As of this video’s release the TV numbers for the 2023 Daytona 500 have been released and unfortunately once again they are down from the previous year. So today with that knowledge in hand we are going to look at it and the surrounding information around it from Speedweek and see if NASCAR is in any kind of big trouble or if it is only a small problem that can be managed over time. So does the Daytona 500 have a ratings problem? A closer look.
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31 comments
Do you think NASCAR has a problem with Daytona viewership being down?
As a lifelong Nascar fan, it’s Stale, seen it before, nothing new, seen this racing for 20 years now. Predictable chaos at the end. There’s something not special about it anymore.
Yes, and I posted a lengthy comment about why. They’re all reasons nobody seems to be talking about.
Nascar has basically become IROC.
@Josh Huffine IROC Lite. They don’t have the best drivers from all disciplines. Hell, they don’t even have the best drivers in stock car racing
@Ethan Donahue I agree!!
This isn’t the first time the 500 had down ratings before.
Ratings go up and down. Things happen. It ain’t the end of the world, folks.
Agreed, couldn’t have described it myself better.
It’s hardly down. Could just be more people watched at someone else’s house. Your so right.
Plus who knows if they look at how many people go to the bars and watch it.
The question is if less people are watching throughout the year. Then, NASCAR will really have to look deep inside themselves to figure out what the issue is *COUGH* Fox Sports and their crappy broadcasts *COUGH* and fix it.
The other thing you have to remember is last year had that shiny new toy feel with the next gen car, the uncertainty and hype it created and I think some of those who tuned in last year, was solely for that
not to mention the bad publicity from the end of last year could have turned people away after that initial hype.
@Thomas Franco I have heard a lot of trash talking on this next gen from 2022.
Jimmie Johnson has returned to the Cup, as both a Team Owner, and a driver; driving the #84 car.
You make some great points. I guess I’m in the diehard fan group. I have to be honest, finding someone to talk NASCAR and about the previous weeks race is few and far between where I live.
less people were watching TV overall probably because they were doing other stuff due to it being unseasonably warm outside. can’t beat a mid 70’s weekend in the middle of the winter
more like people had to pick up a 2nd or 3rd job just to maybe survive thanks to the idiot in DC and the bankers at the fed royally screwing the nation up.
I can’t say for anyone else, but here’s maybe a thought. I had other plans on Sunday during the 500, so I couldn’t watch it, but I have a Amazon Fire Stick, which with Fox allows me to watch shows after they’re done. So at midnight I watched the 500, and those views don’t count towards the final tally. So maybe the viewer ship isn’t going down, it’s just people are not watching during the allocated time
I’ve said in the past for NASCAR’s biggest race and most watched race, there should be as few commercials as possible for this 1 event every year. The Indy 500 goes side by side more than full screen ads. Why not the Daytona 500?
I wonder how many people now watch on streams rather than on tv for the interactive nature of them. That could be playing a role as well.
Less and less people are watching cable or tv in general, and instead are watching streams, watching highlights or watching on youtube.
Using television and livestreaming is the way forward. The next contract needs to open up that market for them, so they can either stream it on youtube or through a streaming service in general given that all the networks now have them.
3 things to note about why the ratings went down
#1. Fox’s awful coverage and obsession with commercials
#2. 2022 had the next-gen car hype to boost it, unlike 2023.
#3. Apparently, people in dozens of markets weren’t able to watch the race cause of a dispute between Dish Network, Direct TV, and Fox. Of what I’ve found so far, Jacksonville was the biggest market for NASCAR that’s been affected by it. Will update if more is found.
Not saying that ratings would have been up had these factors not been in play, but considering them, an 8% drop is far from the worst news NASCAR ratings have seen in recent years. Especially considering the other races at Daytona for the weekend were up.
I live in Jacksonville and have DirectTV, had no issues watching it live.
I usually watch the race uploads on the NASCAR YouTube channel. I wish they had another live viewing alternative, hopefully with a lot less or no commercials.
