Teams
Forum List
Toggle sidebar

NASCAR Fans

cycloneworld

cycloneworld

Facebook Knows All
Mar 20, 2006
27,522
15,684
113
Urbandale, IA
Saw this on Twitter. This is backwards from what you'd expect. The "playoffs" are the lowest rated races of the year.

BZhAytDCAAAeifi.png

Several things that would help NASCAR, in my opinion:

1. Shorter season
2. More short tracks/plate races
3. Stop trying to compete with NFL football and have more Saturday night races during the Chase (shortened season would help with this too)

Thoughts?
 
I'm not a NASCAR fan but it does seem like the season is basically going all year round.
 
9 months on, 3 months off is way too long of a season. And some of the tracks just aren't that interesting to watch races on, while many of the tracks are too similar to each other to create their own appeals. Easy solution to me is to shorten the season.
 
The hockey season is nearly as long and their viewership seems to be growing.

More night races hurts the sport overall because it competes with the small dirt tracks that race Saturday nights and hurts attendance for the Nationwide/Craftsman races. Plus Saturday night a lot of people aren't at home. I like the night races, but I think they should use them at tracks that have a higher % of rain delay so they can fall into Sunday if needed.

Too many cookie-cutter tracks. Kansas, Vegas, Texas, Chicagoland, Kentucky, Fontana - I'm a pretty avid fan and these tracks all blend together for me - I'm sure it's much worse for the casual fan! Taking races away from Darlington/Rockingham (even though I hate that place) to open up new markets was not a good move, imo. Quite a few of those tracks look absolutely empty on raceday. At the very least, knocking more of them back to 400 miles might help keep the audience's attention longer, especially in the fall when there are other sports going on.

Jimmie Johnson domination. He's one of the best competitors in any sport ever, but he's just not that exciting. I would guess that the years he's been the clear choice for champion have been lower-rated than say 2011 with Stewart and Edwards going at it. There were a lot of people who quit watching the last few races of the Chase because it became apparent that he would likely win again.

Tony Stewart being out most of this year likely hurt ratings too. He's always good entertainment and we didn't have that for over half of the season.
 
cowgirl836 said:
The hockey season is nearly as long and their viewership seems to be growing.

More night races hurts the sport overall because it competes with the small dirt tracks that race Saturday nights and hurts attendance for the Nationwide/Craftsman races. Plus Saturday night a lot of people aren't at home. I like the night races, but I think they should use them at tracks that have a higher % of rain delay so they can fall into Sunday if needed.

Too many cookie-cutter tracks. Kansas, Vegas, Texas, Chicagoland, Kentucky, Fontana - I'm a pretty avid fan and these tracks all blend together for me - I'm sure it's much worse for the casual fan! Taking races away from Darlington/Rockingham (even though I hate that place) to open up new markets was not a good move, imo. Quite a few of those tracks look absolutely empty on raceday. At the very least, knocking more of them back to 400 miles might help keep the audience's attention longer, especially in the fall when there are other sports going on.

Jimmie Johnson domination. He's one of the best competitors in any sport ever, but he's just not that exciting. I would guess that the years he's been the clear choice for champion have been lower-rated than say 2011 with Stewart and Edwards going at it. There were a lot of people who quit watching the last few races of the Chase because it became apparent that he would likely win again.

Tony Stewart being out most of this year likely hurt ratings too. He's always good entertainment and we didn't have that for over half of the season.
Click to expand...

I read the first paragraph then spent the rest of the time admiring your avatar pic
 
I dont see NASCAR ever shortening their schedule. They have to keep a lot of people with a lot of money happy and that is through the actual events themselves and also the sponsors getting on TV. If I am not mistaken, many of the tracks are owned by a few amount of groups and they cant fill their stands the way it is. I think, even if you cut the events down the amount of spectators at the events are not going to increase. NASCAR in general is dying out in my opinion. I read in an article somewhere that we are starting to see a transition back towards the grassroots dirt track guys which makes me happy. I gave up 2 season tickets at Newton because of my involvement(crew member) at the local dirt tracks here in IA. As a fan, you can get more involved on that level by going in the pits and talking with drivers and seeing the fights instead of missing 98% of that stuff by watching a race 5 states away on TV.
 
Need to change up tracks. Like cowgirl said, too many tracks that are essentially the same.

