Fox Sports saw a 6% viewership decline for its NASCAR Sprint Cup race package this season, as an increase for FS1 telecasts could not erase big drops seen by the Fox broadcast channel early in the season. Fox and FS1 combined to average 5.578 million viewers for 15 races, which excludes the Pocono race early last month that was rained out on a Sunday and run on a Monday. That figure is down from 5.925 million viewers last year for 15 races, which excludes the April Bristol race that began on Fox, but had a four-hour rain delay before airing on FS1. Fox alone averaged 6.58 million viewers for its races this year, down 13% from 7.53 million last year. The net was hurt by early season drops for Daytona (-15%) and Atlanta (-28%). The Atlanta race also marked the lowest audience for the Sprint Cup Series’ second points race of the season since ’08. Meanwhile, FS1 saw a 6% increase in its second season airing Sprint Cup races. The net’s races averaged 3.79 million viewers, up from 3.57 million viewers last year.
READY FOR THE SECOND HALF: NBC Sports starts the second NASCAR media rights deal this weekend at Daytona Int’l Speedway, with network execs insisting that they have not rested on their laurels. NBC was mostly seen as having a strong start last year and pumping what some felt was much-needed energy and creativity into the sport. NBC Sports Exec Producer Sam Flood said, “We spent a lot of time this offseason looking at races, examining what we liked in terms of the show flow and what we didn’t like. We think we’ve picked up some areas where we can get better -- I think we can tell more stories of more drivers -- but do it in such a way that the fans understand and have a rooting interest across all of the stars we have in there.” NBC Sports VP/NASCAR Production Jeff Behnke noted other changes this year include a stepped-up animations and graphics package produced by NASCAR video game licensee Dusenberry Martin Racing that will be able to show off and explain on-track dynamics like side-drafting in a more visual manner. DMR also is a new advertiser this year to NBC as it pushes the September release of its NASCAR Heat Evolution game. Behnke said NBC is “not going to have any downtick at all” as far as production commitment.
CROSS PROMOTION: One huge theme for NBC this year will be integrating and cross-promoting NASCAR with the Olympics, which will be the lead-in for multiple races in August. Behnke said NBC “is trying to find and tell as many crossover stories between the Olympics and NASCAR (as possible).” He cited as an example how NBC spotlighted a group of Paralympians who visited Richard Childress Racing HQ on Thursday on behalf of Dow, which sponsors both groups, and unveiled an Olympics-themed paint scheme and competed in a pit-stop competition. NBC will also have creative and content around the two properties. Meanwhile, NBC’s slogan it has used so far this season is “We’ll take it from here." NBC Sports Group CMO Jennifer Storms said of the idea behind the theme: “It’s a handoff: We’ve got great partners with Fox and it’s a unique situation with us taking the handoff from them, and so what was the impetus, making sure people knew there was a transition from them to us. But also playing up the holiday weekend ... playing up the independence angle."
