It’s an interesting scenario for NASCAR with Kevin Harvick’s first championship victory at Homestead last weekend.
The good news is that ratings for the final race and for the 10 race Chase for the Cup did not take another tumble and stayed mostly flat versus the last few years.
The bad news is that the new Chase for the Cup format was not able to draw a meaningful increase in viewership, especially for the “winner takes all” final race amongst the four contending drivers.
Jayski keeps track of all the NASCAR ratings throughout the year and finds that the 10 race Chase for the Cup drew an average of 4.41 million viewers for ESPN/ABC and a 2.7 rating. That’s a minimal decrease from last season’s 2.8 rating and 4.5 million viewers.
In fact, for the past five seasons, NASCAR’s ratings have been fairly unchanged for the Chase, hovering in the 4-5 million viewers range:
2010: 4.49 million
2011: 4.76 million
2012: 4.20 million
2013: 4.50 million
2014: 4.41 million
If there is a silver lining for NASCAR, it’s that the new elimination format for the Chase seemed to finally deliver viewers the closer it got to the finish line. The season ending race at Homestead drew its best viewership numbers since 2011, drawing 5.2 million viewers. And according to Sports Media Watch, all three of the final races (Texas, Phoenix, Homestead) hit multi-year highs. That comes after 23 of the previous 29 races saw declines in viewership, several of which hit major lows.
All three of those final races certainly delivered on the drama and excitement front, from the fight at Texas to Ryan Newman’s last lap pass to make the Final Four, to Kevin Harvick’s win in Miami. Those last three races were everything NASCAR could have hoped for in the first year of the new playoff format.
NASCAR ratings have still dropped by almost half over the last decade. But if there’s any good news for the sport, at least the ratings decline over that period has stabilized in the last few years. And for the first time in a long time, there’s an ounce of momentum with the exciting finish to the season.
[Jayski]
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