NASCAR - Television Ratings Thread

Honest question, should the rain delay be seen as a hindrance or help in this instance? Usually delays drive viewers away, but being pushed into a later afternoon timeslot draws from a larger overall pool of TV viewers.
 
gnomesayin said:
Honest question, should the rain delay be seen as a hindrance or help in this instance? Usually delays drive viewers away, but being pushed into a later afternoon timeslot draws from a larger overall pool of TV viewers.
Click to expand...

That's a tough call to make. My guess what hurt the most was the near guarantee that it would be a wash. I kept hearing and seeing there was no way the race would happen yesterday. I wonder how many potential viewers wrote it off? I heard it would be ran anywhere from last night until Tuesday afternoon. There may have been a lot of folks that abandoned the chance of a race on Sunday. Irresponsible reporting, speculating and forecasting.
 
My 2 cents but its normal for races to get a boost by running late so I cant see Atlanta being different and the 14% drop may have been closer to 20% had the race finished up at is normal time. Its still early and hopefully the next 4 races can minimize losses to single digits.
 
AtomicPunk55 said:
My 2 cents but its normal for races to get a boost by running late so I cant see Atlanta being different and the 14% drop may have been closer to 20% had the race finished up at is normal time. Its still early and hopefully the next 4 races can minimize losses to single digits.
Click to expand...

The numbers are trending down. Atlanta race numbers over the last 4 years:
2015 - 5.1
2016 - 3.7
2017 - 3.6
2018 - 3.1
 
gnomesayin said:
Honest question, should the rain delay be seen as a hindrance or help in this instance? Usually delays drive viewers away, but being pushed into a later afternoon timeslot draws from a larger overall pool of TV viewers.
Click to expand...

SHHH! With those types of comments NASCAR will be having EVERY race start at 3 or 4 and end under the lights. They are an "all or nothing" type of crowd.
 
Cup Race 5.609 million viewers this year down from 6.597 million last year (down just about 1 million viewers)
Xfinity Race 1.146 million viewers this year, down from 1.362 million last year (down just over 200,000 viewers)
Truck Race 931,000 this year, down from 1.229 million last year (down about 300,000 viewers)
 
gnomesayin said:
Honest question, should the rain delay be seen as a hindrance or help in this instance? Usually delays drive viewers away, but being pushed into a later afternoon timeslot draws from a larger overall pool of TV viewers.
Click to expand...
If Nascar had not pushed the start of the race up, it would have started nearly on time.
They got cute and it backfired this time.
 
Through 2 weekends Cup is down an average of about 1.8 million, Xfinity down an average of 312k, and Truck races are off about 338k. Surprisingly, the Atlanta truck race wasn't that far off of the Daytona race in viewers (936,000 viewers for Daytona..... 931,000 viewers for Atlanta). The Daytona & Atlanta truck races last year were the only 2 truck races on FS1 to go over 1 million viewers. The other 2 to go over 1 million were on Fox (the spring Martinsville race & Talladega). Will have to see if there's a post-Olympics resurgence with Las Vegas this weekend.
 
MikeInIllinois said:
Cup Race 5.609 million viewers this year down from 6.597 million last year (down just about 1 million viewers)
Xfinity Race 1.146 million viewers this year, down from 1.362 million last year (down just over 200,000 viewers)
Truck Race 931,000 this year, down from 1.229 million last year (down about 300,000 viewers)
Click to expand...

The apologist will say it was because they were at the track and not at home watching it on TV.:laugh:
 
AtomicPunk55 said:
Just my 2 cents but I think some of the seasons first races shown on Fox will post some big losses but then things will settle in and drop 8-12% per race. NBC had some really low rated races last year in the 2 million range so they may only have a 5-7% drop overall this year.
Click to expand...

I think it will drop 10% as those older viewers pass away and are not replaced. However, it doesn't matter. The next TV contract will still be huge unless the ratings tumble into the 1.0 to 1.8 range.
 
sloggie said:
I think it will drop 10% as those older viewers pass away and are not replaced. However, it doesn't matter. The next TV contract will still be huge unless the ratings tumble into the 1.0 to 1.8 range.
Click to expand...

I think Indy Car ratings are in that range right now and they seem to be doing OK. I think Nascar probably had about 33% of its races fall below 2.0 last year so the time is upon us now. By the time the next TV deal comes around a lot could change and even though it seems all doom and gloom now it may not be then.
 
I'm all for the flourishing of IndyCar, but I believe that series had one race that surpassed a 1.0 rating in 2017. NBCSN averaged an 0.32. Are they doing OK? Well, sure, and I hope they keep doing better. I am not sure what NASCAR fans would think of a Cup series run with today's IndyCar resources.

For all races they average over a 2.0 rating in the city of Indianapolis, which is usually a top market for NASCAR as well. That would be the only way to make that true.

This week's Vegas ratings will provide a better indication of a baseline expectation for the season at large. The Olympics are gone etc.
 
nkfV892.png
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
Click to expand...

Nascar is a niche sport. It always has been, except for a brief period when it wasn't... but for all the wrong reasons... becoming a cultural fad that attracted transient fans who were never gonna stick around long term. All motorsports are niche, not mainstream, and always have been.

But still, that is a lot of TV viewers shown in Adam Stern's tweet. The deathbedders on here who salivate over Nascar getting jilted by TV in 2025 better get to work building up the popularity of collegiate and pro cornhole tournaments to replace motorsports programming. Better get to work on tax payer funding for cornhole at the high school and youth levels too, like the mainstream stick & ball sports enjoy.

