Uh, NASCAR: We Don't Have All Dang Day

dpkimmel2001

dpkimmel2001

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Earnhardt Jr. Doesn't sound like a 'yes man' to me. I wonder if he'll be a voice of change to maybe get this sport back in line?


A 400-mile NASCAR Monster Energy Cup race started Sunday at 3:47 p.m. ET, which sounded as if it was far too late for the former driver and current stock-car fan, Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr.


After posting a tweet that simply said, “Start this thing,” and was illustrated by a GIF of a bored guy staring at the ceiling, Earnhardt, now retired, tweeted, “I never liked the mid day starts as a driver. The dislike is tenfold as a fan at home.” He punctuated it with a thumbs-down emoji.


Earnhardt, who will become an analyst later this season but should be NASCAR's commissioner, was on the mark -- again. Even though the race was held in Fontana, Calif., it should have started at 1 p.m. ET. Every daytime NASCAR race should start at 1 p.m. ET. People don’t have all dang day any more.


NASCAR was born, and thrived in, the Eastern time zone. Many of its fans live in the Eastern time zone. According to the Nielsen ratings, the top television markets for the Daytona 500 last month were, in order, Greensboro, N.C.; Greenville, S.C.; Indianapolis; Charlotte and Knoxville, Tenn. All five markets are in the Eastern time zone.


Most NASCAR races used to start at noon or 1 p.m. ET. It was perfect for fans in the East who wanted to go to church (or, to the other extreme, sleep in after a wild night out), enjoy a nice breakfast/brunch/lunch and settle in to watch the green flag, snooze, then catch the end. Races were over by dinnertime.


Starting a race at 10 a.m. in any time zone would be fine with the fans, since, as I have discovered over the years, most of them are at the racetrack early anyway. An early start means an early finish. Consider that Sunday’s race, if moved up, would have ended before 2 p.m. on the West Coast.


The capacity at Auto Club Speedway was reduced to 68,000 in 2014, and shots of the stands during Sunday’s telecast showed that not all the seats were filled anyway. So getting fans in earlier would not be like, say, getting 250,000 into the Indianapolis 500.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveca...ascar-we-dont-have-all-dang-day/#16c59d92608f
 
I love it when Dale Jr. speaks his mind. Clearly he isn't afraid to tell it like it is. If anyone has the stroke to make changes happen, it's him. I like his ideas for NASCAR and I think he knows how to make improvements.
 
Not the first time Jr. has aired his displeasure with late start times.

Keep doing you NASCAR Jesus.
 
Double down "yes" to this. It is beyond me why NASCAR (in spite of the fans opinions) thinks late starts, even those on the east coast is the right decision for TV and attendance.
 
I like that most of Brent Dewars decisions have been disasters. Let’s me know, that despite never holding a position on any board, or obtaining a bachelors degree, at least I haven’t taken something that needed minor tweaking, and destroyed it in less than two years.

2 to 3 pm start times will help California, our biggest market, was his first bonehead statement.
 
aunty dive said:
Something tells me the TV people have a lot to say about this.
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Yes, and there is no actual dispute on the facts. The top hours for Sunday sports when the most viewers in the country are watching TV is 3pm-7pm Eastern time. This is true for the Eastern and Central timezones as well. Events outside of this window have smaller audiences generally.

It's nice that some east coast fans are so used to everything revolving around them that they naturally assume events in California should as well. It is ludicrous to expect a race there to start at 10:00 AM. Attendees would be inconvenienced, the overall TV audience would be smaller, but their afternoon would flow better. Sounds reasonable.

I'm used to watching international racing events at 4:00 AM, so the entitlement here jumps out at me. NASCAR and the networks are not remotely wrong. This is Television Programming 101 stuff.
 
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gnomesayin said:
Yes, and there is no actual dispute on the facts. The top hours for Sunday sports when the most viewers in the country are watching TV is 3pm-7pm Eastern time. This is true for the Eastern and Central timezones as well. Events outside of this window have smaller audiences generally.

It's nice that some east coast fans are so used to everything revolving around them that they naturally assume events in California should as well. It is ludicrous to expect a race there to start at 10:00 AM. Attendees would be inconvenienced, the overall TV audience would be smaller, but their afternoon would flow better. Sounds reasonable.

I'm used to watching international racing events at 4:00 AM, so the entitlement here jumps out at me. NASCAR and the networks are not remotely wrong. This is Television Programming 101 stuff.
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When the idea to delay start times was brought up, executives were unanimous in thinking it would draw more eyes to TV.

@FoxTV earned a 2.4 overnight rating for yesterday's @MonsterEnergy NASCAR Cup Series #AutoClub400 @ACSupdates.

- Last year's race got a 2.9.

- Top five markets: Greenville; Greensboro; Richmond; Knoxville; Charlotte.

The experts are wrong.
 
ChexOrWrex said:
When the idea to delay start times was brought up, executives were unanimous in thinking it would draw more eyes to TV.

@FoxTV earned a 2.4 overnight rating for yesterday's @MonsterEnergy NASCAR Cup Series #AutoClub400 @ACSupdates.

- Last year's race got a 2.9.

- Top five markets: Greenville; Greensboro; Richmond; Knoxville; Charlotte.

The experts are wrong.
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There isn't even a correlation there, let alone causation. The 2017 race started at approximately the same time, 3:47pm EDT. 2016, 2015 same time.

TV ratings are down across the board this year for every race, and for 80% of races over the past three seasons. I've seen zero evidence to show larger declines for races that have had their start times pushed back.
 
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gnomesayin said:
The race last year


There isn't even a correlation there, let alone causation. The 2017 race started at approximately the same time, 3:47pm EDT. 2016, 2015 same time.

