COVER STORY: NASCAR Gets Back in Gear
National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing Looks to Reconnect with Fans, Rev Up Ratings
By Ben Grossman -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/17/2008 9:42:00 AM
In 2008, two-time National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing Sprint Cup series champion Tony Stewart picked things up right where he left off last season -- by returning to form as the sport’s resident bad boy.
Last April, angered by the actions of the sport’s sanctioning body, the veteran racer compared NASCAR to professional wresting. And this year, with the season only six weeks old, he already allegedly punched 2004 Cup champ Kurt Busch in the middle of a disciplinary meeting and, after a recent race, went ballistic on a tire manufacturer in an interview.
“Goodyear can’t build a tire that’s worth a crap,” he barked about one of NASCAR’s most significant partners.
But a funny thing happened to Stewart this year on the way to the infamous NASCAR disciplinary hauler. Last year’s mouthy actions earned Stewart a season-long probation and the kind of dressing down that had him telling reporters, “It’s a little tender for me to sit right now.”
This season is different. NASCAR officials and their TV partners, hyper-aware of the sport’s two-year ratings tumble, have chosen a new “back to basics” strategy, a welcome return to recently absent core fans. By letting drivers be themselves and show some personality, NASCAR is hoping to lure the faithful back.
So Stewart’s penalty for getting into fights this season and publicly humiliating a league partner? A six-week probation.
Like a set of charmed parents, NASCAR officials are probably sporting hidden smiles over the fuss. The sport saw its once-skyrocketing viewership growth hit the wall as it went through change after change in recent years, attempting to bring in new fans beyond its Southern U.S. base and to compete with the National Football League for Sunday-afternoon viewers. But before the green flag waved at the Daytona 500 in February, NASCAR decided to slow up and rekindle momentum.
So far, the plan is cooking with gas. Thanks in part to NASCAR’s efforts -- and aided, undoubtedly, by the return to success of the sport’s biggest superstar, Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- a turnaround has begun. After two straight years of erosion and despite almost everything in network television falling, the early portion of NASCAR’s ratings is actually up, with the March 9 race in Atlanta up 19% on the year. Even the monotonous rain-delay coverage of the season’s second race in California topped the National Basketball Association All-Star Game for viewers.
“There are a lot of sports ratings down, but what I like about NASCAR is that they are not just saying all sports are down, they are trying to do something about it,” Turner Sports and Turner Broadcasting Sales president David Levy said.
BUILT ON PERSONALITIES
NASCAR, now a 60-year-old sanctioning body for the country’s most successful form of racing, managed fine for decades without one overarching major television package or tracks in many top markets.
Its formula was to build on the popularity -- and personality -- of its hard-charging drivers. Superstars like Dale Earnhardt -- the fabled “Intimidator,” who won seven championships -- were the heart of the sport. But roughly 50 years after its inception, NASCAR was pushing its boundaries beyond its blue-collar Southern roots.
The networks took notice. In 1999, NASCAR inked its first comprehensive national television package with Fox, NBC and Turner Sports, for $2.4 billion.
Until that point, NASCAR’s television package was a mish-mash of coverage, with different networks covering races every other week and only 10 races airing on broadcast as late as 2000. Beginning in 2001, the racing outfit finally had the consistency it wanted to build out the sport’s television footprint.
New fans came in droves. Television ratings rose rapidly as NASCAR took its place as the No. 2 sport on television behind the NFL. Fox, which covered the first half of the season, posted a 29% jump over the previous season’s ratings; NBC and TNT, sharing the second half, averaged a 3.9 adjusted national rating per broadcast, up 34% from a 2.9 in 2000.
And NASCAR drivers were gaining traction on television screens away from race day, with Earnhardt rival and Madison Avenue favorite Jeff Gordon becoming a occasional fill-in host for Regis Philbin.
That momentum carried through most of the TV deal, which allowed NASCAR to cash in when it expired. By now, Brian France, who’d been instrumental in fashioning the first deal, had succeeded his father, Bill France Jr., as the sport’s CEO. Waiting to line the NASCAR coffers were ESPN and ABC, which replaced NBC in the new round of coverage that kicked in last year. NASCAR got a massive 40% bump in rights fees to the tune of roughly $4.5 billion over eight years.
“We learned that there is something inherently solid about NASCAR and its ability to attract and keep an audience,” said sports consultant David Carter of the Sports Business Group.
DALE EARNHARDT AND JANET JACKSON
But racing side-by-side with the TV money flowing in and the hoopla surrounding NASCAR’s meteoric rise were broad shifts and shocking sea changes. When the smoke cleared, the sport that had maintained an amazing record for marketing itself had begun to lose touch with much of its core.
The most tumultuous change came at the start of the big 2001 TV deal. Finally ready for its close-up, NASCAR suffered its worst tragedy in 20 years when Earnhardt was killed on the last lap of the season-opening Daytona 500. The death of the man whom many felt defined the sport’s rugged roots was a massive blow.
With the sport reeling and the desire to spread beyond the traditional base still strong, the governing body continued some steps to move NASCAR in different directions. New tracks sprang up in Kansas and Chicago, replacing beloved stops in the Carolinas.