BTW, did anyone hear the Sports Business Journal podcast a couple weeks ago? The one with Mr. Stern talking about how bullish NBC is on their Nascar properties? It would seem as though the deathbedders mantra has not reached Mr. Stern or NBC yet. Have a listen.

I'm not saying year-on-year viewership declines are good. They certainly are not. But as long as ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, and various other sports networks are around and hungry for live sports programming, there will be substantial demand for motor racing from Nascar and other racing series as well. That's just my opinion, and I'm the same guy I always was... LewTheShoe.
 
I think Nascar and the NHL are similar as they are both niche sports but there are differences of course. Nascar has a much better broadcast deal but when Seattle joins the league in a few years they will pay at least 650 million for the franchise. I don't know anyone that thinks Nascar will no longer exist after the current broadcast deal expires but it is possible the next deal could be for less money but if so that will all be part of the reset going on now.

I agree with the shoe that the regular yearly declines Nascar faces are not good but they are not the end of the world either. Will car counts continue to drop and will there be less less races on the schedule at some point? A strong possibility for both to happen but who knows eh? If Indy Car can get by with the numbers they get today why can't Nascar do the same thing in the future if it comes to it?

All this just my opinion
 
AtomicPunk55 said:
I think Nascar and the NHL are similar as they are both niche sports but there are differences of course. Nascar has a much better broadcast deal but when Seattle joins the league in a few years they will pay at least 650 million for the franchise. I don't know anyone that thinks Nascar will no longer exist after the current broadcast deal expires but it is possible the next deal could be for less money but if so that will all be part of the reset going on now.

I agree with the shoe that the regular yearly declines Nascar faces are not good but they are not the end of the world either. Will car counts continue to drop and will there be less less races on the schedule at some point? A strong possibility for both to happen but who knows eh? If Indy Car can get by with the numbers they get today why can't Nascar do the same thing in the future if it comes to it?

All this just my opinion
Click to expand...

The next TV deal will be interesting. I could see both Fox and NBC sticking around, but they'll probably want to pay less. Neither Fox nor NBC will be trying to build up cable sports networks at that point. Fox has been part of the sport for so long, it's hard to envision them exiting. NBC might be more iffy.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
The next TV deal will be interesting. I could see both Fox and NBC sticking around, but they'll probably want to pay less. Neither Fox nor NBC will be trying to build up cable sports networks at that point. Fox has been part of the sport for so long, it's hard to envision them exiting. NBC might be more iffy.
Click to expand...

I agree that it will be interesting and who knows what is going happen but it is highly unlikely 2 fledgling sports networks will be looking for programming to help launch sports channels.
 
Hard to believe this race had 4.6 and 7.7 million viewers in 2015 and 3 years later ends up with a 2.8 and somewhere around 4.6 million viewers. All the fad fans had left long before 2015 so maybe I am figuring something incorrectly or there is some other reason. A 40% drop in viewers seems unusually high to me.
 
UPDATE: Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series from Las Vegas earned a 2.9 rating and 4.7 million viewers on FOX, down 19% in ratings and 21% in viewership from last year (3.6, 6.0M) and down 34% and 35% respectively from 2016 (4.4, 7.2M).

Kevin Harvick's win ranks as the lowest rated Las Vegas race ever (dates back to 1998), falling below the previous low set last year. It was the least-watched at the track since at least 2001. Ratings and viewership have declined in three straight years.

The 2.9 rating is tied as the fourth-lowest ever for any Cup Series race on FOX.

Despite the lower numbers, Sunday's race was the highest rated and most-watched sporting event of the weekend. It beat the #2 event, the PGA-WGC Mexico Championship, head-to-head (2.55, 3.9M).

http://www.espn.com/jayski/cup/2018/story/_/id/22653772
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
UPDATE: Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series from Las Vegas earned a 2.9 rating and 4.7 million viewers on FOX, down 19% in ratings and 21% in viewership from last year (3.6, 6.0M) and down 34% and 35% respectively from 2016 (4.4, 7.2M).

Kevin Harvick's win ranks as the lowest rated Las Vegas race ever (dates back to 1998), falling below the previous low set last year. It was the least-watched at the track since at least 2001. Ratings and viewership have declined in three straight years.

The 2.9 rating is tied as the fourth-lowest ever for any Cup Series race on FOX.

Despite the lower numbers, Sunday's race was the highest rated and most-watched sporting event of the weekend. It beat the #2 event, the PGA-WGC Mexico Championship, head-to-head (2.55, 3.9M).

http://www.espn.com/jayski/cup/2018/story/_/id/22653772
Click to expand...

Wow, we beat a golfing event by just a little bit. If that's the rally point we really do have some serious issues. Seriously, a golf tournament?
 
AtomicPunk55 said:
Quite a bump in the overnights!
Click to expand...
I'll admit I was surprised at how little it jumped from overnight to final. Means the big markets and small markets are pretty close to even now, at least for this event. It looks like last year the Vegas rating jumped +0.3 from overnight to final.
 
Towmater said:
Wow, we beat a golfing event by just a little bit. If that's the rally point we really do have some serious issues. Seriously, a golf tournament?
Click to expand...
And every other sporting event that was on for the weekend, NBA,NCAA, etc.....
 
I guess it wasn't the Olympics. Maybe Jr. fans found a different Sunday hobby.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom