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NASACAR Rating Drop

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cosworth151:
NASCAR popularity continues to plung as more and more former fans abandon the sport. This past Sunday, the NASCAR Dickies 500 from Texas Motor Speedway was pounded in the TV ratings by an NFL game. It wasn't even a "major market" game, New England vs Indianapolis. The NASCAR race, on ABC, had a 3.6 rating, with 2.8 million households tuned in. The football game, on NBC, got a 22.5 rating with 17.3 million households. Even the NFL pre-game show got 9.9 and 7.6 million.

In the past few years, NASCAR has seemed to go out of its way to drive away its long time fan base. (like me) It looks like they are doing a fine job of it.

Steven Roy:
What is NASCAR doing to lose fans?  All you ever read in the F1 press is that F1 can never compete in the USA because NASCAR has the market sewn up.

cosworth151:
A whole series of things. First, much like F1, They are doing away with many of the most beloved tracks and replacing them with BCC tracks. (Boring Charlotte Clones) Rockingham, North Wilksboro, Hickory - all gone. Even the Granddaddy of them all, Darlington, is under threat.

Second, they've gone to a spec-racer car. Every car on the track has to fit the same templates, with the same suspensions, frames, ect. All the cars have to run basically the same engines. Ford can't run their OHC V8, Chrysler can't run their hemis, even though both can be had in their production cars.

Third, there's the "Chase". This is a faux play-off deal where only the top 1/4 of the drivers can run for the championship in the last 10 races. Fans of 3/4 of the cars might as well go watch football.

Fourth, like it or not, is the admission of Toyota. Two of the most popular drivers were Michael Waltrip and Dale Jarrett. Both of them are now regularly boo'ed. I was down at the North Carolina Motorsports Hall of Fame shortly after they announced their plans. This is right in the heart of NASCAR country: it's in the same industrial park as most of the teams. All of Mikey and Dale's stuff (shirts, caps, glasses, ect.) was piled together in a large trash can with a "75% off!" sign on it. No one went near it. The AMVETS post I belong to used to make a big deal of each race. They'd set up a buffet, run pools on the race and such. Now they don't even allow the races to be shown.

There used to be waiting lists to even get the chance to buy tickets to the major races. Now they run TV adverts, "Plenty of good seats still available!" Even for The Daytona 500.

Dare:
I think part of Nascar's problem is too many races

Steven Roy:
When I first heard the idea for the Chase I was convinced it would be a disaster.  You can't have play offs unless you have a head to head situation as in team sports.  Formula one has had some odd ways of deciding the championship(best 4 scores from the first half plus the best 4 from the second half for example) but to write off the results of the majority of the races makes no sense whatever.

NASCAR being NASCAR there was always going to be a backlash to any foreign car maker entering.

I am amazed though that its popularity has dropped to this extent in such a short time.

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