Who brings more eyes to NASCAR? Cleetus or MJ?

I'm a big fan of Michael Jordan, but Cleetus definitely brings more eyes. As others have said, his followers already have an appreciation for cars/racing, so it's logical for a lot of them to show interest in NASCAR. If Jeff Gordon buys a soccer team, I'm not going to start watching soccer.

As far as the O'Reilly Series, I called it Busch (or BGN) for the longest time, because that's what I grew up with. By the time it became Xfinity, I had just started calling it Nationwide. So of course as soon as I get used to calling it Xfinity, the name changes again.

I still call Sonoma "Sears Point" just out of habit. I never called Rockingham "North Carolina Speedway" or Charlotte "Lowes" or California/Fontana "Auto Club" etc. And I really don't care what anyone calls anything, as long as I can understand what they are referring to.
 
Cleetus seems to bring eyes that are already here. Isn’t that just preaching to the choir? I think the question needs to be who brings the most NEW fans to the sport. I don’t have that answer but I think that is the necessary qualifier to the question. Because we need new fans. Someone who was watching football or soccer or the Fake Housewives of Idiotville last week and not watching racing to start watching racing. Just a thought so we don’t just base it on YouTube clicks or shoe sales.
 
RaceCritter said:
Cleetus seems to bring eyes that are already here. Isn’t that just preaching to the choir? I think the question needs to be who brings the most NEW fans to the sport. I don’t have that answer but I think that is the necessary qualifier to the question. Because we need new fans. Someone who was watching football or soccer or the Fake Housewives of Idiotville last week and not watching racing to start watching racing. Just a thought so we don’t just base it on YouTube clicks or shoe sales.
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IMO, NASCAR made a huge mistake by alienating their hardcore fanbase for so many years. When longtime fans got fed up and quit watching, that means their kids don't watch either, so they don't become fans.

They should focus on making another Netflix "behind the scenes" show, promote the races through people like Cleetus, ticket promos to get new fans to the track, hell, just getting some NASCAR apparel into Walmart would be a start
 
I would like to see a lot more of these docuseries about all aspects of the sport. Feature the drivers and those who contribute in other ways.
 
2 Sweet said:
When longtime fans got fed up and quit watching, that means their kids don't watch either, so they don't become fans. ... ticket promos to get new fans to the track,
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I think free O'Reilly and Truck tickets for kids does more to build new fans than any other single factor.
 
I think Nascar needs to bring in a promoter like Cleetus to bring in the pre race show entertainment myself. Pretty lame to have some lightly known band as your idea of a pre race show. They need things jumping and blowing up to bring the youngsters in. Monster trucks, motorcycles, drift cars, and never forget explosions and fire.
 
StandOnIt said:
I think Nascar needs to bring in a promoter like Cleetus to bring in the pre race show entertainment myself. Pretty lame to have some lightly known band as your idea of a pre race show. They need things jumping and blowing up to bring the youngsters in. Monster trucks, motorcycles, drift cars, and never forget explosions and fire.
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Didn't Monster try those things? I recall reading about several promo activities early in their tenure. I don't remember exact details since I wasn't going to check them out when I was at the track. People who viewed other events under its sponsorship umbrella were supposed to flock to NASCAR because of the name association. Then those promos stopped.

I'm a lousy judge of the value of promotions or sponsorship 'lifestyle' since I'm going for the racing itself. Anything else just causes more knots of people I have to push through.
 
I thought we were talking about bringing young people to the sport?

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Scaring Old People In My 1,000hp Blackwing!​

 
2 Sweet said:
IMO, NASCAR made a huge mistake by alienating their hardcore fanbase for so many years. When longtime fans got fed up and quit watching, that means their kids don't watch either, so they don't become fans.

They should focus on making another Netflix "behind the scenes" show, promote the races through people like Cleetus, ticket promos to get new fans to the track, hell, just getting some NASCAR apparel into Walmart would be a start
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Yea I agree with your point that when the old fans went away, their kids did too. I became a racing fan because of my dad. My soon to be 5 year old son will be going to his first race because he discovered the sport though me. While I don’t think the generational fandom is the whole puzzle it’s a big piece and that wasn’t cultivated when NASCAR honchos were trying to push the quintessential NASCAR narrative.
 
The evolving identity of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series points to a deeper problem that has been building for years.

In the span of about two decades, the series has cycled through multiple title sponsors. Each change comes with a new name, a new logo, a new color scheme, and a new attempt to reset how fans are supposed to see it. On paper, that is just business. In practice, it creates something much thinner than what a national racing series needs to feel like.

Because identity in sports is not built overnight. It comes from repetition, memory, and a sense that what you are watching today is connected to what you watched ten or twenty years ago. When the name keeps changing, that thread starts to fray.

Fans do not build emotional attachment to a rotating list of corporate brands. They attach to moments, drivers, rivalries, and traditions. The more the series name shifts, the harder it becomes to anchor those memories to something stable. You end up with a history that feels fragmented, like it belongs to different eras that do not quite connect.

And honestly, fans can be excused for sticking with whatever name feels natural to them. If someone still calls it by a past sponsor, that is not stubbornness. It is continuity. It is how people make sense of a sport they have followed for years. Expecting fans to constantly update their vocabulary to match the latest sponsor does not really work, especially when everyone understands that the current name is temporary too. These deals come and go. The attachment never has time to fully set in.

At a certain point, it starts to feel like fans are being asked to act as walking billboards for whatever company happens to hold the naming rights at that moment. The identity of the series becomes secondary to the branding cycle, and that is a tough way to build anything lasting.

You can see the contrast when you look at the other national series. The Cup level still feels like the Cup Series, regardless of who is attached to it. The Truck Series has its own distinct identity that has carried through different sponsorship eras. Those names mean something beyond the logo. They feel rooted.

That is what is missing here. The constant resets make it harder for this series to build its own legacy. Instead of adding chapters to a single story, it feels like starting a new one every few years.

In the long run, that comes at a cost. Not in the immediate revenue, but in the depth of connection. And in a sport that depends on generational loyalty, that connection is everything.

At the end of the day, people are going to call it whatever they want anyway. And they should. Some of us don’t feel the need to chase sponsors.

This is longer than I intended but I feel like I needed to fully explain myself.
 
Idk why they don't just call it the NASCAR [Insert title sponsor here] Grand National Series. That would be the best of both worlds; keep the title sponsor, but now the series has its own distinct identity and fans have a specific name to call it instead of having to remember the sponsor name of the week. Similar to the truck series currently, Craftsman Truck Series is perfect.
 
DaleJrFan2003 said:
Idk why they don't just call it the NASCAR [Insert title sponsor here] Grand National Series. That would be the best of both worlds; keep the title sponsor, but now the series has its own distinct identity and fans have a specific name to call it instead of having to remember the sponsor name of the week. Similar to the truck series currently, Craftsman Truck Series is perfect.
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They did.
 
I wonder about the impact of popular movies. If Days of Thunder 2 brakes big does that translate into 500k new fans?
 
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