NASCAR - Television Ratings Thread

Hard to tell since this race is a week earlier than last year (Phoenix went up against Sunday NCAA tournament action last year). I think if it cracks 4.5 million viewers it would have to be deemed a good day. I still think there's a chance it could be the most-watched sporting event of the weekend.
 
Show Buzz Daily shows last year's race had a 3.58 and 5.973 viewers but there is a strong possibility that I am misreading things this year versus last year as Adam Stern shows a rating of 3.0 for last year. Maybe it is the difference between overnight and final ratings.

If the Las Vegas race slipped from 6 million viewers last year to 4.7 million this year that would represent a drop of over 20% and I don't know how that sort of thing can be swept under the rug like it doesn't matter but I know it will be. As Toyoda said earlier in the thread the 2008 Las Vegas race drew 12.1 millions fans. What would The Kinks say? "Where Have All The Good Times Gone."
 
AtomicPunk55 said:
Show Buzz Daily shows last year's race had a 3.58 and 5.973 viewers but there is a strong possibility that I am misreading things this year versus last year as Adam Stern shows a rating of 3.0 for last year. Maybe it is the difference between overnight and final ratings.

If the Las Vegas race slipped from 6 million viewers last year to 4.7 million this year that would represent a drop of over 20% and I don't know how that sort of thing can be swept under the rug like it doesn't matter but I know it will be. As Toyoda said earlier in the thread the 2008 Las Vegas race drew 12.1 millions fans. What would The Kinks say? "Where Have All The Good Times Gone."
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Phoenix had a 3.0 overnight, 3.26 final last year. Not a comparable weekend though, last year it went up against the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Las Vegas was this weekend last year and had the final figures you posted, along with a 3.3 overnight.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Phoenix had a 3.0 overnight, 3.26 final last year. Not a comparable weekend though, last year it went up against the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Las Vegas was this weekend last year and had the final figures you posted, along with a 3.3 overnight.
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Ah, thank you as I figured there was a good chance I was fouling up and that is with me wearing my reading glasses, having a good night's sleep and taking all my meds!
 
WOW!!!! unheard of numbers for any sporting event. Tiger still has a huge following. I'm proud for the guy. In not a golf fan, but the tabloid peddling trash has had a field day with his personal life. Glad to see him get a big boost.
 
DPK deserves an atta boy for proclaiming that the strength of Tiger could have a detrimental impact on Nascar as it did. Golf makes Nascar the third most watched sporting event of the weekend and I did not see it coming. So far this year Daytona has been off by about 20%, Atlanta 15% and Las Vegas and Phoenix around 21-22%. Hopefully the next race can keep the losses in the mid teens or better.
 
AtomicPunk55 said:
DPK deserves an atta boy for proclaiming that the strength of Tiger could have a detrimental impact on Nascar as it did. Golf makes Nascar the third most watched sporting event of the weekend and I did not see it coming. So far this year Daytona has been off by about 20%, Atlanta 15% and Las Vegas and Phoenix around 21-22%. Hopefully the next race can keep the losses in the mid teens or better.
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Nahh, I was just repeating what Stevie Wonder told me. Even he saw it coming. Tiger has appeal for some reason. To a lot of people. I can think back to my parents, who never swung a golf club in their life, sitting and watching golf on the weekends because of Tiger. I think people tuned in this past weekend to relive that glory.
 
AtomicPunk55 said:
DPK deserves an atta boy for proclaiming that the strength of Tiger could have a detrimental impact on Nascar as it did. Golf makes Nascar the third most watched sporting event of the weekend and I did not see it coming. So far this year Daytona has been off by about 20%, Atlanta 15% and Las Vegas and Phoenix around 21-22%. Hopefully the next race can keep the losses in the mid teens or better.
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The Dale Jr effect. Hopefully all the big stars still left come back next year.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
Nahh, I was just repeating what Stevie Wonder told me. Even he saw it coming. Tiger has appeal for some reason. To a lot of people. I can think back to my parents, who never swung a golf club in their life, sitting and watching golf on the weekends because of Tiger. I think people tuned in this past weekend to relive that glory.
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Indeed! I mentioned it last week that Tiger could have a major impact on weekend viewership this summer. He's playing again this week at Bay Hill then two weeks off before The Masters.
 
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dpkimmel2001 said:
NASCAR could use a Tiger.
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They should have recruited him when he was down and out and seemingly finished in 2014-2015.

But seriously, Woods is clearly an almost once in a generation sports figure, towering far above the sport he plays in. Dale Jr. retired and maybe 10% of the remaining NASCAR audience left with him. Tiger's presence more than doubles the audience for PGA tour events. It is astounding.