Also, I think they should change up the tracks that are part of the chase every year. I think that would help increase viewers as well.

Plus, add Iowa speedway.

One last thing, if you notice, when they go to restrictor plate tracks, views spike, along with a couple older, historic tracks (Martinsville, Bristol). Maybe try to get to some of those.
 
cowgirl836 said:
The hockey season is nearly as long and their viewership seems to be growing.

More night races hurts the sport overall because it competes with the small dirt tracks that race Saturday nights and hurts attendance for the Nationwide/Craftsman races. Plus Saturday night a lot of people aren't at home. I like the night races, but I think they should use them at tracks that have a higher % of rain delay so they can fall into Sunday if needed.

Too many cookie-cutter tracks. Kansas, Vegas, Texas, Chicagoland, Kentucky, Fontana - I'm a pretty avid fan and these tracks all blend together for me - I'm sure it's much worse for the casual fan! Taking races away from Darlington/Rockingham (even though I hate that place) to open up new markets was not a good move, imo. Quite a few of those tracks look absolutely empty on raceday. At the very least, knocking more of them back to 400 miles might help keep the audience's attention longer, especially in the fall when there are other sports going on.

Jimmie Johnson domination. He's one of the best competitors in any sport ever, but he's just not that exciting. I would guess that the years he's been the clear choice for champion have been lower-rated than say 2011 with Stewart and Edwards going at it. There were a lot of people who quit watching the last few races of the Chase because it became apparent that he would likely win again.

Tony Stewart being out most of this year likely hurt ratings too. He's always good entertainment and we didn't have that for over half of the season.
Click to expand...

This is dead on. I pretty much quit watching when Tony went out and I would have watched some of the final races if it would have been somebody but Johnson in the lead. He is just way to boring to be an interesting champion.
 
What is wrong with NASCAR:

1. ****** off loyal fan base by chasing "normal" fans
2. Ovals
3. Cars that look all the same
4. Terrible announcers
5. Same people win all the time
6. Too many young hot shot dudes
7. No more fist fights
8. Cars that don't wreck
9. No more bump and run


Primary 2 reasons:
1. forgot that it is a sport built out of the Southeast US, and tried to take the sport west, and built a whole bunch of boring oval tracks, LV, KC, Chicago, CA, etc. In the process, a lot of loyal fans were alienated, while not really garnering a bunch of new fans.
2. the sport used to be entertaining with different cars, different drivers, and personalities. It is basically a poor man's IRL now. Now it has gotten so high tech it is all about tire angle, etc and they are all driving the same cars. And, no one ever bumps and runs, or tries to loosen another driver, it is all so pansy.

Also, the loss of Montoya hurts them big, because they wanted to bring Latinos into the stands.
 
As stated...the too many tracks feel/look the same on tv. Boring. Also, NASCAR jumped to the big cities (for marketing purposes & $$$) and left places like Rockingham behind...those were the type of tracks that made NASCAR fun to watch.
 
cowgirl836 said:
The hockey season is nearly as long and their viewership seems to be growing.

More night races hurts the sport overall because it competes with the small dirt tracks that race Saturday nights and hurts attendance for the Nationwide/Craftsman races. Plus Saturday night a lot of people aren't at home. I like the night races, but I think they should use them at tracks that have a higher % of rain delay so they can fall into Sunday if needed.

Too many cookie-cutter tracks. Kansas, Vegas, Texas, Chicagoland, Kentucky, Fontana - I'm a pretty avid fan and these tracks all blend together for me - I'm sure it's much worse for the casual fan! Taking races away from Darlington/Rockingham (even though I hate that place) to open up new markets was not a good move, imo. Quite a few of those tracks look absolutely empty on raceday. At the very least, knocking more of them back to 400 miles might help keep the audience's attention longer, especially in the fall when there are other sports going on.

Jimmie Johnson domination. He's one of the best competitors in any sport ever, but he's just not that exciting. I would guess that the years he's been the clear choice for champion have been lower-rated than say 2011 with Stewart and Edwards going at it. There were a lot of people who quit watching the last few races of the Chase because it became apparent that he would likely win again.

Tony Stewart being out most of this year likely hurt ratings too. He's always good entertainment and we didn't have that for over half of the season.
Click to expand...

