NASCAR TV ratings down, but younger viewership up

NASCAR's television ratings have continued to decline this year despite the promotional push of ESPN and a news-filled four-plus months of racing, but network executives are encouraged by gains in the younger demographics.

FOX reported a 7 percent improvement (3.1 rating from 2.9) in the male 18-34 demo on its Nextel Cup broadcasts, and ESPN2's coverage of the Busch Series has produced a 2 percent increase (182,827 viewers from 179,446) for that group on cable.

David Hill, CEO of FOX Sports, said this is the first year Nielsen is incorporating out-of-home viewing in its numbers, and he thinks viewership from college dormitories accounts for some of the gain.

"This is the first accurate snapshot of what college kids are watching," Hill said. "And they're watching NASCAR. The households might be down a tad, but what you're looking for is what's happening with the younger audience. The good news is, unbelievably, that we're looking at more future growth for this sport. Show me another sport that's growing like that among younger viewers."

FOX's average viewership on nine Nextel Cup races was down 9.1 percent (9.71 million viewers vs. 10.68 million) overall compared with nine comparable races from 2006, and its rating suffered a 10 percent drop (5.8 vs. 6.4). That's a slightly steeper decline than last year's 7 percent drop for FOX's entire package of races.

Three of FOX's races were rained out this year. Two were moved from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon and a third was broadcast on a Monday.

Looking beyond the year-to-year data, Hill said the bigger picture still shows growth, as evidenced by NASCAR's 5.2 network rating in 2000.

"People are going to look back at the start of this century and say that's where NASCAR began to establish itself and moved on to rival the NFL and college football," he said. "I can remember when we first started selling NASCAR and we were telling prospective advertisers that it was going to be as big as the NBA. And now the NASCAR numbers are tripling what the NBA did during the regular season."

For the most part, analysts didn't express surprise with the decline and said that FOX's 5.8 average rating still represents a strong number when nearly every sport is dealing with a drop. Overall prime-time TV viewing is down 11 percent year over year across the networks, one media buyer said.

"I don't see any alarms ringing yet," said Larry Novenstern, executive vice president for media buying agency Optimedia. "NASCAR's ratings have grown exponentially for several years. A downturn is inevitable."

Media buyers also say they haven't experienced any negative feedback from sponsors concerning the ratings. Then again, most of the sponsors on the broadcast also have an investment somewhere on the track.

"A 5 rating in today's marketplace is pretty damn good," said Mike Trager, an industry consultant and former chairman of Clear Channel Entertainment's television division. "The ratings are very good in relation to other sports. No one is immune to trending up or down."

ESPN2's ratings for its coverage of the Busch Series have suffered an even steeper decline compared with last year's cable ratings, which featured one race on TNT and the rest on FX. Through nine comparable Busch broadcasts, ESPN2's 1.5 rating is down 14 percent from the 1.8 on cable last year.

Viewership is down 7.3 percent on ESPN2, with an average of nearly 2 million viewers tuning in for Busch races.

Julie Sobieski, ESPN's senior director of programming, expects those numbers to increase when ABC/ESPN picks up its portion of the Nextel Cup schedule beginning July 29 at Indianapolis, which will offer the network more cross-promotional opportunities.

"When we get Cup and we have everything in place, from all the studio programming, practices, qualifying, we expect to be heading into a really good period," Sobieski said.

Trager admitted surprise that ESPN2's Busch broadcasts haven't performed better. FX's broadcasts benefited last year from having the cross-promotion capability with FOX's Cup broadcasts.

"The ESPN universe is a pretty strong machine," Trager said. "Are people following it? Do they know where to find it? Any time you switch networks, things can change. Nielsen samples can change. FX is a full-fledged network, and FOX gave FX a lot of promotion. But I guess this is still surprising."

And despite ESPN's many platforms, one media buyer pointed out that not all of their platforms are the same.

"People want to think that ESPN2 is ESPN, and it's just not," said Tom McGovern, director of sports media at OMD's Optimum Sports.

Despite the overall declines, FOX and ESPN have reported increases in some key demographics. The male 18-34 demo had experienced three consecutive years of declines on FOX before this year's 7 percent increase. The male 18-49 demo on FOX had dipped steadily since 2001, and it enjoyed a 2 percent gain in 2007 (4.7 vs. 4.6).