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PLEASED: TV executives love NASCAR's ratings
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Published: June 8, 2008
The Fox network guys finally begin their break from NASCAR this weekend, after posting some solid ratings for the first half of the Sprint Cup season.
They'll hand off to the TimeWarner-TNT crew for the summer stretch, beginning with today's Pocono 500.
Fox, ESPN and Speed, carrying the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Truck series, respectively, are all reporting a jump in TV ratings this season.
Billy Wanger, the head of research and programming for FOX Sports, pointed proudly to NASCAR's TV gains in big markets.
"We've seen some really hefty gains in some major markets this year, in the Rust Belt, the Midwest, the West Coast, and the East," he said. "First, Pittsburgh. Up quite a bit, 35 percent. Chicago was up substantially, 32 percent. Washington, D.C., was up quite a bit, 20 percent. Los Angeles, up 37 percent. And Denver, up 23 percent.
"The sport in general is definitely coming back, after a couple of years of decline. It started when Brian France, just before Daytona, said ‘We're going to get back to our roots and our core fans.'"
In absolute numbers these big-market gains are clear. The average ratings for all 13 NASCAR-on-Fox telecasts:
□ Los Angeles: 2.7 (vs. a 2.1 in 2007), a gain of 29 percent;
□ Chicago: 3.9 (vs. 3.1), up 26 percent;
□ Washington: 5.6 (vs. 4.9), up 14 percent;
□ Detroit: 5.5 (vs. 4.9), up 12 percent;
□ Denver: 4.7 (vs. 3.7), up 26 percent;
□ Pittsburgh: 5.9 (vs. 4.3), up 37 percent.
And what do the Fox numbers look like if we take the Daytona 500 out:
□ LA this season is averaging a 2.6 (to last year's 1.9); Pittsburgh a 5.4 (to last year's 4.0); Chicago a 3.7 (to last year's 2.8); Washington a 5.3 (to last year's 4.4); Denver a 4.3 (to last year's 3.5); and Detroit a 5.1 (to last year's 4.5).
Even $4 a gallon gas and $200 a night hotel rooms can't get all the credit for that boost. There is homage being paid to France's back-to-basics command. After so many fan-aggravating rules changes and venue swaps the past few years, France, NASCAR's CEO, vowed to take a lower profile.
But there appears to be more at work here.
Artie Bulgrin, the head of ESPN's research, said that this year's NASCAR resurgence comes as some major technological changes are reshaping how the media cover sports.
ABC-ESPN is quite pleased with its highly-promoted multi-platform approach to NASCAR -- saturation to boost viewers, with 17 platforms, from ESPN.com to ESPN-Deportes.
Now, Bulgrin said, this season it's all about "mobile."
"We're very bullish on mobile," Bulgrin said. "This is the next big thing. Virtually everyone in this country carries a mobile device. And we are among the leaders in mobile-web usage.
"We've got, in our latest data from Nielsen Mobile, 40 million mobile-web users in the U.S … and sports is among the top categories, with more than 9 million people accessing sports on their mobile devices. And we are the top sports site.
"When we look at the usage, we look at the layers of usage of our content: on television, on PC- based Internet, and on mobile-web internet -- and this increases our reach rather dramatically."
In turn, that broadens the cultural awareness of a particular sport, such as NASCAR.
"Now there is not a lot of concurrent usage," Bulgrin said. "But when I'm not near my television, I can follow the race on my PC and research the sport … and when I'm not near my PC, I can do the same things on my mobile device.
"Particularly with smartphones, iPhones, and the next-generation BlackBerries, and the growth of these 3G networks that are providing high-speed capability for these devices, the mobile device becomes the primary device.
"You know what this does -- it improves engagement in the sport. You can actually be at a race and get more information, more detail, about what's going on in real-time. It's like a newspaper in your pocket.
"And, by the way, you can make a phone call, too.
"We think it's ‘back to basics,'" Bulgrin said of the uptick in ratings. "We're on pace, with the Nationwide series, to have a record year, for a cable network, with our 1.9 for the eight telecasts so far. That's up 19 percent."
And if things keep going that way, Bulgrin said, ratings should eclipse the 2005 records.
"We're on pace to set a new record for the series," Bulgrin said. "The league has made a point of getting back to its roots this year, and it seems like it's working: Men 25-54 are up 14 percent. The 35-54 are up 25 percent.
"And we are seeing similar growth in ‘persons,' which means the female demographic is growing as well: persons 25-54 up 10 percent, and persons 35-54 up 17 percent.
"So overall the series is doing very well. And it's all consistent."
Wanger said, "Our female audience is very strong, and I don't know if it could get much stronger. I don't think you need a Danica Patrick to be successful there.
"Female fans are strong for NASCAR. In fact NASCAR actually attracts more female fans than most other sports -- female fans make up 40 percent of the NASCAR audience, where in most other sports it's only in the 30s.
"But our biggest growth this year was in what we call our core, men 35-54.
"Those are the hard-core NASCAR fans, and those are the guys we really wanted to get back this year. Those are really the movers-and-shakers, handing the sport down to their sons and daughters, getting new people involved in the sport. And they've helped drive our increases."
On the other side, "We did a slight decrease in men 18-34, about a tenth or two," Wanger said. "But nothing really we'd have a lot of concern about. All our other data was strong.
"It is pretty amazing, when you think about it -- from February through June, NASCAR is the No. 1 sport. It beats -- easily more than doubles -- the NBA regular season, and actually beats the NBA playoffs. We averaged a 5.7 for NASCAR, and ABC's playoffs were a 3.7, and the regular season was a 2.2
"NASCAR is ‘the' sport in the first quarter."
■ Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.
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