NASCAR TV ratings decline, but younger viewers on increase

Viewers from college
dormitories account for some of the gain in audience.

SPORTING NEWS NASCAR WIRE SERVICE

NASCAR’s television ratings have continued to decline this year despite the promotional push of ESPN and a news-filled four-plus months of racing, but network executives are encouraged by gains in the younger demographics.

Fox reported a 7 percent improvement (3.1 rating from 2.9) in the male 18-34 demo on its Nextel Cup broadcasts, and ESPN2’s coverage of the Busch Series has produced a 2 percent increase (182,827 viewers from 179,446) for that group on cable.

David Hill, CEO of Fox Sports, said this is the first year Nielsen is incorporating out-of-home viewing in its numbers, and he thinks viewers from college dormitories account for some of the gain.

“This is the first accurate snapshot of what college kids are watching,” Hill said. “And they’re watching NASCAR. The households might be down a tad, but what you’re looking for is what’s happening with the younger audience. The good news is, unbelievably, that we’re looking at more future growth for this sport. Show me another sport that’s growing like that among younger viewers.”

Average viewers down

Fox’s average number of viewers on nine Nextel Cup races was down 9.1 percent (9.71 million viewers vs. 10.68 million) overall compared with nine comparable races from 2006, and its rating suffered a 10 percent drop (5.8 vs. 6.4). That’s a slightly steeper decline than last year’s 7 percent drop for Fox’s entire package of races.

Three of Fox’s races were rained out this year. Two were moved from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon and a third was broadcast on a Monday.

Looking beyond the year-to-year data, Hill said the bigger picture still shows growth, as evidenced by NASCAR’s 5.2 network rating in 2000.

“People are going to look back at the start of this century and say that’s where NASCAR began to establish itself and moved on to rival the NFL and college football,” he said. “I can remember when we first started selling NASCAR and we were telling prospective advertisers that it was going to be as big as the NBA. And now the NASCAR numbers are tripling what the NBA did during the regular season.”

Still strong number

For the most part, analysts didn’t express surprise with the decline and said that Fox’s 5.8 average rating still represents a strong number when nearly every sport is dealing with a drop. Overall prime-time TV viewing is down 11 percent year over year across the networks, one media buyer said.

“I don’t see any alarms ringing yet,” said Larry Novenstern, executive vice president for media buying agency Optimedia. “NASCAR’s ratings have grown exponentially for several years. A downturn is inevitable.”

Media buyers also say they haven’t experienced any negative feedback from sponsors concerning the ratings. Then again, most of the sponsors on the broadcast also have an investment somewhere on the track.