Ratings Increase, But NASCAR Faces Media, Economic Challenges

Writer Feels NASCAR Still Facing Media Challenges

MEDIA WATCH: NASCAR.com's David Caraviello wrote NASCAR's early-season ratings increase "does not necessarily mean the sport is on a path back to the days" of '01 and '02, when TV ratings were “skyrocketing,” according to . It also does not mean NASCAR is "without its media challenges, the biggest of which may not be TV, but the increasing number of daily newspapers that have axed staff-generated coverage of the sport." The media center at Bristol Motor Speedway "never seemed as empty as it did last week." But “as always, the tube gets most attention. It's the television networks that pay the billion-dollar rights fees, that provide the window through which the vast majority of race fans view their favorite sport, that are seen as the harbinger of ill times when numbers turn south” (NASCAR.com, 3/19).

ECONOMY'S IMPACT: In Charlotte, David Poole writes of NASCAR, there is "ugliness coming with the sport's economy." It is "almost delusional" that cars without a full-season sponsor can "pick up big-dollar backing in this [economic] environment." Meanwhile, the talk of gas being $4 a gallon by Memorial Day "could lead to fans deciding not to plan trips" to races this summer (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 3/20). NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon said the sport's business model "is not a good model." Gordon: "I see the financial side of Hendrick Motorsports these days and it scares the heck out of me when I see how much we're spending" (ESPN.com, 3/19).

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