After years of experiencing a free fall for their television ratings, NASCAR stopped the bleeding in 2019 as status quo could be considered a win for the sport.
Earlier this week, NBC reported its broadcast of the NASCAR Cup championship race from Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida drew an average of 3.759 million viewers. The championship race attracted the network’s biggest audience during their half broadcasting the season. Unfortunately, it still represented a decline for the same race in previous years.
In 2018, NASCAR’S championship race drew 4.154 million viewers, 4.662 million in 2017 and 6.1 million in 2016. Those totals equate to a 10% decline in one year, 19% in two years, 38% in three years, and according to Forbes, a massive 51% drop from 2015.
The good news? Overall, NBC’s NASCAR ratings remained steady from 2018 even with declining championship race coverage. According to NBC, season viewership averages for their 18 races in 2019 (not including weather-affected races at Daytona and Darlington) stayed at 2.57 million, which was equal to last year.
The first half of NASCAR’S season, broadcast on FOX, enjoyed a ratings increase for the 2019 season. FOX broadcasts averaged 4.07 million viewers, a small increase from the 3.98 million in 2018. The 2019 viewership number for those races is still down 17 percent from their TV ratings in 2017. FOX averaged significantly more viewers than NBC, but the first half of the racing schedule is not challenged by football.
NASCAR’S new president, Steve Phelps was satisfied with the sport’s 2019 season, focusing on the quality of the product.
“If you look at the results — I start with the competition always — our competition right now on the intermediate tracks and the superspeedways, I believe, is the best racing we’ve ever seen. I’ll start with myself as a fan,” Phelps said. “I love watching and am super excited when we get to the intermediate tracks and superspeedways, the type of racing we are going to see.”
One recent positive for NASCAR is the vote of confidence they received from Michael Jordan. If sports’ fans want to be like Mike, they’ll start taking an interest in racing.
“I’m a big race fan. Started off when I was a kid and I grew up watching [Dale Earnhardt], Richard Petty [and] Cale Yarborough was an original 11 that I remember,” Jordan said. “Now I’m good friends with Denny Hamlin and we go way back. He’s a season ticket holder at the Hornets, and I spend a lot of time playing golf with him and obviously I’m a big NASCAR fan, so I came out to support him.
The 2020 NASCAR season begins next February on FOX, where broadcasts will continue through June 14. NBC controls the NASCAR broadcast schedule from June 21 until the championship race Nov. 8. For the first time in nearly two decades, Homestead-Miami Speedway will not serve as the final race of the NASCAR season.
Brandon Contes is a freelance writer for BSM. He can be found on Twitter @BrandonContes. To reach him by email click here