The NASCAR Renaissance

HoneyBadger

HoneyBadger

I love short track racing (Taylor's Version)
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Will the mid-2020s go down as the renaissance era for NASCAR racing?

I'm thoroughly enjoying this sport right now, in spite of my disdain for "superspeedway" racing (even if it produced a top-3 all-time finish).
 
I think you’re right. The sport is about to go through another growth period. NASCAR has seen relatively stable TV ratings the last 3-4 years while everything else has fallen outside of the NFL, college football and Caitlin Clark games. They’re doing all they can to shed the redneck racist stereotype and they finally have some really successful diverse drivers. Attendance has been on the rise since 2021. The new TV deal should allow the teams to make a profit as long as they come to a good agreement with NASCAR. The Netflix show has already made some waves and I’ve seen a lot of former fans coming back and new fans following because of it. International stars are coming over to race and generating interest from fans of F1, IMSA and Supercars who may not have watched NASCAR before. All the ingredients are there for another boom period. It won’t be like the one from about 1992-2006, and we’ll never see 200,000 people at a race again or 20 million watching the Daytona 500, but the sport should be pretty healthy for the next few years.
 
I love the way things are right now. Needs a refresh on both announcers side (Bowyer to the studio for Fox and blow up whatever NBC does), but other than that it’s fun tuning in each week, one of the best ways to spend a Sunday
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
I love the way things are right now. Needs a refresh on both announcers side (Bowyer to the studio for Fox and blow up whatever NBC does), but other than that it’s fun tuning in each week, one of the best ways to spend a Sunday
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No comment
 
There can be no NASCAR Renaissance while the ill fated peasantry still bears the burden of having to listen to the NBC gerbils .
It is a cursed geneneration that would hast been better served to have been borne deaf.

Rocks, Wood and Steal need to be inventoried and stored for that glorious day when all of the hopes and dreams of the people are realized and they find the opportunity to execute the gerbils. They can not be wasted for evil to build more stuff for the crowing gerbils to utilize.
 
I am not sure. Things are so different now. Can anything be great with the immediacy of social media? There will always be those.....The sport has always been great. Let's keep in mind without the finish in Atlanta, I am guessing that the race is not seen in the same way...perhaps fairly mediocre. I think that NASCAR has found the right mix of spec-ness and individual identity for the cars. The drivers are interesting....the teams even more so. I have never felt that a renaissance was needed because I have loved every version of this sport. I don't know who NASCAR is trying to please, but I doubt that if we aren't three wide at the finish today, they won't be as happy.
 
Maybe....but don't count on the popularity it enjoyed in the late 90's. A lot of it was a fad at the time and reasonably priced entertainment for a weekend. While ticket prices aren't terrible IMO, all the ancillary stuff (meals, hotel, gas) are predatory priced to take advantage of the fans and people just don't think it's worth traveling to as much as they were in the 90's.
 
I always have compared Nascar to the other series. F-1 just got thru laying a 22 second techno egg, Indycar continues to struggle and Nascar has three major series to offer the public and they all are healthy and producing good close racing.
 
I don't think a Renaissance is necessary. For the most part, the product remained entertaining even as the popularity declined. I think 'rediscovery' is more appropriate. Motor racing in general is being noticed again by both the general public and fans of other sports. I'm not informed to say whether social media or 'behind the scenes' streamed programs play a role.

But I'm with @Ford 222 ; don't expect late-90s and early-00s numbers. In fact, I think reaching those levels would indicate the sport has reached fad stage again and will inevitably crash.
 
NASCAR had everything they could possibly want, and they squandered it all away thanks to dopes like Brian France. Years of poor decision making caught up with them, and it has taken years to get out of the hole they dug themselves. Luckily I think this sport has been trending in the right direction for a few years now, and this is the best it has been in 20 years IMO. Generally speaking, I'm very happy with the current state of NASCAR and I hope they continue to be smart and build on this recent success.
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
I love the way things are right now. Needs a refresh on both announcers side (Bowyer to the studio for Fox and blow up whatever NBC does), but other than that it’s fun tuning in each week, one of the best ways to spend a Sunday
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I wholeheartedly believe NBC's booth puts people off.

