The Decline of NASCAR...What Happened?

[Music] company man ideas calm that's my website where you can submit video ideas and vote on ideas submitted by others one of my highest ranked ideas is to talk about the decline of NASCAR just think about it NASCAR was huge I'd say in 2005 maybe 2006 NASCAR was at its biggest and it's a private company so it can be hard to illustrate the decline but consider this Talladega Nights you remember that movie Will Ferrel comedy centered around the world of NASCAR it opened number one in the box office and I'll say it I saw it opening day which was August 4th 2006 right at the peak of NASCAR's popularity another movie ison theaters that year was cars open that same summer also at number one two of the biggest summer movies of 2006 were influenced by NASCAR I think I've made my point but in case I didn't check out this graph it's for the US television ratings of the Daytona 500 one of the biggest NASCAR races there is its peak year was in 2006 at over 19 million viewers and in 2019 it was less than half of that kind of up and down during that period but the trend is there it's not just TV ratings people aren't going to the races either it's been widely reported NASCAR fans are racing away from the sport even faster NASCAR has a problem and drivers aren't sure how to fix it it's all gone down so let's try to figure out why NASCAR started as a pretty rough sport throughout the 1920s and 1930s prohibition was in place which made it illegal to produce and transport alcohol in the United States but people did it anyway bootleggers they were called over in the Appalachian area where there's very dangerous and curvy roads there were these drivers who would transport the alcohol they had to evade and sometimes outrun the police to get better at it they would alter their cars and make them faster and more powerful all these drivers effectively became skilled racecar drivers in the late 1930s they got together and started hosting some races typically on dirt tracks that were intended for horse racing big bill friends was a racer and the owner of a gas station and mechanic shops so he had some connections throughout the community Daytona Beach knew that and approached him to organize and promote a race in their area the race was a success and he would go on to organize bigger and bigger races each year by the late 1940s he organized a sanctioning body that would regulate everything and make a set of consistent rules in December of 1947 that sanctioning body became NASCAR over the years they signed sponsors specifically r.j. Reynolds the tobacco company signed broadcasting deals to get them on TV as well as licensing deals open new tracks and expanded into different areas of the country as I said in the mid-2000s think we're at their biggest but it hasn't gone too well since and the reason behind it can be hard to identify but I have a lot of speculations some of these are connected and overlap with each other but here we go an older audience NASCAR has a lot of trouble attracting younger fans I got this from Sports Business Journal a study of Nielsen television viewership it says in 2016 the average NASCAR viewer was 58 years old which is nine years older than it was ten years before that it's the biggest increase of any major sport I'm pretty sure we can all think of a big issue with having a rapidly aging audience like this their existing fans won't be there forever so it's necessary to continually attract a newer younger audience and it doesn't look like they're doing that I'm going off on my own a little bit here but I have a theory as to why they can't do that the younger generations do not care about cars and mechanics in the same way as the older generations this is my own perception and it seems to be supported by various studies and surveys it could just be a cultural shift some have said that cars today are more complex and you almost need a professional to work on them this is a deep subject but I'm guessing there's many younger people watching this who's 58 year old father or grandfather know more about cars than they do so it would make sense that a sports centered around cars would struggle to capture the interest of this younger generation boredom NASCAR can get boring and look if you're a big NASCAR fan I'm not trying to insult your sport but you have to understand what I'm talking about here a typical race is over three hours and world where our minds are constantly stimulated with Netflix and YouTube and Instagram and a million other entertainment options do you know how hard it is to get someone to sit down for three hours and watch these cars travel hundreds of miles at a time if there's just five minutes of the race with little activity that phone's coming out and at that point you've lost them the attention of the younger generations may be the hardest to maintain and that will go back to the last point but no one wants to watch a boring race which ties to my next reason Dale Earnhardt I think anyone would agree that Dale Earnhardt the Intimidator is one of the biggest most popular NASCAR drivers of all time well in 2001 he died when he crashed into a wall during a race I don't want to show it because I just don't want to show it but let me tell you about this race in 1999 NASCAR signed this huge 2.4 billion dollar deal with Fox and NBC it gave those two networks exclusive rights to show the races Fox would show the first half of the season and NBC would take over for the second half see before this they were being aired all over the place it was up to each track to make a deal with whichever broadcaster they felt was best and that was a mess now they were coming together to get a better deal that would lead to better promotion and more money it was the third largest broadcasting contract in sports and look how it was reported by the New York Post NASCAR spanking new six-year television mega contract for at least two point four billion dollars quadruples its current broadcasting deal and moves the family controlled car racing circuit from the up-and-coming list to has arrived the feeling at the time was this deal brought NASCAR to the next level the first race under this contract was the Daytona 500 a huge race that was heavily promoted due to the start of this broadcasting agreement it was one of the most popular races of all time with just over 17 million viewers in the final lap of that race is when Dale Earnhardt crashed and died obviously tragic for him and his family and everyone involved but look at it from NASCAR's perspective the obvious most immediate effect is the loss of one of the sport's most popular drivers that's not good for ratings but aside from that it is terrible publicity I know some people are going to say that bad publicity is still and you're right brought a lot of attention to an already growing sport but I'm still going to go ahead and call this an overall negative in the 8 months leading up to this there were already three other similar deaths so not surprisingly it caused a huge emphasis to be placed on driver safety which takes me back to my previous reason boredom I think most would agree that all these safety precautions have led to more boring races after Dale Earnhardt's death NASCAR spent five years designing a new safer car they called it the Car of Tomorrow was first used in a few races in 2007 then the next year it was used for everything there were some changes made over time but from 2008 through 2012 this was the car that everyone used until it was replaced by the generation six cars in 2013 the car of tomorrow it's a cool name I'll give him that but it was heavily criticized the head of NASCAR has admitted that it was a failure the drivers complained about the way it handled the fan said that they all look too similar in boxy and boring the car of tomorrow along with other rule changes designed to promote safety as made things more boring safety can be boring I get it I get the importance of it but think how this sport started a bunch of whiskey bootleggers and these unsanctioned Knight races on dirt roads that's how the sport was built I can almost guarantee NASCAR has had many viewers over the years tuning in with hopes of seeing a crash or at least some recklessness now that it's safe heard it's just not the same rule changes do you know how the Cup Series the main series is structured it's gotten very tricky and keeps changing trying not to get too specific in 2004 they introduced the chase for the Nextel Cup which for the final ten races they would make only the top ten drivers eligible for it and then reset their standings I'm sure intended to make those final races more important and then every few years since they've messed around with this format adding drivers changing the point system to wear different accomplishments are valued more today drivers get eliminated throughout the chase it's no longer called the chase but it's the chase the whole thing has gone through so many changes and it's very different than it was pre 2004 I think a lot of people see this as a big gimmick and we just like to have the classic format back or at the very least it so much just settle on something Brian France a lot of people don't like this guy it's a family business as I said in the beginning it was established by Bill France in the 1970s his son bill France jr. took over in 2003 his son Brian France took over and he's no longer in charge because Jim France Brian's uncle has recently taken over Brian France has been criticized for not attending races he's not exactly the Mark Cuban of NASCAR his leadership decisions have been questioned like the Car of Tomorrow his recent absence is attributed to a DWI and drug possession he's just not well-liked by many of the fans and may not be the best face of the company a few more in the economy in 2008 it all went bad people had less money so they stopped attending races and never went back it's something you typically travel to so add on the price of gas and hotels and it gets pricey I wouldn't expect someone to stop following their favorite sports solely for this reason but combine this with some of the other stuff there could be something there personality if the new NASCAR drivers don't exactly resemble those 1930s bootleggers also with the safer driving and more uniform cars it's harder to show personality environmental concerns there's been efforts made but obviously this is not the best sport for the environment that's all I have for now it's not a complete list but I think we see what's happening here many of those NASCAR fans from 2006 just don't care anymore and they're not bringing in the new ones either maybe all these safety concerns made the sport boring and they lost interest maybe some of their attempts to make it more exciting and bring in the new fans like the rule changes let the original fans feeling abandoned maybe they now have a Netflix subscription and find that to be more entertaining maybe the drivers that they love are gone and replaced by new ones that they don't care about maybe it's all become too family-friendly maybe they can't afford to be a fan maybe like the rest of the world they become more environmentally conscious maybe it's a combination I don't know exactly what happened to NASCAR there's no easy thing to point to that would explain such a major decline but there are a bunch of smaller things all happening together that starts to paint a picture let me know in the comments what do you think happened to NASCAR I would love for anyone to express their opinion but here's who I'm especially interested in hearing from if you used to follow NASCAR back 15 plus years ago and have somewhere along the line stopped when did you stop and what was your reason also those of you who still follow NASCAR because there's millions of you out there what's your take on this why do you think so many people lost interest but not you I'd like to hear what you have to say thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: Company Man

