The much-delayed Daytona 500 was seen by a total audience of over 36.5 million Americans, according to the initial national ratings issued today by Nielsen Media Research, but the NASCAR season-opener averaged only 13.7 million, which was a long way down on last year’s rating of 15.6m and only just ahead of the much delayed 2010 race, when potholes formed at the track, and the average figure was 13.3m
There was rain too in 2009 which meant a rating of 15.9m, which was a long way down on the 2008 figure of 17.7m.
It is hard to know whether the numbers are significant but it is still not good news for NASCAR.
It probably did not help that several fan favourites went out in a crash on the second lap, notably Jimmie Johnson and Danica Patrick.
I believe that the Management of NASCAR anticipated the lower viewership, after the rain out on Sunday. The rain is their worst enemy when it comes to holding one of these NASCAR events.
Isn’t a bit early to draw conclusions about the season ahead, or the health of Nascar, based on one race? An excellent New York Times article this week highlighted some of the economic contraction taking place in Nascar today. However, that doesn’t make Nascar different from any other racing series. Brad Keselowski’s tweet from inside the cockpit of his car during the delay caused an overnight sensation. 100,000 twitter users followed him that night. At least on an anecdotal level, the Nascar juggernaut hardly seems to be stopping. It might be a little frayed at the edges, but it is still grabbing the American public’s attention in grand fashion.
Who is drawing conclusions?
“it is still not good news for NASCAR.”? I read that to mean you are saying that Daytona viewership numbers are some kind of portend for the season writ large. Maybe I misunderstood the statement.
No, but Daytona ratings are important.
The Twit number I heard was just over 50,000 and they could have all been at the race.
I think not:
http://gizmodo.com/5889019/how-twitter-took-over-nascar
Frankly I would have expected a ratings bump UP, as American Monday night TV is a wasteland, cable or otherwise.
A perfect viewing opportunity, 7:00 p.m. and later, much like Monday night football when in season.
I think NASCAR’s declining viewership are a trend based on sliding loss of interest. American’s may be over NASCAR much as they have gotten over Indy car.
What a marketing opportunity for F1!!
As a Yank I can tell you that EVERY night is a wasteland on TV, which is why I don’t watch it anymore. NASCAR is boring, technologically challenged, good old boyish, and not my cup of tea. I watch F1 on BBC broadcasts on the interwebs; I can’t stand commercials and have always liked the British coverage, especially when Murray Walker was doing the boradcast. Unfortunately, the feeds are being blocked by F1 and it is getting very difficult to find a stream. The Sky/BBC deal doesn’t make this season look very hopeful re good coverage, so what’s a Yank to do? F1 is missing some great opportunities here. I would pay (a reasonable amount) money to be able to get coverage, especially if there were options to pick cameras, etc. Get with it, Bernie!
SteveH this http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/the-tata-formula-one-deal/ my help you in the mid term
SteveH, no access to SPEED wherever you may be? Can’t compare watching F1 on my computer monitor compared to my large screen TV. And no, my TV is not internet compatible. Next iteration will be
I only knew the race was to start at 7:00 pm because of I subscribe to this blog. Unless I watched the local Fox television station during Monday afternoon, I would have not known the race was being run yesterday evening (and on into the dark hours of today).
I don’t watch NASCAR but stayed up until after 1AM watching. It’s more demolition derby that racing but that’s what the series is going after these days. You can’t pass with the new cars…you have a wide open oval track but a parade of cars in single file like in Monaco. Those watching are doing so for the carnage, not the racing. How long til Melbourne?
Slightly off topic, but only slightly…
What do you think of holding some F1 races on Saturday evenings? Especially some European races.
Spanish GP at 7pm local on a Sat night for example?
What does one gain from this? At the moment people know what time to tune in on most occasions and that is not a bad thing. Such changes would need some very careful thought. Also one has to think about the other timezones. What time is it in Asia? 4am. Not smart.
“At the moment people know what time to tune in on most occasions”
Not sure about that. Here a GP could be on sometime between 2 AM and 2 PM. Consequence of a global sport. There are arguments to Joe’s (Cowan) point but predictability ain’t one, I think.
Most races start at 2pm local time so it’s quite easy to know when it will be broadcast.
Ah, but in the good ole USA which F1 is apparently so keen to break into, it’s somewhere between 10am and 2pm (by timezone) on Saturday, rather than between 5am and 9am on Sunday morning.
Saward makes a valid point that it’s sensible that *most* races have a roughly consistent start time – though I admit to being faintly against pushing the start time around outside Europe for the sake of European TV audiences (looking at you, Australia and Singapore).
