For 2012, NASCAR had the smallest audience in five years. There was also a 25 percent drop in the very important 18-34 year old male demographic.
From The Sporting News comes a very serious revelation. NASCAR had an up and down year on the TV ratings over the past few years. This year it was mostly down. For 2012, NASCAR had the smallest audience in five years. There was also a 25 percent drop in the very important 18-34 year old male demographic. Those NASCAR races which aired on Fox, TNT and ESPN averaged a 3.6 Nielsen rating and 5.8 million viewers through 35 of 36 races. The season-ending races at Homestead was down 5 percent and 10 percent respectively from last year. All that gave up all of the gains the sport made last year which was its first annual ratings increase since 2005.
Three races weren’t counted because of rain delays that forced the races to be held on weekday mornings. Ratings among advertisers’ favorite demographic, 18- to 34-year-olds, fell further. NASCAR races earned a 0.9 rating in that demo, down 25 percent from last year’s 1.2.
NASCAR executives attributed the declines to uncontrollable forces, starting with the Daytona 500?s first postponement in 54 years, from Sunday afternoon to Monday evening. NASCAR executives also cited competition from the London Olympics and NCAA basketball conference championship games as reasons for the downturn.
Fox and ESPN executives insist that they are not concerned by this year’s ratings and tout the sport’s overall audience, which still is one of the biggest on TV. Mulvihill said Fox has reconfigured its sales pitches on NASCAR for next season to highlight that audience. However, we take exception to NASCAR’s and their TV partners and feel that they are both in denial.
The network is trying to dispel the notion among ad buyers that NASCAR can’t deliver an audience with buying power. It’s doing so by comparing the average income of NASCAR viewers to the average income in their home market rather than the national average. For example, in the Tampa Bay market, NASCAR viewers have an average income of $52,000, significantly more than the designated market area (DMA) average of $42,000 a year.
Here’s our version of the situation: Fox and NASCAR think that they can keep going with the same old format. With all due respect, we see a trend that’s not good. We feel that all of this should result in NASCAR, Brian France in particular along with his TV partners, should consider giving Sprint Cup races a major makeover, like shortening most all of the races and changing the format. Also they could consider stopping the race at the half-way point and then reversing the order of the positions.
That big change would require all of the top running drivers and cars to come from the back again and racing back to the front. It’s a radical idea but consider what happened to the TV audience in 2012 that took a major drop. The biggest complaint we hear from NASCAR fans is that the races lack competition except for the last 20 laps because every driver is stroking in order to be around at the end of the race. And that’s when many fans tune in to see what’s happening.
That big drop off in this year’s TV audience should sound an alarm to the suits in the NASCAR front office and their TV partners. What happens if the ratings go even lower in 2013? Not to mention the empty seats at all of the NASCAR Cup races this year. NASCAR and their TV partners have major problems. From the Sporting News story, it’s very obvious that they (the principals) don’t recognize it.
The Formula 1 series came to a merciful end in Brazil. When it was all over, Jenson Button won the rain-soaked affair, followed by Sebastian Vettel and Filipe Massa. Vettel ended up winning the F1 Championship just +3 points ahead of Fernando Alonso. The race finished under caution due to heavy downpours. Vettel took his third championship in spite of radio and tire problems compounded by the very wet weather. “It was a tough race. It was good that we did our homework,” he said in the post race interview.
SPEED’s coverage of the inaugural Formula One race from Austin drew more than 500,000 viewers, scoring a Nielsen Household Rating of .42. The ratings mark is up 40% with HHs (0.42 vs. 0.30), 70% among M35-54 (0.46 vs. 0.27) and 75% among M18-49 (0.28 vs. 0.16) versus last year’s equivalent race (Brazil). It was the highest rated Formula One race on SPEED with HHs and M18-49 in well over a year.
German automotive group Daimler has secured full control of Mercedes-Benz’s Formula One operation after Aabar Investments on Monday announced it had agreed to sell its stake in the team. This came from SportsBusinessInternational.
This also came from the same source: Coca-Cola will “break the conventions of traditional Formula One sponsorship” after unveiling a new partnership with the Lotus team that will provide exposure for the Burn energy drink brand, according to the beverage company’s marketing chief Emmanuel Seuge.
The world’s largest drinks company has been linked with an F1 sponsorship over recent weeks and confirmed the deal ahead of the 2012 season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo. Further details will be revealed in 2013 when the partnership officially launches, but Coca-Cola is promising to offer an alternative approach to Formula One sponsorship. The deal will position Burn against rival energy drinks brand Red Bull, which has been the title sponsor of F1’s leading team since 2010. (END)
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