NASCAR’s TV Problems

Back on August 23rd, the Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway averaged nearly 2 million viewers on the USA Network after being moved up an entire hour to try and beat the potential for rain. Instead, it was that very weather that pushed the start right back to where it was originally slated for. Including the weather delay, the numbers dipped down to an average of 1,790,300.

Why do I bring all that up and why should either of us care? That is a valid question. The sport is in a decline for TV ratings, and has been for a few years. In his “state of the sport” address at the end of last season — which was the first under the sport’s new 7-year media rights deal, former commissioner Steve Phelps acknowledged  decline. He stated that numbers were down about 14 percent — which is exactly what they projected when the deal was signed.

The drop off in viewership is something the fans who seem to want the sport to fail are always quick to point out in debates. But it is true. The sport IS seeing less television viewers these days. However, although the look is definitely not good, numbers can deceive. So, the question is simple — should NASCAR and its fans be concerned?

There is a prime example of deceiving TV numbers. The same day the Cup Series was running at New Hampshire, IndyCar held the Freedom 250 Grand Prix on the streets of Washington, DC. It was an unprecedented event that was well-anticipated since it was announced as part of the celebrations to mark the nation’s 250th birthday back in January. The race drew hundreds of thousands of spectators to the capital to see it in person. However, it made history with its television audience.

Fox announced that an average of nearly 3,300,000 tuned in to watch it live — which made for the most for an IndyCar event that was NOT the Indianapolis 500 since 2008 — after the Indy Racing League and CART resolved their differences and merged back into one open wheel series.

Those numbers are also unprecedented because they absolutely blew the NASCAR Cup Series race out of the water. For the first time in decades, the full attention of the motorsports world was on open wheel racing that was not Formula One. Not only that, but the eyes of American Race fans were on the NTT IndyCar Series.

That is not surprising — and definitely should not be seen as such by NASCAR and its fans given the circumstances. The Freedom 250 Grand Prix was more interesting by a mile than the New Hampshire race. Indy Car didn’t have to do much to market. A high speed thrill in a beautiful new setting on a brand new street course. A likely once-in-a-lifetime event (President Trump has stated he wants another Indy race in DC, but ultimately, the lack of a special occasion and the fact it is not his choice to make since Roger Penske’s corporation is in charge of the series mean the future of IndyCar in DC is uncertain).

Of course people would be curious about it. It is no wonder people showed up in droves — some even without tickets hoping just to get a glimpse of the race. Just like the first time NASCAR ran the Clash at the Coliseum, the Chicago Street Course, or this year’s Naval Base event in San Diego. Or if you want another open wheel example, look no further than the first F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.

When a brand new stadium opens, the first event held in it always sells out. When things are shiny and new or involve a once in a lifetime opportunity, people will watch and people will show. “If you build it, they will come.”

On the flipside, there really is not much to market when it comes to New Hampshire. Sure, it is the penultimate race of the “regular season.” But, that is about all it has going. The track is one that struggles to produce an entertaining product unless all three lanes get going. New Hampshire is a flat 1-mile oval and runs more like a short track — which I probably do not need to reiterate to you — does not bode well with the NextGen car. It is also a track that has been reduced to just one date on the schedule in light of that fact.

Having only one race date is the lone point of positivity. Like Pocono Raceway, which also only gets one weekend per season, New Hampshire draws a nice crowd (Pocono sells out). There were plenty of fans in attendance last Sunday — so much so that the turn one grandstands were almost completely full. That section notoriously does not fill out with most fans preferring to pack into the frontstretch or walk around the perimeter of the track at the catch fence.

But if none of that was enough to convince you, a week after being outdone by Indy, NASCAR stormed back in the ratings for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona with the most-watched edition of that race since 2021, making it the sixth Motorsports event to have more that 3.5 million viewers in 2026. By the way — four of the other five most watched were NASCAR races. They include the Daytona 500 (7.489 million), February Atlanta (4.48 million), Spring Talladega (3.96 million), and Circuit of the Americas (3.93 million).

This is where I have to make a point. Television viewership is important. But, they are not everything to NASCAR, nor do they reflect the health/state of the sport. Not only that, but numbers can be skewed by a variety of factors.

Most fans know, the experience of watching on TV can be just as boring as watching soccer, baseball, or golf to their detractors. Even the most staunch and diehard fans can find a full 3+ hour long race hard to stay glued to every lap of. We also know that the experience of being at the track in person is hard to beat.