I've said this before - but my wife will enjoy races with me. She's entirely a casual fan and will never go out of her way to watch a single lap. But she is familiar with it enough.

She genuinely laughs at Rick Allen and asks me how I can watch this.

Rick Allen needs to be replaced. I think Burton is fine, with a different energy.

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jaqua19 said:
I wholeheartedly believe NBC's booth puts people off.

I've said this before - but my wife will enjoy races with me. She's entirely a casual fan and will never go out of her way to watch a single lap. But she is familiar with it enough.

She genuinely laughs at Rick Allen and asks me how I can watch this.

Rick Allen needs to be replaced. I think Burton is fine, with a different energy.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
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Allen Bestwick is much easier to listen to and I hope Amazon is calling him with a big fat check for next year.
 
jaqua19 said:
I wholeheartedly believe NBC's booth puts people off.
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They're relentless and can be offputting, but I think both networks have fatal flaws that put fans off.

Fox has treated NASCAR like a joke for 16 years.

I don't dislike Rick Allen. But I'd rather hear Dave Burns in the booth.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
They're relentless and can be offputting, but I think both networks have fatal flaws that put fans off.

Fox has treated NASCAR like a joke for 16 years.

I don't dislike Rick Allen. But I'd rather hear Dave Burns in the booth.
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I think NBC's production and coverage is solid. The broadcast booth is what's problematic imo

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jaqua19 said:
I think NBC's production and coverage is solid. The broadcast booth is what's problematic imo
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Four man booth is too much, and I think Dave Burns would be better than Rick Allen.

But, commentary booth issues aside, it's still much easier to follow a race on NBC than on Fox. Fox's broadcasts are a discombobulated cluster****.
 
The younger generation of fans than I grew up with a very different NASCAR being what they know as normal. They have only known some iteration of a post season. Regardless of whether or not it appeals to me, I think it may have a formula that those who are looking to maybe check out NASCAR for whatever reason might be open to watching more than once. I do think greatly simplifying some things might be a huge benefit to them, but I accept that won't happen and that a plurality of current fans likely disagree (which makes sense, they are fans of a product that contains what I see as unnecessary complications).

Everyone the networks have had aren't very good which suggests to me that it is less likely that everyone hired for the job since the early 90s is bad and more that the networks like this very bad play by play because it does well with test audiences or something.
 
Attendance & viewership seem to have stabilized and a lucrative broadcast deal has been signed. At least according to Jeff Gluck’s pole most people that watch the races really like them. This is all good!

I think the biggest improvement Nascar could make is attracting younger viewers. You have to be careful though as whatever you are using to catch a new viewer must be repeated.
 
MRM said:
Sadly for NBC and even Fox, Bob, Ned, and Benny aren't walking through their doors any time soon. I think that helped a lot with the growth in the 90's along with a rivalry between Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt. We don't have that now.
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Coverage quality does matter, and I think Fox's coverage in the early-2000s helped a lot more.

Those early-2000s Fox broadcasts were absolutely remarkable and blew anything ESPN, CBS and TNN did out of the water. And anything that's been done since.
 
StandOnIt said:
I always have compared Nascar to the other series. F-1 just got thru laying a 22 second techno egg, Indycar continues to struggle and Nascar has three major series to offer the public and they all are healthy and producing good close racing.
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Tbh, and this is my opinion, so it’s fine if you don’t agree. A lot of the recent Truck races have been a mess. Lot of young kids still learning. The last race was a good one however. Hopefully it’s more of that and less what we saw the races before that.
 