It's interesting you mention this. I was talking to a friend who is a huge hockey fan and we were discussing how great last season was being shortened. Every point meant so much more. But in the end, weather you play 20 home games or 40 home games, your costs are pretty much the same. So the 82 game season is there because you need those extra 20 home games to actually make the sport profitable. 20 games, 20,000/game and all the stuff they would have bought at the game, that's a lot of revenue left on the table last year.

My guess is NASCAR is pretty similar to that. Without being on TV 40 times a year, they can't justify the cost to sponsors. And in the end, their costs are probably about the same. If they weren't racing, they'd probably be testing, so they are spending that money no matter what. So in that case, I think the only way they cut the season shorter, is if the sport completely tanks and TV stops carrying the races.
 
twistedredbird said:
What is wrong with NASCAR:

1. ****** off loyal fan base by chasing "normal" fans
2. Ovals
3. Cars that look all the same
4. Terrible announcers
5. Same people win all the time
6. Too many young hot shot dudes
7. No more fist fights
8. Cars that don't wreck
9. No more bump and run
Click to expand...

Agree with most. Except ratings at the road courses would say that people aren't any more interested in road racing over ovals (personally, I am).

My biggest complaint lately is that once racing get single file, it's essentially a parade and EXTREMELY boring to watch.

AIBClone said:
I dont see NASCAR ever shortening their schedule. They have to keep a lot of people with a lot of money happy and that is through the actual events themselves and also the sponsors getting on TV. If I am not mistaken, many of the tracks are owned by a few amount of groups and they cant fill their stands the way it is. I think, even if you cut the events down the amount of spectators at the events are not going to increase. NASCAR in general is dying out in my opinion. I read in an article somewhere that we are starting to see a transition back towards the grassroots dirt track guys which makes me happy. I gave up 2 season tickets at Newton because of my involvement(crew member) at the local dirt tracks here in IA. As a fan, you can get more involved on that level by going in the pits and talking with drivers and seeing the fights instead of missing 98% of that stuff by watching a race 5 states away on TV.
Click to expand...

I agree with you and with NASCAR's new TV deal with FOX, there is 0% chance anything changes.

I don't understand the hate for Jimmie Johnson (other than he wins all of the time). He is no more boring than 90% of the drivers like Edwards, Gordon, Jr, etc. There are only a few drivers that are different than him (Keselowski, Busch, Stewart) IMO.
 
twistedredbird said:
What is wrong with NASCAR:

1. ****** off loyal fan base by chasing "normal" fans
Click to expand...

that is huge as well. NASCAR is a sport that is not very easy for a casual fan to fall into, and that's what they tried to do by putting all those races in new markets. I don't think the loss of traditional fans (that would spend the money going to multiple race weekends a year) was outweighed by the gain of fans in those new markets.

I also don't think the Gen 6 car passes very well and seems to suck in traffic. Too many races came down to track position and it's not a ton of fun to watch them run in the same order for the last 50 laps. Unless, of course, there is a "debris" caution.
 
People like to hate a winner and while I'm not a Jimmie fan - he's NOT boring to watch. He's not going to be the hothead to get into a fight or trash a guy in front of the camera - I guess some consider that boring. Not all drivers need to be overly passionate (not an issue) or giant ******** like KyleB.
 
Ideas to fix Nascar.

1) Limit teams to 2 cars only
2) Constructors championship (this would replace the drivers championship)
3) Due to the long season, have different competitions throughout the year, short track cup, plate cup etc...(this would be the competition for the drivers)
4) NASCARs are made for Oval racing, but for god sakes get rid of some of those 1.5 mile ovals, or do something to spice those races up.
5) Dirt track racing, a little would go along way, maybe 2 races a year.

If they would go to the small cup competitions, I think that could enhance the sport tremendously. Imagine going into the last short track race of the year, the short track cup is on the line. Brad Keslowski is 2 points ahead of Kyle Busch, that would be must see tv. They might kill each other!
 
Hockey has benefited from some popular teams (like the Blackhawks) being good as well.

If some of the crusty old dudes of NASCAR would start winning it would help. But, NASCAR became all about the young guns(Bushes, Logano, etc), which fans don't care for.

Heck, I fell out of my chair when some of my longtime friends who were avid Jeff Gordon haters back in the day were happy he won a race this year and sent me "I'm happy for your guy" texts, etc. Tells me the fans are sort of jonesing for some tradition.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Help Support Us

Become a patron
Top Bottom