ESPN, NASCAR huddle over TV ratings drop

ESPN, NASCAR huddle over TV ratings drop


By John Ourand and Tripp Mickle
Special to the Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
(October 18, 2010)

NASCAR’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup moved from ABC to ESPN this year, but TV viewers haven’t followed.
Ratings for the 2010 Chase’s first four races were down 27 percent compared with last year. The decline is enough of a concern that top ESPN and NASCAR executives met in Charlotte over the weekend to come up with ways to reverse the troubling trend.
It’s a drop-off that has caught network and property executives off guard, and it has led them to analyze viewership patterns to pinpoint reasons for the decline.
As of last week, no one had a clear answer.
“The simple fact is that people just are not tuning in,” said Julie Sobieski, ESPN’s vice president of programming and acquisitions. “We’re looking at everything to find out why.”
Top ESPN executives, including president George Bodenheimer, traveled to Charlotte for the fifth race of the Chase, the Bank of America 500, and engaged NASCAR executives during several meetings. A team of ESPN’s top editorial staff, including Rob King, ESPN digital media editor-in-chief, and Glenn Jacobs, senior coordinating producer of “SportsCenter,” also attended the race and were given a three-day, behind-the-scenes immersion into NASCAR operations.
ESPN and NASCAR officials hope enhanced coverage of the sport on “SportsCenter” and ESPN.com will drive tune-in for future races.
“The races have been fantastic,” said Paul Brooks, NASCAR senior vice president. “We just have to do everything we can on all sides to make sure that initial tune-in audience is there.”
NASCAR ratings are down across all of the sport’s network partners this season, between 4 percent and 6 percent on Fox, TNT and Speed. But the Chase races, which switched from ABC to ESPN for the first time this year, have showed much bigger declines. ESPN’s 2.4 average rating through the first four Chase races this year is well below the 3.3 average rating ABC pulled for the same events last year.
The most logical explanation for the decline would appear to be the move from ABC, which reaches 116 million homes, to ESPN, which reaches 100 million homes. But NASCAR and ESPN executives rebuffed that theory and pointed to ESPN races last year that pulled better TV numbers than races on ABC. Most of this year’s drop-off, they added, comes from homes that have ESPN.
“It’s such a small factor when we look at the decline,” Sobieski said of the shift from ABC to ESPN.
Another factor they are analyzing is NASCAR’s decision to move most of its races to a 1 p.m. ET start on Sundays. The move has provided consistency but puts the races head-to-head with the start of the NFL’s early Sunday games. Each of the Chase’s first four races went up against NFL programming. The Charlotte race, the only Chase race to air on ABC, was the first to dodge that competition, with the race beginning at 7:45 p.m. Saturday.
Sobieski pointed to the strength of the NFL as a notable factor in the NASCAR ratings decline. She said the NFL has seen a 10 percent jump in its early Sunday window (1-4 p.m. ET), pushing NFL ratings up 1.7 points compared with NASCAR’s 0.9 point drop during the same period.
“There’s only so much available sports audience at that time,” Sobieski said.
On the track, the racing this year has been more exciting than in recent seasons, leading to even more confusion over why viewers are not watching.
NASCAR set the tone at the beginning of the season, saying that drivers should “have at it” on the track, meaning they would be responsible for policing themselves more than they have in the past. In theory, that would lead to more rivalries and story lines throughout the season, but those factors have not had the impact on ratings NASCAR and its network partners were hoping to see.
“Certainly the racing our drivers are doing is not the issue by anyone’s measure,” Brooks said.
ESPN and NASCAR are looking into promotions to drive tune-in for the final five races of the Chase but currently don’t have any concrete marketing plans.
“I wish we had a silver bullet,” Sobieski said. “We’re doing everything we can to focus on racing.”
Tripp Mickle and John Ourand are reporters with SportsBusiness Journal. SBJ staff writer Michael Smith contributed to this report.

EDITORS NOTE
RACING HELLONWHEELS
It seems to us the answer is in the televised programing that has cause much if not all the decline.
After ESPN took over the races from ABC theres' been a significant decline in viewership.
One, alot of house holds have given up cable due to the recession among other "extra" goods .
And the majority of the "base" NASCAR fans dont usually have cable in there homes ,thats why ABC and Fox networks always do  so much better. The NFL always does really well and for people to say tthey have taken over more of the audience isnt completely wrong ,because the majority of there games can be seen on non-cable networks
So NASCAR you really have to look beyound what the executives at ESPN tell you and start looking at your FANS