If Woods is anywhere in contention at Augusta, the TV numbers will be massive, and obviously the ratings for the Texas race on April 8 could be down more than usual.
 
as long as we are making wild ass guesses, it could be because the race was close and people were watching instead of yapping back n fourth.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Final: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/skedball-weekend-sports-tv-ratings-3-10-11-2018.html
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In the finals, NASCAR came out ahead of the Saturday golf in the overall and demo. The PGA must do far better in big markets for the final to drop that much from overnights, though obviously the numbers were still great for them. More than triple the audience from last year.

NASCAR comes out #2 for the weekend in overall viewers, #5 in the demo. Last year during this weekend, they were #1 overall and #2 in the demo.
 
Tiger's stock has risen considerably since he discontinued the practice of banging peelers and driving home loaded.

I apologize in advance to anyone who is offended by that.
 
"Peelers" was a new one on me, at least that meaning. Had to look it up. I have no idea whether he has ceased that or not. It seems the golf world has decided it is more appealing to have him around than worry about it.

I would certainly hope he stopped the drunk driving. I did that a couple times, regrettably and stupidly, got caught once, so I don't feel comfortable condemning for that unless one is a serial offender.
 
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He was and is a helluva player. Any inferred negative connotation to use of the word player in this case is entirely up to the reader.

And ... there is no question that he hits the TV needle hard when he's in the mix.
 
It will be interesting to see how all this social media hocus pocus stuff shakes out as right now Nascar sponsors and team sponsors don't seem impressed. Anything is possible but I have not yet felt the need to engage with twitter and haven't seen anything that would entice me to sign up.
 
I think that article makes a great point. What's happening is the younger fans of the sport want to be able to interact on social media, and it's difficult for them to do that by watching the races on their televisions. Instead they're able to both watch the streaming coverage of the races on their smartphones or computers and still be able to interact on social media all on 1 device and do it on the go if they need to. It has to be difficult for the Nielsen company to accurately gauge that mechanism of viewing.
 
A year or so ago people were saying that a big reason Nascar's ratings were falling was due to all the people streaming. I thought that seemed reasonable as streaming is all you hear about and how it is the future. I was very surprised to see how few people stream Nascar races and also for the just concluded Olympics. In the case of Nascar I think we will know things are getting better when money starts to return as right now the sponsors are holding tight purse strings.
 
I just saw the overnight ratings for Phoenix. Down again. 2.7 rating down from 3.0.
 
from sportsmediawatch (http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2018/03/nascar-ratings-record-low-phoenix/)
NASCAR Suffers Third Record-Low in Four Weeks
Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix scored a 2.8 rating and 4.6 million viewers on FOX, down 15% in ratings and viewership from last year (3.3, 5.4M), down 30% and 31% respectively from 2016 (4.0, 6.6M), and the lowest rating and viewership in the history of the race (dates back to 2005).
The scary part is that in 2 years we went from 4.0 to 2.8...but how can you expect changes if you keep doing the same???
 
Just when I think that maybe ratings have bottomed out the continue to sink. It's too bad these millennial superstars aren't attracting new fans to replace the fans who left once Dale Jr failed to live up to their expectations.
 
One would think that there would be far few commercials now. I wonder why advertisers continue to spend on the few million people still watching?
 
aunty dive said:
One would think that there would be far few commercials now. I wonder why advertisers continue to spend on the few million people still watching?
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People would rather watch it live. If you watch it live you have to watch the commercials.
Next year is the year if ratings and attendance don't improve 2020 could look different.
 
aunty dive said:
One would think that there would be far few commercials now. I wonder why advertisers continue to spend on the few million people still watching?
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More commercials doesn't mean more interest from advertisers... quite the opposite actually.

The way it works is Fox and NBC paid a fixed amount for the broadcast rights to NASCAR (the actual cashflow increases every year but for finance purposes it's amortized), they have to recoup that by selling advertising slots in the broadcast, which they and not NASCAR have full control over (other sports like the NBA and NFL have limits in place on how long and when ads can be shown in the game but noooooooo NASCAR was too dumb to do that).

Fox can either charge more for fewer ads (think the superbowl) or charge less for more ad time, but either way they are gonna make back their dollar. The going rate for advertising time is pretty directly tied to the program's ratings. So when your ratings are half what they were a decade ago, you get more commercials for the same rate (and if the program fails to meet the ratings specified the networks have to show "freebie" ads to make up for it, hence why you see the same ad run again later in the program). And then if you still can't get advertisers to pay your asking rate, the networks run ads promoting their other broadcasts as a last resort.

Why do you think stage racing was implemented? Do you honestly think it's to improve the "racing product" and excitement? Nope. They're TV timeouts. The networks needed to increase TV commercial inventory dramatically in order to make up for the ratings decline. Either the networks were going to flood the broadcast with commercials during green-flag racing (which obviously ticks off fans), or NASCAR was going to have to have to figure out a way to give them more guaranteed breaks in the race. Hence, stage breaks.

Hope that helps.
 
I was aware of all of that but thank you very much. As usual I was being somewhat sarcastic.

I’m sure your excellent explanation will be much appreciated by the board. Thanks again.
 
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