TV ratings are down across the board this year for every race, and for 80% of races over the past three seasons. I've seen zero evidence to show larger declines for races that have had their start times pushed back.
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Just saying that later start times are not helping, as predicted.
 
I always liked ( going to do central time zone here since thats where Iam located) when races started at 12pm for a east coast race, 2pm for a west coast race and 6pm for a Saturday Night race.
 
ChexOrWrex said:
Just saying that later start times are not helping, as predicted.
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I don't think it is possible to know without far more information, such as the data the TV networks have access to but isn't publicly available. The declines have been too steep overall to be able to compare the 2018 number to whenever the California race started earlier, if it ever did. What is generally known is that the overall number of TV viewers is about 1.5x higher at 5:00 PM Eastern than at 1:00 PM.

If NASCAR actually wanted to cater to California specifically, east coast races would start no earlier than 5:00 PM. Imagine that.
 
What part, my daring to compare NASCAR to other sports, or my saying Jr. is off base, or both? :D
 
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ChexOrWrex said:
Just saying that later start times are not helping, as predicted.
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If the races started earlier, it's reasonable to assume the ratings could be down by even larger margins.

Also, this was a west coast race. If this board had its way, NASCAR races on the west coast would be starting at 9am local time. Ironically, the same forum that wants unreasonable start times for west coast races because of TV opposes shorter races because "I pay for muh 500 miles!"
 
I'll be glad if Dale Jr. speaks freely and critically when he sees fit, but he's wrong here beyond his personal preference. Does he dislike when his Redskins get a prime late afternoon showcase game against the Cowboys? Because that's understood to be the preferable timeslot over there, even for east coast fans.
 
I'm probably going to regret tossing this into play, but...

I'm as non-religious as it's possible to be, but I'm given to understand that a large percent of the US population spends most of its Sunday morning getting ready for and attending worship service, that the preferred hours generally occupy those folks until past noon local time, and that unlike Hooters, the local houses of worship rarely have multiple big screens all over the place.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
I love that Jr. speaks his mind, but he's off base on this one. Plenty of other televised sports don't seem to have problems starting at reasonable local times.
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NASCAR is and never will be comparable to other televised sports.
 
gnomesayin said:
I don't think it is possible to know without far more information, such as the data the TV networks have access to but isn't publicly available. The declines have been too steep overall to be able to compare the 2018 number to whenever the California race started earlier, if it ever did. What is generally known is that the overall number of TV viewers is about 1.5x higher at 5:00 PM Eastern than at 1:00 PM.

If NASCAR actually wanted to cater to California specifically, east coast races would start no earlier than 5:00 PM. Imagine that.
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Look at the ratings for the 2017 late start times that would usually start at 1pm.
 
When in Rome, talk to Romans, when in France ..................stop talking.:sarcasm:
 
ChexOrWrex said:
NASCAR is and never will be comparable to other televised sports.
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I'll grant you that in some ways. Comparing late start races to earlier ones as you suggested would take serious time to do in any productive way. You can't sensibly compare Atlanta on the weekend it airs to Sonoma, or Bristol to Phoenix and so on without accounting for many other variables.

It would take a lot more to convince me that the real experienced television people are wrong here. These aren't armchair experts making these decisions. There is a reason they schedule the Homestead finale as a later afternoon start, for instance. That has been a rare success for them in viewership terms.
 
Zerkfitting said:
Local football and baseball day games start at noon (CST). NASCAR used to follow that start time. Now I have to check a schedule and vary my usual Sunday plans. Consistency for such things is important.
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The key word in your post is 'local'. Local teams can start at the same time for every game because they're on local TV and attended by a local audience (with the TV audience being the more important one). Except for when the networks dictate the times for 'national' games, the local clubs don't care about the effects on viewers outside the local TV market. If Boston is visiting LA, the Dodgers don't care when the game airs back in Beantown.

There's nothing 'local' about a NASCAR broadcast. It's aimed at a national audience, not just the local TV market. It doesn't have an early game to lead into it or a late game following it. They have to walk a line between times acceptable to the minimal part of their audience that's in attendance and the vast majority at home on the sofa.
 
"California is our biggest fan base" is still one of the most bizarre claims that I've heard out of NASCAR.

Besides TV generally doing better the late afternoon/evening portion of the day I do have to wonder how starting your event in the midst of other events affects viewership. Are people going to want, or even remember to look, to turn away from the second half of an important basketball game? Or a big-name golfer getting to the back nine? I say this generally, not specific to Fontana (which would've started around 10 AM), but letting casuals get hooked on and invested in other events seems like it would negate any benefit you'd get just by starting when more people usually watch TV.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
I love that Jr. speaks his mind, but he's off base on this one. Plenty of other televised sports don't seem to have problems starting at reasonable local times.
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Living on the East Coast, I do think everything revolves around me, and I do get mad when western NHL/NBA/MLB postseason games start at 10 or 10:30 PM Eastern. :mad:
 
Zerkfitting said:
Local football and baseball day games start at noon (CST). NASCAR used to follow that start time. Now I have to check a schedule and vary my usual Sunday plans. Consistency for such things is important.
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Bingo


FLRacingFan said:
"California is our biggest fan base" is still one of the most bizarre claims that I've heard out of NASCAR.

Besides TV generally doing better the late afternoon/evening portion of the day I do have to wonder how starting your event in the midst of other events affects viewership. Are people going to want, or even remember to look, to turn away from the second half of an important basketball game? Or a big-name golfer getting to the back nine? I say this generally, not specific to Fontana (which would've started around 10 AM), but letting casuals get hooked on and invested in other events seems like it would negate any benefit you'd get just by starting when more people usually watch TV.
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Bingo bingo
 
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