NASCAR viewership numbers from Talladega set a worrying precedent for the sport

NASCAR has a lot to worry about its viewership after the Talladega Superspeedway Cup Series race delivered an underwhelming response last weekend. As per reports, the Jack Link's 500 at Talladega amassed a viewership of 4.041 million, around 266,000 viewers less than 2024.

Sharing the statistics, Sports Business Journal journalist Adam Stern wrote on X:

".@FoxTV got 4.041 million viewers for Sunday's Cup Series race at Talladega, down 6% from last year. Talladega marked the final race on network TV for NASCAR's premier series until the August 23rd event at Daytona on @NBC."

Compared to this year's numbers, the 2024 Talladega race garnered over 4.307 million viewers. This was further down from 4.554 million in 2023, 4.682 million in 2022, and 4.701 million in 2021.

This means there has been a constant loss of viewership year after year, and a total loss of approximately 660,000 viewers in the last five years. As per chatter around the sport, one of the two main reasons behind the loss of viewership has been the stage racing, introduced in 2017. It divides a race into three stages. The first and second stages deliver just stage points, and the third stage brings out the winner. As a result, the first two stages have lost their charm.

The second reason was speculated to be the new media rights deal, which dropped off total races in the Television network (aka Free TV). Different media houses such as Fox, NBC, Amazon Prime, and TNT Sports telecast the races, making it difficult for fans to tune in to all the races.

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When NASCAR banked on Netflix to boost its popularity

Chief operating officer Steve O'Donnell speak to the media prior to practice for the championship race at Phoenix Raceway - Source: Imagn

In 2024, NASCAR commissioner Steve O'Donnell addressed the impact of Netflix in boosting the popularity of the sport and, subsequently, the viewership. Netflix released a NASCAR-related docu-series named NASCAR: Full Speed, and it attracted numerous new fans to the sport.

Speaking about its impact, O'Donnell said, via on3.com:

“To see 88 percent of new fans watching that show, and then you roll into the season and you have some terrific racing and you have a number of winners who were actually featured on Netflix, it really matched up to what we’d hoped for,” O’Donnell said.

“It’s impossible to say exactly how much it’s driving the ratings, but you’ve certainly got to look at that stat and say we exposed the sport to a new audience.”

Notably, Netflix also released a similar kind of docu-series related to F1 in 2018, named Drive to Survive. It also increased F1's popularity multiple-fold.