Cowan misses a trick though in not asking the same question of racing on *Sunday* evening. Difficult for trackside personnel, especially travelling fans, but from what I’ve seen of F1, travelling fans are a very low priority.
Of course, rebutting my own point, if you are part of the “travelling circus” then it is all very very routine isn’t it. And with all the massive logistics involved a shift could be chaotic. In contrast one year, for a championship ender / decider, we took a nap then got up at 2AM Sunday, broke out the beer / wine, and watched as if routine. Then slept.
The NFL has had Monday Night Football for ages. One thing that did, and perhaps Daytona did this, is expose the sport to non-routine watchers. I wouldn’t normally spend a Sunday afternoon watching football but would occasionally spend a couple of hours on Monday night. At least when it was on free-to-air TV.
Granted, I’m not sure that it would actually achieve anything. But… maybe the Sunday race tradition is getting old.
It’s food for thought, and if races already did happen on Saturday’s or Sunday evenings already then it would be taken for granted.
Silverstone at 7pm on a Sunday evening? Or 7:30pm on a Wednesday evening in July…?
Theres too many reasons, namely that Saturday has people doing a number of things, such as Working, watching other sports (football is on all through the day all over the European continent) and that people go out, esspecially at night.
Sunday is the best day, allows for the biggest possible audience which is what is essentially what its all about.
The drop in viewers likely relates to demographics, the north american population is aging. The “baby boom” generation drove the expansion of NASCAR the last 20 years and the last of them are now in their 50′s. When we were young there was nothing cooler then cars for most boys, today fewer of the younger generations have an interest in racing.
Think there will be some hurriedly made plans for Monday night racing!
I doubt that NASCAR would want to go head to head with two of the juggernauts of American sport, Monday night football and WWE’s Monday night RAW. I have a feeling that there are many fans who have overlapping interest in these sports.
-T.R
If I wanted to read about NASCAR, I wouldn’t be coming to a website which
claims it is about F1.
Given that the current attitude of Saward the cock-gobbler is that the opinions
of his readers do not matter, I won’t be wasting any more of my very valuable
time reading this trash.
Now, excuse me while I delete the bookmark for the site from my files.
Normally I would not post such a comment, but occasionally it is good to show the other readers some of the things that I have to put up with when running this blog. I did try to reply to you privately, using the email you gave, but inevitably when it comes to those who write insults, it was a fake address, because you do not want to be held accountable for your comments. This is what I replied.
Thank you for your display of rudeness. It was not very intelligent, firstly because I have the ability to stop it being published and secondly because, as a result of using such offensive words, I have little or no interest in your opinion. You are quite entitled to your opinions but only if you express them in a civilised fashion. If you had argued politely I would have been more impressed and more likely to accept your point of view. Hence you have achieved the opposite to what you intended.
A remark or action intended as an insult but not registered or experienced as one by its target, can hardly be said to constitute an insult. I am confident enough in my masculinity not to care if you (or anyone) calls me a “cock-gobbler”. Someone who writes such a thing is merely trying to portray the person being insulted as being somehow inferior, often because they themselves have deep-rooted feelings of insecurity. Freud said that those who question other people’s sexuality are usually trying to hide their own latent homosexuality and I tend to agree with that.
Best wishes
Joe the Cock-Gobbler
That one, above, actually got to me. My direct reply to it would have been almost equally vile, and I can turn a phrase, particularly in insult to the intellectual indigent. But maybe there’s a way to post these as the alter-blog, as clearly there must be an outlet for this vitriol and hatred towards Joe. It’s needed, obviously. Forget the content, let’s go for page views and ad impressions. Maybe in the comments section of the latest Daily Mail churnalist provocation. Maybe in the un-moderated or moderated and biased comments somewhere else, I would not know, I don’t look and have not looked, have not been tempted in a long while, save to skim a headline, in a decade. (yeah, Joe, you were late to this thing!)
N. Omad. was particularly choice, in insulting readers and all others here to take a wipe at JS. Obviously not paid any attention. I feel so sorry for his bother to “delete the bookmark”, because the poor thing should not have bookmarked this website in the first place. I feel for the cost of electricity to switch the bits to zero, but surely that number is in keeping with the value of the tone.
Yeah, being sensitive a little today. Not proxy for Joe’s feeling at all. Just had the usual crap trying to hire a hard core bunch of sales guys, otherwise capable, which means listening to hours of “your idea is shit” from a biunch who couldn’t tell you a ink weight from a stoch screen – geez I just got told last night how some of these wonderfuls were doing 12 color inked magazines . . so I bloody well listed the presses that can finish that in europe, a rather short list. Spare me getting started on rights I bought to a famous book going into 250th year next year, no, happy to see them tap out all the crap talk haggle first, I’ll set the rates, thanks.