Blaze said:
Tbh, and this is my opinion, so it’s fine if you don’t agree. A lot of the recent Truck races have been a mess. Lot of young kids still learning. The last race was a good one however. Hopefully it’s more of that and less what we saw the races before that.
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Yes, I was actually pretty pleasantly surprised at the Vegas race in that regard. It's almost as if they ARE all learning and improving each week with the experience and not wrecking as much.
 
MRM said:
Sadly for NBC and even Fox, Bob, Ned, and Benny aren't walking through their doors any time soon. I think that helped a lot with the growth in the 90's along with a rivalry between Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt. We don't have that now.
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Bob, Ned, and Benny.....Legendary. Benny will always be my favorite....Had that "If you listen, I will teach you something, but if you don't, I'm still glad you are here," vibe. Dale Jr. is the new Benny.
 
hmmm298 said:
Yes, I was actually pretty pleasantly surprised at the Vegas race in that regard. It's almost as if they ARE all learning and improving each week with the experience and not wrecking as much.
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I don't have my hopes up. They are youngsters, many have families who have relocated to the Charlotte area for them, and some have siblings who have had to pull up stakes and re locate so there is a lot of pressure to perform. Some of them don't have a full season signed up. It is what it is. Just a small handful are driving for teams that have sold backing and have that security. The rest are trying to make something happen against some pretty stiff competition.

To note: Surprisingly the old team of Kyle's rebadged to Chevys with three trucks has won all three races against the four truck heavily sponsored Ford team of Thorsport and the 5 truck Toyota team that was supposed to replace Kyle's team with heavy factory support. Pretty interesting that Spire was talking about only running one truck maybe two.
 
I hope he’s doing well these days, but there couldn’t have been many things better for the sport in the long run than Brian France getting pulled over in summer 2018. Upper management since then has been dedicated to a complete scheduling overhaul, rolling out an entirely new car to form the base of a more stable cost platform, improved social media, greenlighting TV docuseries, finally finding an ambitious console video game developer, and more. Nothing’s perfect, and the peak of the 90s/2000s boom period will be impossible to replicate, but the sport has much more stability than it had maybe five or six years ago.
 
Revman said:
Does literally anybody understand the ****** cartoon characters?
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I'm told Fox does this to participants in all the sports they cover. Apparently some network VP had a nephew with a box of pencils and an old copy of 'How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way!'
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Coverage quality does matter, and I think Fox's coverage in the early-2000s helped a lot more.

Those early-2000s Fox broadcasts were absolutely remarkable and blew anything ESPN, CBS and TNN did out of the water. And anything that's been done since.
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I certainly don't remember them being all that great. Any booth with Darrell Waltrip in it is going to be less than it should be. I love Darrell the story teller. I HATED Darrell the broadcaster. I still say Boogity Boogity set the sport back 50 years, and don't even get me started on Digger. If I were running NASCAR, I would have been trying to find a way out of the contract the moment I saw those two things. If Fox would have tried either one of those asinine things in a NFL broadcast, they would have been tarred and feathered. Even considering the production values weren't all that good back then, I'll Take Bob, Benny and Ned, or the TNN crew ANY DAY over what we have had since 2000. Too many people in the booth and all acting like they are only getting paid by every word they can shoehorn into the broadcast. There are some good people out there, but they get watered down by all the not so good ones.
 
Formerjackman said:
or the TNN crew ANY DAY
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Ah the sweet docile tones of Eli Gold. Vivid memories as a teenager in the late 90’s watching a race on my parents tv broadcasting from Pocono or Michigan, hunkered down in house with cold AC while escaping the brutal muggy heat of a midwestern summer in early August.
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
Ah the sweet docile tones of Eli Gold. Vivid memories as a teenager in the late 90’s watching a race on my parents tv broadcasting from Pocono or Michigan, hunkered down in house with cold AC while escaping the brutal muggy heat of a midwestern summer in early August.
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NASCAR did a good job hushing up why he disappeared (because he was e-stalking a waitress IIRC) but yeah, less yelling, more talking to me like an adult.
 
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