Daytona 500 tv ratings

[jakez4ut]

I was just watching PTI, and apparently the Daytona 500 had over 37,000,000 viewers this past Sunday....that's more than 3 of the 4 World Series games last season, and more than the NBA finals got total....

Interesting i thought....

 

[GAVol]

Got to hand it to NASCAR. They've done a heck of a job of marketing their sport and moving it from a regional to a national fan base.

 

[jakez4ut]

yeah, i wonder how this plays out the rest of the year though....

when what's his name came out and called out the "southeastern red neck image" that he wants to get rid of....wonder if any of those old time red neck fans, the ones that got Nascar where it is today, will drop off the viewership....

to me it's doubtful, and the way it's growing, they won't need that viewership or patronage at the tracks much longer.....new audiences, with more money.....

 

[VolunteerHillbilly]

The "new" NASCAR fan base is not going to be there for the long haul. Look at L.A. 10 million people and can't even hold down an NFL team because people get bored if you don't win the Super Bowl every year. Same thing in a lot of the areas where NASCAR has been expanding. It's the flavor of the week in a lot of places but it just won't last.

 

[tidwell]

The Hillbilly is right.

 

[GAVol]

The "new" NASCAR fan base is not going to be there for the long haul. Look at L.A. 10 million people and can't even hold down an NFL team because people get bored if you don't win the Super Bowl every year. Same thing in a lot of the areas where NASCAR has been expanding. It's the flavor of the week in a lot of places but it just won't last.

It may be a fad, but I think it's tough to compare NASCAR to a team sport since a race is more of a once a year type event that draws more regionally. As long as the TV ratings stay high, it won't matter if anybody shows up at the races or not.

 

[vols2345]

I watched it, it was pretty good. still dont have a racer to follow, might be kurt bush now that he drives the 2 car....

 

[VolunteerHillbilly]

I agree with you on the TV ratings thing GAvol, but the problem for track operators is how do you make $$$ the 51 weeks out of the year when you have no NASCAR. Probably, at some of the older tracks that have long been paid for they can cover their yearly overhead off one big race weekend; however, I don't see how you can pay for a $500 million plus superspeedway and cover your yearly operating expenses off one week of capacity crowds (even with 200,000 tickets).

I really do not know who is financing most of these tracks. Is it private investment groups or are they publicily funded with bond issues?

If it's the private sector, I just don't see how it can last because of the problem with recouping your capital investment plus covering overhead as previously explained.

On the other hand, if it is public money, I don't see how it can keep up becasue these types of public projects are generally intended to increase tourism and tax revenue. The big problem on the public side is that these tracks are never built close to a downtown area due to noise concerns. So, instead of visitors packing into the nice downtown hotels and restaurants you wind up with a bunch of cheap-O roadside motels and campgrounds out near the track, and often in another city/county than the town that the track is associated with.

Maybe I am wrong and 99.9% of the world will one day be NASCAR fans with tracks all over the world that can seat a million fans on raceday and unending increases in merchandise purchases, but I doubt it.

 

[ddubb76]

I agree with you on the TV ratings thing GAvol, but the problem for track operators is how do you make $$$ the 51 weeks out of the year when you have no NASCAR. Probably, at some of the older tracks that have long been paid for they can cover their yearly overhead off one big race weekend; however, I don't see how you can pay for a $500 million plus superspeedway and cover your yearly operating expenses off one week of capacity crowds (even with 200,000 tickets).

I really do not know who is financing most of these tracks. Is it private investment groups or are they publicily funded with bond issues?

If it's the private sector, I just don't see how it can last because of the problem with recouping your capital investment plus covering overhead as previously explained.

On the other hand, if it is public money, I don't see how it can keep up becasue these types of public projects are generally intended to increase tourism and tax revenue. The big problem on the public side is that these tracks are never built close to a downtown area due to noise concerns. So, instead of visitors packing into the nice downtown hotels and restaurants you wind up with a bunch of cheap-O roadside motels and campgrounds out near the track, and often in another city/county than the town that the track is associated with.

Maybe I am wrong and 99.9% of the world will one day be NASCAR fans with tracks all over the world that can seat a million fans on raceday and unending increases in merchandise purchases, but I doubt it.

They fill up the stands at most of these tracks twice a year with just nextel cup races, they also have busch, iroc, craftsman truck , and other series that keep the tracks open. What makes the nextel cup so big is they have set it up alot like college football in the fact that every race or lap has an influence on whether your race team wins the championship. Another thing they thought of was making their "super bowl" at the beginning of the season. They do this to make that first race very important. If it was at the end very few would watch the first race because their driver could make up for it in later races.I just think they have done an excellent job promoting their product. On the other hand tv ratings for Daytona are like the tv ratings for the super bowl. My wife dont watch football, but she watches the superbowl.

 

[VolunteerHillbilly]

Those are all good points dduubb. I know that the last time I paid any attention to NASCAR they generally had the Busch race at the same place as the Winston Cup race during the same week. I realize that Bush Cup races at a track like the Nashville SS will sell out because that is the biggest race they will get all year, but people do not spend a week in Wilson County for it. I really don't know how well they do with ticket sales at a Bush race at say Atlanta, Texas or Vegas during a week that there is not a Nextel Cup race. As far as the trucks, IROC, IRL, Cart, etc. I know for a fact that they have to give away half the seats for most of those races just to put butts in the seats. Maybe the track operator manages to sell a lot of those "give away" seats to local businesses who then give them out free? I really don't know how that works. I just can't imagine that they come anywhere close to a sellout at any of the new super speedways for anything other than the Nextel Cup races and we seem to be moving in a direction that no track will get more than one of those races per year.

 

[orange+white=heaven]

Some thoughts on Hillbilly's post above...

With the newer tracks you pretty much have two different corporations, one owned by Bruton Smith the other by the France family, who are behind them.
These folks have no shortage of funds. Further it is not really one date per year. Most of these tracks get two NASCAR dates, not to mention IRL dates and other events.

You are right about the problem of viability as it relates to the older tracks, i.e. North Wilksboro and Darlington and the long defunct Ontario Speedway.
Frankly, there are only so many dates to go around and the newer tracks are chomping at the bit to see dates taken away from the older traditional tracks that those who have long followed the sport have loved. The new money talks so the old joints that were resonsible for the birth of the sport get the old heave ho, and then they really do go under.(Thus eliminating training ground tracks from the countryside)

These new tracks, typically 1.5 mile cookie cutter layouts represent the potential problem with the sport's future for me. The tracks lack character, and the racing is very similar one place to the next. what's more, to me, they appear to cater more to the higher end clients and less to the blue collar...the very base of the sport's success over the years. I'm sorry, sushi and white wine spritzers from the luxury suite are not what racing should be about.

I'm rambling, but to sum up. The new tracks do plenty well financially. My opininion though, is that they do very little to honor the guy who's been wearing the same "3" T-shirt and driving a beat up black school bus to seven events a year for most of his life.

And if you are not appreciative of that guy any longer, then the long term future for your bottom line is already dwindling, and you don't even know it....

 

[jakez4ut]

the thing that is eventually going to happen, and it's already started, is that some of these tracks that have two dates, will only be getting one date a year as Nascar continues to grow....you can't honestly tell me that Pocono, Dover etc...will continue to get two dates a year?

the bigger the marke, the more attractive you are to Nascar....i know that some of the smaller market tracks that still have races are going to get ousted at some point...its' a matter of time.....