NBC Sports starts its half of the '19 NASCAR season this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway encouraged by Fox' first-half ratings and looking to continue the momentum. While Fox was only up 2% in year-over-year viewership, being in positive territory to any extent is a win for the industry. NBC has some new marketing promos, fresh advertisers and some continuity in the booth after Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s debut in '18, which Exec Producer Sam Flood hopes will lead the net to picking up where Fox left off. "We’re excited by it -- that fans are watching NASCAR -- and we hope to continue the trend," Flood said. "We've got a great product to get more people engaged and are confident the trend can continue in the second half as the drama of the playoffs and the fight to make the playoffs play out." As part of the start of its half of the season, NBC has rolled out some new ads including one with actor Michael Rooker previewing the latter stages of the regular season and playoffs. The network is also bringing back for a second year its intro with singer ZZ Ward doing a cover of Tom Petty's "Runnin' Down A Dream," though it is expected to include new scenes. Rooker will be the voice of NBC Sports’ NASCAR coverage throughout the season. NBC Sports CMO Jenny Storms said that the marketing theme this year “continues to be on the core fan” and “is designed to present relevant, compelling and urgent messages to avid fans in core markets around the storylines, speed, danger, rivalries, and patriotism that make the sport so great.”
SOLID AD SALES SO FAR: NBC is off to a solid start from an ad sales perspective, which is critical for a network that is paying $440M annually for media rights. NBC Sports VP/Sponsorship & Strategy Russell Sargeant said sales are pacing ahead of last year, with big increases coming from the QSR/casual dining and hotel/accommodation categories. Sources said that Wendy’s is one of the QSRs that has signed on for an ad buy this season. NBC also has landed a title sponsor for its Peacock Pit Box, which is a 14-by-12.5-foot pit box the net uses for pre-, in- and post-race coverage. However, that sponsor is not being unveiled until later in the season because it wanted to promote its brand slightly later in the summer. Sargeant added that Fox' viewership increase "combined with increases for our other motorsports properties has us very optimistic about our half of the season."
STILL WILLING TO CHANGE: Like it did last year, Flood said that NBC will continue to tinker with booth setups this season, using for example a radio-style format for road course races where the network’s talent is positioned at different areas across the track. Flood said that he expects Earnhardt’s growth to be “through the roof” in his second year. When the ’19 NASCAR season started in February, NBC changed the format of its daily “NASCAR America” studio show to where every day has a different theme, a change that Flood said has gone well. In a new twist, NBC is even copying one of the things it has been doing on the studio show -- allowing fans to call in on one of the days -- for its post-race show. Meanwhile, NBC has gone in on motorsports in general recently by picking up media rights to several different series, and Flood noted that NBC launched a Motorsports Youtube channel in February that now has 61,000 subscribers.