Over the last four years, the sport has seen an uptick in fans coming to the track in person. The Crown Jewels sell out of course, but even tracks like New Hampshire, Richmond, and Indianapolis — where the on-track product has been subpar with the Gen 7 car in particular, have either sold out or brought in enough fans to fill most college football stadiums (the Brickyard 400 at Indy drew 70,000+).

The sport is clearly not dead nor is it dying. In fact, it is arguably experiencing a renaissance. But, that does not mean the TV numbers could not use some improvement. But, what could the brass at NASCAR do to boost those numbers?

Let’s start with the obvious — the media rights deal, while a stroke of financial genius for the sport bringing in over seven billion dollars, is a mess. For NASCAR, it is as simple as “networks offer X amount, we need that money, we take it gladly.” That puts everything at the mercy of TV broadcasts — from race start times to when pit road is open to how long caution periods can draw on. NASCAR has no say in it.

That makes for the bad broadcast quality we see — especially from the likes of Fox, who are now so caught up in carrying IndyCar, it is clear they don’t really care about NASCAR anymore. Cup races are relegated to being found on networks that cannot be accessed without YouTube TV or paying for cable such as FS1. Only select Cup races can be found on free network television these days. That is one reason for the lower numbers.

Then you get to the halfway point and they go over to streaming-only on Amazon Prime for five weeks — meaning that if you don’t have a subscription or sign up for the one month free trial, you lose out. In his state of the sport address, Phelps acknowledged they predicted there would be a drop with the streaming audience with an audience that would be about six years younger on average, reiterating that the official numbers were aligned with their projections.

Five more weeks, they do the poorly-marketed and pointless in-season tournament with those races on TNT before going to USA and NBC the rest of the way — which also drew comment from Phelps. “The Turner numbers were softer than we would like them to be. But still in line with projections” (how is it even possible to be in line with projections if the numbers are ‘softer’ than you want them to be?). Steve also added that the cable numbers are just as soft.

The bottom line is that having your premier series spread out across five different networks is absolutely ridiculous. It is easier to watch the Truck Series — all on FS1, and the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, all of which air on antenna TV locally on the CW as well as streaming on ESPN, than it is to watch the Cup series. That is a serious problem and no doubt a viewership killer.

The issue is similar to when each MLB team had their own regional networks that would be blacked out more often than not. How did Major League Baseball solve that problem? By centralizing with one streaming service for all MLB and Minor League games via MLB.TV. NASCAR could stand to do something similar.

Aside from the messy media situation, NASCAR could also stand to get more fans involved in the product. The in-season tournament is a terrible attempt at it. Not only is the marketing and formatting terrible — the fans only get to be involved by making a March Madness type of bracket. Why not make the “midsummer stretch” — where NASCAR runs its worst tracks — into a chance for fans to win money? Like the Winston No Bull 5 back in the mid 2000s — where if the driver a lucky fan picked won the race, they got a million dollars. There are plenty of possibilities to improve fan access and bring more viewership incentives to the sport that already has the most direct fan access to its superstars of any in the country.

Lastly, invest in your roots. That is not to say that NASCAR should not expand into other markets, strive to grow, or that they should only run races in the Southeast. What I am saying is that two years ago, the sport made a commitment to investing in grassroots racing. They brought the Clash to Bowman Gray Stadium and used it to make upgrades to help improve the weekly racing that happens every Summer Saturday night.

The same can be done for other beloved short tracks around the country such as South Boston Speedway, Hickory Motor Speedway, even Greenville Pickens. Not only would investing in these grassroots tracks help the future growth of stock car racing, but fans would love to see them. Run a race once a year at a different short track the sport has either never been to or has not raced at in decades and you are sure to never kill the excitement or newness. People would watch an All Star Race or Clash — heck even just a random midweek night race at these tracks.

In fact, midweek races are also a possibility. Run some short Wednesday night races — especially in the middle of summer when baseball is the biggest competition, and perhaps more people will watch.

The reality is that a lot of fans that aren’t watching have not in years, and there is not much that can be done to bring them back. That is ok. NASCAR needs to focus on sustainability. The popularity of the sport will never be what it was 25 years ago. But, that does not mean it is dead. The evidence of that is clear with the number of tickets being sold for races this season up nine percent.

The fans are going, and they are watching. NASCAR just needs to focus on balancing keeping the current audience with trying to reach new ones.