I had heard at some point in the past that the sport of "auto racing" (in general) was in some peril.
Tickets not being sold. Ratings down. General lack of interest. Etc.
Apparently, over the last 2-3 years, NASCAR has really been struggling.
From earlier in 2019:
If you follow sports or even just business news, you’d be hard-pressed not to see all the stories out there about NASCAR's dramatic fall in popularity over the past decade. From its height in 2005, America’s second largest sport has lost over 50 percent of its audience at live events and online.
NASCAR’s representatives and racing teams have chalked up this loss to everything from changing audience dynamics to schedule changes, all the while ensuring their sponsors (the life blood of the sport) that audiences are still there and engaged. Analysts attribute the loss to an overly long schedule, a misguided car redesign in 2007 that lowered the number of deadly but often exciting crashes and newer online entrants competing for audiences’ entertainment time and dollar.
(https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/325850)
But it sounds like things might be turning-around...... a little:
NASCAR and Fox probably won’t be staging any confetti-strewn Victory Lane celebrations over another television ratings decline, but they do have reason to be encouraged with the numbers they are seeing lately. The sport looks as if it is in neutral, which is better than in reverse.
Nine of 36 Cup races have been run this season, all on the Fox networks. Six of those nine were broadcast as scheduled in 2018 and 2019 on Fox, so here is an apples-to-apples comparison. The 2019 total: 31.11 million viewers. The 2018 total: 31.28 million viewers.
That is merely a 1% loss in viewership, hardly anything. Three 2019 races carried on Fox saw ratings decreases of 5% or less from 2018, but three had increases of 6% or less. The Daytona 500, the sport’s biggest race, this year had a 5.31 rating, compared with a 5.33 rating in 2018.
Now, of course, here is the giant asterisk: The number of viewers for those same six races, all on Fox, was 39.64 million in 2017 and 50.1 million in 2015. So the 2019 viewership number still represents a 21% drop from 2017 and a 38% drop from 2015.
(https://www.forbes.com/sites/davecaldwell/2019/04/17/the-drop-in-nascars-tv-numbers-has-slowed-dramatically/)
I am part of that "loss in viewership". Use to watch 60-75% of races; now, I hardly blink an eye if I miss one.
Just have more exciting things to do, I guess.
Grace & Peace & Love to you all -
Matt
Tickets not being sold. Ratings down. General lack of interest. Etc.
Apparently, over the last 2-3 years, NASCAR has really been struggling.
From earlier in 2019:
If you follow sports or even just business news, you’d be hard-pressed not to see all the stories out there about NASCAR's dramatic fall in popularity over the past decade. From its height in 2005, America’s second largest sport has lost over 50 percent of its audience at live events and online.
NASCAR’s representatives and racing teams have chalked up this loss to everything from changing audience dynamics to schedule changes, all the while ensuring their sponsors (the life blood of the sport) that audiences are still there and engaged. Analysts attribute the loss to an overly long schedule, a misguided car redesign in 2007 that lowered the number of deadly but often exciting crashes and newer online entrants competing for audiences’ entertainment time and dollar.
(https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/325850)
But it sounds like things might be turning-around...... a little:
NASCAR and Fox probably won’t be staging any confetti-strewn Victory Lane celebrations over another television ratings decline, but they do have reason to be encouraged with the numbers they are seeing lately. The sport looks as if it is in neutral, which is better than in reverse.
Nine of 36 Cup races have been run this season, all on the Fox networks. Six of those nine were broadcast as scheduled in 2018 and 2019 on Fox, so here is an apples-to-apples comparison. The 2019 total: 31.11 million viewers. The 2018 total: 31.28 million viewers.
That is merely a 1% loss in viewership, hardly anything. Three 2019 races carried on Fox saw ratings decreases of 5% or less from 2018, but three had increases of 6% or less. The Daytona 500, the sport’s biggest race, this year had a 5.31 rating, compared with a 5.33 rating in 2018.
Now, of course, here is the giant asterisk: The number of viewers for those same six races, all on Fox, was 39.64 million in 2017 and 50.1 million in 2015. So the 2019 viewership number still represents a 21% drop from 2017 and a 38% drop from 2015.
(https://www.forbes.com/sites/davecaldwell/2019/04/17/the-drop-in-nascars-tv-numbers-has-slowed-dramatically/)
I am part of that "loss in viewership". Use to watch 60-75% of races; now, I hardly blink an eye if I miss one.
Just have more exciting things to do, I guess.
Grace & Peace & Love to you all -
Matt