician said:
is anybody surprised? I am not
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I enjoyed the Atlanta race -- so much so I watched the rebroadcast at midnight.

I don't know how the dip in ratings follow the trend line, or why it did not do well.

NASCAR is my pastime, I watch NASCAR and enjoyed the Cup race, but not so much the Xfinity race dominated by Bell (congrats to Bell BTW).

I look forward to the West Coast Swing to see what kind of racing emerges from "the Package".
 
mathematician said:
is anybody surprised? I am not
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I am not either for the simple reason that the effects of this package is still unknown and other
more important reason is that Nascar has not addressed any other issues the fans have. That will take another 2 yrs.
 
gnomesayin said:
So off around 10% in total viewers and 20% in the demo. Going to wait at least a few more races to draw any conclusions, but my opinion is that it will become clear that TV ratings and aero packages don't have much to do with each other, and that it wasn't the quality of racing that needed to be 'fixed' to bring them back up.

It's cool to see the Truck numbers up.
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I agree as I don't think aero packages and TV ratings can be correlated but I do think that this year's losses will be less than the historic beating Nascar took in 2018. I believe that certain people will interpret this as proof the rules changes are working and turning the series around.
 
AuzGrams said:
It's nice to see some minor gains at some races or very slight dropoffs at the others. Hopefully this continues for the rest of this season and next and the deathbed crap can end.
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If Nascar can remain essentially flat in the ratings department this year it has to be considered a win. However if the demographic keeps getting older it negates a good portion of the enthusiasm. I don’t see anyway possible that Nascar could duplicate last year’s results and that is a good thing.
 
IanMcVittie said:
However if the demographic keeps getting older it negates a good portion of the enthusiasm.
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I'm pretty sure there will be weeks arriving soon that fit your narrative of "negated enthusiasm," but this past week was hardly one of them. Ratings were up, viewership was up, and Nascar was the #1 rated sports event of the weekend. In the favorable demographic, viewers were up from last year, and the race was the 2nd most watched of the weekend, trailing just one NBA game in the favorable demographic. NBC's network hockey game pulled 62% fewer eyes "in the demographic" than Nascar did. And hockey on NBC/SN continues to draw about like minor league truck races, which I find surprising for a mainstream stick & ball league like NHL.

But this was just one week, and I'm sure there will be other weeks soon that are more "negated."
 
Compared to the first 3 weekends last year:
Cup down 1.5% (that number was 4.5% last week)
Xfinity down 11.25% (only 1 of the 3 series that hasn't had a race post a year to year increase yet)
Trucks up 4.5%

A number I find interesting is the ratio between Trucks & Xfinity viewership. Xfinity still has more viewers, but last year at this time, the Trucks had 57% of the viewers than Xfinity had. This year, the Trucks are averaging 68% of what Xfinity is getting. That's a rather remarkable gap that's been closed between the 2 series through the first 3 races.
 
So wait, according to that chart, even the majority of those watching the NBA games are 50+?

Somehow I doubt that.
 
Leveling out and perhaps a small uptick in ratings? Just the type of bargaining chip NASCAR needs before they sell the series.

:sarcasm:
 
Joker said:
So wait, according to that chart, even the majority of those watching the NBA games are 50+?

Somehow I doubt that.
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Not necessarily. A good portion would fall under P2-17, but unfortunately viewership numbers aren't really broken down that deeply. Plus, you'll notice it's really the weekend ABC games where the 18-49 underperformed relative to the total audience - not surprisingly, since folks in that age group tend to be out and about more during the weekends, especially on Saturday night.

Looking at last Friday's Lakers game, the second-highest rating of those drilled into was in the M12-34. So it's not just as black and white as 18-49 and then 50+: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articl...-cable-originals-network-finals-3-1-2019.html
 
MikeInIllinois said:
Compared to the first 3 weekends last year:
Cup down 1.5% (that number was 4.5% last week)
Xfinity down 11.25% (only 1 of the 3 series that hasn't had a race post a year to year increase yet)
Trucks up 4.5%

A number I find interesting is the ratio between Trucks & Xfinity viewership. Xfinity still has more viewers, but last year at this time, the Trucks had 57% of the viewers than Xfinity had. This year, the Trucks are averaging 68% of what Xfinity is getting. That's a rather remarkable gap that's been closed between the 2 series through the first 3 races.
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It's apparent that the 'package' (sorry) piqued the curiosity of a good number of people. Now to be determined...what did they think of it? How will they like it when it's run more frequently? What happens when the teams start to adjust? I'd say when we get through May and have seen tracks like Texas, Kansas, Charlotte it'll be interesting to see how perception is reflected in TV numbers.

One more point on Trucks versus Xfinity - although Trucks had about half the viewership of Xfinity this past weekend, it had about 85% of the 18-49 viewership...

Through all three series this year I think we could get a good idea of how race fans view different rules concepts. You'd normally think that all three would generally trend together, but that might not be the case.
 
LewTheShoe said:
I'm pretty sure there will be weeks arriving soon that fit your narrative of "negated enthusiasm," but this past week was hardly one of them. Ratings were up, viewership was up, and Nascar was the #1 rated sports event of the weekend. In the favorable demographic, viewers were up from last year, and the race was the 2nd most watched of the weekend, trailing just one NBA game in the favorable demographic. NBC's network hockey game pulled 62% fewer eyes "in the demographic" than Nascar did. And hockey on NBC/SN continues to draw about like minor league truck races, which I find surprising for a mainstream stick & ball league like NHL.

But this was just one week, and I'm sure there will be other weeks soon that are more "negated."
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Perhaps 2018 was the year Nascar bottomed out and 2019 signals a new era. Maybe people will really take to this momentum style racing and we will see modest increases in ratings here and there. Maybe the average age of Nascar fan will drop below 60.

I hope it works out for the fans as they pay the freight.
 
LewTheShoe said:
I'm pretty sure there will be weeks arriving soon that fit your narrative of "negated enthusiasm," but this past week was hardly one of them. Ratings were up, viewership was up, and Nascar was the #1 rated sports event of the weekend. In the favorable demographic, viewers were up from last year, and the race was the 2nd most watched of the weekend, trailing just one NBA game in the favorable demographic. NBC's network hockey game pulled 62% fewer eyes "in the demographic" than Nascar did. And hockey on NBC/SN continues to draw about like minor league truck races, which I find surprising for a mainstream stick & ball league like NHL.

But this was just one week, and I'm sure there will be other weeks soon that are more "negated."
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"You can't have a picnic without ants." ;)
 
Team Penske said:
I scanned it a bit. It seems to me Nascar really has no problem getting their share of fans to watch.
I think their decline is no more than what other sports are experiencing. Many people I have to talked to are not to interested in any of the sports simply because the players are way over paid and many of them have very lose morals.
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I am looking forward to seeing the ratings from Phoenix as so far things have looked good in that department for Nascar. After years and years of wondering when things would level off we may have to wonder no more.

At present Nascar doesn’t have a driver like Dale Jr or Danica that transcend the series and IDK if there will be anymore. I think Nascar is better served trying to fix the product and then marketing the drivers.
 
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