I don’t mind being partisan, because that’s what I am. Actually, seeing the above made me feel just a bit better this morning. Whoever that was can go gobble what they like. Don’t have one of their own.
Joe, that’s hilarious. People get so mad over the smallest things. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
N.Omad right now is rushing through the collected work of Freud looking for clues to their life! Way to put this hostile fool in their place. It’s a strange and scary world, why people take such offence from an Excellent Service that you provide for free which is voluntary to visit is really not rational and sad insight on people. We’re talking about car racing here people – find a real cause to get upset about. Anyone who gets as upset as this guy over car racing commentary needs to shut of their computer and go out into the real world, you’ve bugged out.
Lastly, Omad go up to someone at the Local Pub and speak to them that way and see what kind of intelligent dialogue you can get into. I have a feeling it would be very short and you would put Usain Bolt to shame in the 100 yd dash
Joe, out of curiosity what percentage of your readership would this fine Gent represent?
Thankfully, a small group. But there is a constant annoying trickle which sometimes wears the patience thin.
It should be pointed out that because Fox had the NA$CAR race Monday night, it doubled the ratings it usually gets with “House” and “Alcatraz” and scored a rare Monday win. It wasn’t the highest rated show though. (source: Jayski website, which lifted it from tvline).
This is strictly anecdotal but lots of times I get my information about what’s on TV by checking the “grid” of channels my cable provider puts on its “menu” button. They didn’t have the race when I checked at 655PM, they had the regular programming (i.e. a “Simpsons” episode).
I think it is far too early to draw conclusions based on a rain and accident delayed race that saw a lot of fan favorites as Patrick, Johnson and Jeff Gordon leave early (along with a series villain Kurt Busch). But my guess is that it turned out as well as it could under the circumstances.
Also the TV ratings for Saturday’s Nationwide NA$CAR race were up 37% and set a record for cable tv races, due to Danica Patrick winning the pole. It is also felt that Monday’s track attendance was very good, considering a lot of fans were from out of town and ESPN’s Ryan McGee reports many local hotels raised their rates when they realized Sunday’s race was postponed (the Marriott where many writers stay tripled its rates).
For me, here in the Eastern US, the Monday PM time worked out well. It avoided the loss of a big chunk of free time on the weekend.
The race itself seemed to lack rhythm initially, and losing Jimmie Johnson, Danica Patrick plus last year’s popular winner Trevor Bayne did not help. But the Montoya crash was both horrifying and fascinating-after learning nobody was hurt seriously. How strange a thing to see in a motor race. I have to admit, out came my tablet to tune into Keselowski’s tweets and to catch up on comments from around the world on the Autosport forum. The crash has become a national sensation here, getting air time even on the celebrity gossip show TMZ.
It could have turned out a lot worse for NASCAR.
It would be interesting to see somekind of big feature event in F1 like an Indy or a Daytona 500. Perhaps a one off chance for teams to enter a third car and run sprint races instead of qualifying.
Of course my only tenuous rational for such a suggestion is that it might be interesting for us F1 fans.
Most interesting part of the Monday’s race was Juan Pablo Montoya’s effort at imitating Fireball Roberts. Don’t know how many of Joe’s readers got to view the youtube version but it’s worth a look.
Jet fuel and grinding sheet metal do not a good combination make!
Bernie would be glad to get such a “poor” share for his US F1 races. Face it, NASCAR has reached a plateau and must come up with new ideas to gain viewership, but they are definitely NOT in a bad place. Ok, the racing is somewhat boring with everyone so close on setups, drivers being “good” instead of “bad” but they are ACCESSIBLE! You can easily watch the start, check up on the race and then catch the last 40 laps or so and it seems you won’t miss much. But Daytona proved that wrong. Even all the stick and ball commentators weighed in (and thought they knew what they were talking about) about the delay. safety, the fire, etc. It’s too early to call on NASCAR.
My apologies if this has already been covered – I couldn’t see anything in here at a quick glance – but are Nielsen ratings actually worth anything any more? I know they cover live+24 and occasionally take into account 3 & 5 days after the event, but they don’t count any other country except the US (we got full coverage of the race in Canada but don’t factor into the figures). Nor do they count anything streamed, or downloaded (not necessarily applicable in this case).
The fact is the actual attendance at NASCAR events is the sort of thing many sports elsewhere in the world can only dream of. Their marketing re-defines the word impressive. Their following is loyal in a way only Soccer fans can comprehend. Not to discount the size of the viewership, but the viewing figures should probably be seen as a “nice-to-have” bonus.
My opinion is that we as F1 fans and Bernie in particular should be looking at the business of NASCAR for inspiration, not TV ratings.