In 2004, the new TV deal also saw the departure of 30-year title sponsor Winston, replaced by Nextel. And in the ultimate move to compete with the NFL, the sport instituted the 10-race “Chase for the Championship,” a playoff-format late-season rush to the title. In a sport marked by tradition, the changes seemed to be coming at 200 miler per hour.
The 2004 NASCAR season hadn’t begun when Janet Jackson bared her breast at the 2004 Super Bowl. Once the Federal Communications Commission started to react, everyone broadcasting live events got understandably skittish. In NASCAR, on-track shoving matches between drivers were met with stiffer penalties. And when Dale Earnhardt Jr. uttered “s--t” in a live post-race interview in 2004, he was hit was a $10,000 fine and docked 25 points.
“All of us in sports had to take a look and understand what the FCC was trying to do, so we reacted to that,” NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said.
Other changes were greeted by fans as assaults. NASCAR’s endless -- and ultimately failed -- attempt to build a track in New York was distracting. Toyota became the first non-U.S. manufacturer welcomed into the sport in decades. And most significantly, the cars themselves changed. In reaction to increasing calls for safety, the sport introduced the “Car of Tomorrow” body and mandated the cookie-cutter design’s use among all Cup teams. Meanwhile, the new generation of drivers -- from now-two-time Cup champ Jimmie Johnson to Kyle Busch to Kasey Kahne -- had replaced extremely popular retiring stalwarts such as Bill Elliott and Rusty Wallace.
SCREECHING TO A HALT
While NASCAR was busy reaching out and reinventing, its celebrated ratings growth screeched to a halt. Ratings in 2006 were down year-over-year for most of the season, including off 10.6% for the Chase for the Championship playoffs on TNT and NBC. Some speculated that NBC’s lame-duck status in its last year was a factor. But the introduction of ABC and ESPN in 2007 didn’t stem the tide, as NASCAR’s overall ratings fell another 8.2% for the year.
“The sport had been growing and, all of a sudden, everything was different,” Fox Sports chairman David Hill said. “For many people, change is regarded with suspicion and not embraced.”
Adding insult to injury, NASCAR officials were perplexed by constant criticism of their decisions not only by drivers and fans, but broadcast partners, as well. In the face of a constant negative barrage in 2007 that sounded like bashing, NASCAR advised racing teams and broadcasters that they were hurting the sport by being so negative.
“NASCAR said, ‘Criticize us when we make a mistake, but don’t go out and tell people not to watch us,’” one sport insider said.
BACK TO BASICS
Prior to this season, NASCAR executives offered the welcome reversal of taking the sport back to its basics. Ads promoting races began to stress embracing a gloried past as much as moving forward. And this year’s 50th running of the Daytona 500 was a nostalgic lovefest, featuring appearances by many of the sport’s bygone legends.
But a major part of the initiative is also simply letting drivers be themselves once again, FCC be damned, in hopes that more of them will expand their bases among fans new and old. “These guys have to express themselves and we are going to let them do that,” Poston said.
“[NASCAR] is changing perception,” Hill added. “We think old fans are starting to come back now. But you don’t have to target one or the other. If you do the job the right way, you target everyone.”
And so far, so good for Fox and NASCAR. While there are 30 races left in the season and TNT and ESPN/ABC haven’t yet revved up their Sprint Cup coverage, the ratings falloff has, for now, subsided. Heading into the March 16 race in Bristol, Tenn., Fox recorded five-year highs for two straight races. The March 2 Cup race in Las Vegas, for instance, earned Fox a 6.2/12, a 13% gain over last year’s 5.5/11 for the race.
Stemming the ratings drop-off for an entire season would obviously come at a great time for NASCAR and its TV partners as the value of sports properties looks strong as ever at present. Not only are live events relatively TiVo-proof and, thus, more attractive to advertisers, they look even better with so much of network television trending down.
JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT
The return of Dale Earnhardt Jr., the sport’s favorite son, to the front of the standings may be the other important tonic the sport needs.
Many a fan believes the most convulsive change the sport experienced in recent years happened last May, when Dale Jr. controversially departed from Dale Earnhardt Inc., the company his late father built, to join rival powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports. But after finishing last season dismally, Dale Jr. began the new year by winning the non-points Budweiser Shootout at Daytona, sending shock waves of excitement to fans of the sport’s five-time Most Popular Driver Award winner.
“As he goes, so goes a lot of the sport,” Carter said.
Even France admitted during the preseason, “If Dale Jr. has a big year, that will help.”
More victories for Earnhardt could usher fans back to their sets, watching him do smoky post-race burnouts and soak in the cheers. If that happens, given all that NASCAR has invested in a return to its roots, Earnhardt wouldn’t be the only one smiling.
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my friends and I decide not to support nascar anymore,
not even on tv.
we don't like toyotas and new rules.
michael - 5/19/2008 1:34:00 PM EDT -
i myself don't watch nascar like i use to. the sport is too candy coated, too many whiners, and the run for the cup format sucks. plus they (drivers)complain if there is a road coarse in their schedule. bring back the hard core racing. it lost the grass roots feel.
formula 1 kicks ass now, and with more excitement.
need more f-1 on this side of the atlantic.
BILL NELSON - 3/27/2008 12:12:00 PM EDT
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