It is worth noting that the highlights were in the top 3 on trending on YT, which I don’t believe was the case last year, so that’s a positive. That being said, I think the excessive commercial breaks also contributed a lot to the downed ratings.
It would be cool if nascar do something like the indycar free streaming for countries where is not available to see or have partial coverage, i think a lot of european racing fans would start to see nascar
One thing that hurt the ratings in my view was the fact that the NBA All Star Game was taking place at the same time the race was ending which took away the regular sports fan because they flipped over to TNT to see the start of that. However this year’s NBA All Star Game drew the lowest TV ratings in the history of the event mainly because there was zero defense being played & showed that the NBA only really draws its biggest ratings during the playoffs, not during the regular season & especially not for the All Star Game. The NBA has a much bigger ratings problem with its All Star Game than NASCAR does with the Daytona 500 in my view though Fox really needs to eliminate commercials from its broadcasts because it doesn’t help NASCAR gain an audience when the race is interrupted by commercials every 10 minutes.
The Xfinity races are mostly MORE interesting when there are NO cup drivers! The Daytona Xfinity was far more exciting!
Just a (probably dumb) theory: Could “Race for the Championship” been like a testing thing for a potential streaming service? Because barely anyone watched that despite a lot of people claiming they would watch it, and they might think that nobody will sign up for a streaming service. NASCAR Raceview was ahead of its time, and I can imagine not many older folks really signed up for it. For company that constantly just goes and implements bad decisions, they sure are constantly scared/hesitant to make good ones
Also, less people watched the 2022 Championship Race compared to the 2021 edition despite it getting worldwide media attention from the Hail Melon, so there’s that as well
Do you know if these ratings numbers include viewers from other countries? I watched the entire race here in Ontario Canada on TSN1 (Bell Fibe TV ch1401).
Do the statistics include international viewership?
I think there’s a lot to be taken from the decrease, and I also think you’re doing some framing of your own here. Firstly, the attendance at Daytona is definitely not up as far as Cup goes. Sure, they call it a sellout, but they also sold 10k tickets to SeatGeek to resell at inflated prices. And this is after they removed 65,000 seats. There were more people at the ’98 Pepsi 400 than Sundays Daytona 500- that’s just a fact. The other series, I mean they were sparsely attended. I don’t care if the trucks had the biggest turnout since 2011, it was dismal. This is a series that used to draw 70k at Daytona, it was probably 15k this year. And Nascar has some what they can to kill attendance. I’ve lived in Daytona for 29 years. There has been a massive lack of buzz around this event the past 8 or 9 years. Part of that is having the short weekend, the clash being elsewhere, etc.. Fans used to come And camp out and stay in town for 8-10 days. They’ve got that down to about 3-4 now. There’s no longer any events with drivers at Riverfront park, the Bandshell, etc. Honestly, big event these days seems to be the DirtCar Nationals, maybe even the World Series of Asphalt. They sustain crowds for 2 weeks.
On a larger note, Nascar is heading down the same path as Open wheel racing did 25 years ago, and I don’t mean a split. Nascar thinks it’s too big to fail. Attendance has been dropping, just as happened with IndyCar/CART. And for the same reasons. They don’t listen to the drivers or fans, and instead tell us what is exciting. The business model is not sustainable, as we’ve heard Jr. talk about. The next TV package will likely be for a ton less money. Because while the ratings may not have dropped a lot, it’s still a drop. Networks have to use those numbers to sell ads, and if they can’t make as much there, they’re not paying as much. This is why you saw so many commercials on Sunday. Fox has to make it profitable. And they do that make selling more ads. It’s also hard to court new viewers with that dinosaur Mike Joy in the booth. To sum it up, what worked 20 years ago won’t work today. Nascar in making all the same mistakes that IRL, CART, and USAC made the started their decline and pushed NASCAR to the forefront in the US. They learned nothing from that.