Views: 763,579

Rating: 4.863152 out of 5

Keywords: NASCAR, Racing, Dale Earnhardt, Car of Tomorrow, Sports, Decline

Id: nSKk6J20SsA

Length: 11min 43sec (703 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/jpilat24fan]

Oh wow I love the company man. I’m subscribed. Looking forward to this later.

[u/jacoobz]

I agree with his points. I feel like the sense of danger is gone and goes back to boredom. I understand why and we do need safety but we don’t need to hear about the Safer barrier every time a car hits the wall or whatever.

[u/flyinghighguy]

I really do believe that the largest of all the factors is Brian France for reasons that we all know.

[u/RCMFLY]

NASCAR lost it's cool factor. The driver's personalities in the 90s and easily identifiable cars did so much to build the sport up and the COT pretty much put the nail in the coffin. We have to find a way to make it cool again.

[u/[deleted]]

Hey everything is fairly accurate. Great video indeed.

[u/crazychris4124]

Not many people mention this but having a good NASCAR game for the casual or hardcore fan with the exception of IRacing is a problem when gaming is one of the biggest hobbies for the younger audience that NASCAR is so desperately trying to draw to the sport. I started following NASCAR again after a years long hiatus because they started making NASCAR for PC again in 2013.

The Eutechnyx games started fine but they didnt really add much in later games. By the 3rd and final game from them it felt like they were just tweaking a couple things to justify the $50 price. My review for the last game was simply "same game, different year." We begged for the trucks and xfinity for years before they lost the license. I also had a Youtube channel at the time and my most popular content was NASCAR gameplay. I literally had overnight success from the steam version of NASCAR 2013. Went from 11 subs and 7k views in 3 months to 250 subs and 280k views in the 1 year period between NASCAR '13 and '14. Quit Youtube and NASCAR games with the release of the Heat Evolution. Final video was a 80 minute live stream of me shitting on the games bad physics, sound and graphics, ended the stream with me requesting a refund through Steam. Channel died with almost 3k subs and 3 million views.

Looks like they improved the graphics and sounds with Heat 4 but the physics was the biggest problem in the 3 Heat games.

Another problem is track schedule stagnation. Hard to grow the sport when you race at the same locations year after year, at least move the All Star Weekend to a new track every year thats not on the circuit.

[u/[deleted]]

Company Man does great stuff.

[u/declemson]

Taking races away from its roots i.e. the southeast didnt help......nascar expanded way to fast with cookie cutter tracks which mostly are boring.....in other words nascar got too greedy and shortsighted....

[u/SteveODonnellPhelps]

Can’t wait for the Twitter bot to post this and have Brad retweet it with some braindumb comment.