Tuning in is turning more on to racing
NASCAR's TV deal boosts sport, networks, too
By BOB HENRY
ThatsRacin.com Senior Editor
When talk turns to the state-of-the-art engine programs in NASCAR, it's generally understood that millions of dollars and more are involved. Same with NASCAR and it's television partners.
"The engine that is powering the sport's growth," Paul Brooks, NASCAR's vice president of broadcasting, has often called the $2.4 billion TV contract now in its third season. With the NBC/TNT half of the 2003 schedule well under way, Brooks recently upgraded his description of what the landmark TV deal has put under NASCAR's hood: "It's a jet engine."
The TV rights deal for which Fox, NBC and TNT outbid ESPN and rest has helped fuel the changing geography of NASCAR, for years considered a "Southern sport." Indeed, through the arrangement, the networks have brought the Winston Cup Series to millions of new fans and made it the second-most-watched professional sport in North America.
It's come a long way and it has taken a while.
It took television executives until the early 1980s, for instance, to see the viability of live coverage for the Indianapolis 500, perhaps the best-known auto race in the world. That was years after the Daytona 500, certainly NASCAR's best-known event, aired live from flag to flag for the first time on network television.
This year, the May 25 Coca-Cola 600 earned a 4.7 rating for Fox, making it the highest-rated, most-watched motorsports event of the weekend, beating the Indy 500 by 2 percent.
Before that first live-TV Daytona 500 - the seminal 1979 running, complete with the Donnie and Bobby Allison tag-team fray with Cale Yarborough at the end - avid fans often were left with little more than the occasional 17 or 18 minutes' worth of tape-delayed race coverage on ABC's "Wide World of Sports." Of course the races had been over so long by then that even if fans had read of the outcome in a newspaper - also unlikely then - they didn't remember.
There was a lot more racing to come in the '80s, and by the 1990 season fans could see 24 NASCAR Winston Cup events - if they had cable and access to ESPN, TNN, and TBS. By the end of decade, cable viewers could get all 34 points races.
Even with cable, though, fans couldn't be sure when and where to watch. With Fox and NBC/TNT splitting the race season, that's no longer a problem. Fox's contract runs through 2008, while the deal with NBC and TNT expires after 2006.
In 2001, the first year of the contract, ratings were higher for network races on Fox and NBC (5.6 rating up from 5.2 in 2000) and races shown on cable partners FX and TNT (4.4 up from 3.9). Household viewership averaged 5.05 million over the 36-race schedule for an increase of almost 1.3 million over 2000.
Ratings are part of the system the broadcasting industry uses to set advertising rates.
Also, sponsors use the research of Joyce Julius and Associates and others to measure the exposure their products receive in sporting events, such as NASCAR races.
Simply put, when the TV cameras focus on a car bedecked with sponsor logos, that exposure is worth a given amount and compared with what the sponsor might spend to purchase advertising.
For example, Joyce Julius and Associates calculates that the Daytona 500 on Fox in February provided sponsors with the most exposure of any U.S. motorsports broadcast ever, with 271 brands getting $251.4 million of exposure value. That was nearly 10% more than the 2002 Daytona 500, the company said.
"NASCAR continues to be an amazing television phenomenon," FOX Sports President Ed Goren said in a statement. "It's clearly the strongest, most consistent televised sport in both ratings and demographics ... "
So strong, in fact, that ratings for Fox's first half of the 2003 season remained steady compared with last year. Normally, flat isn't so good, until the NASCAR numbers are compared with other major-league sports on U.S. television.
Factoring out the Daytona 500, Fox's 13 Winston Cup races drew 5.8 percent of the 106.7 million U.S. homes with televisions, on average, according to Nielsen Media Research Inc. That would be in line with ratings for the previous two seasons. The National Collegiate Athletic Association Basketball tournament on CBS fell 23 percent this year and regular-season National Hockey League coverage on ABC was off 21 percent.
Regular-season NBA ratings on ABC dropped 10 percent from the previous year. Three races on Fox this year outdrew the 2003 NBA Finals' six-game average of 6.5/12: Daytona (9.8/21), Las Vegas (6.9/15), and Rockingham (6.7/16).
No wonder NASCAR touts itself as the No. 1 late-winter/spring sport. The 5.8 average rating beat not only the NBA regular-season, but topped broadcast coverage of the NBA playoffs (4.8), NCAA Tournament (5.0), PGA golf (3.3/all networks), Arena Football League (1.1), NHL regular season (1.1) and Stanley Cup Playoffs (1.3) and Finals (2.9).
"You go back 10 or 12 years ago, NASCAR was seventh, eighth or ninth on the American sports landscape," said George Pyne, NASCAR's chief operating officer.
" ... I'll let others say where we are today, but wherever we are, we're in a good spot. When people watch on TV and when people buy licensed products and when people attend events, to me it's like going to the turnstile and voting. Those facts are indisputable."
Looking back a decade to four-time champion Jeff Gordon's first full season, stock car races weren't held in such major markets as Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami. This season, 10 of the 36 Winston Cup races are outside the Southeast.
NASCAR's Brooks notes that exposure in those new markets creates a buzz and generates benefits for the sanctioning body's television partners well beyond attendance numbers.
Expect the number of new markets to grow as NASCAR continues to realign the schedules for its top-three series.
When the TV deal was signed, NASCAR chose to stick with its formula for splitting that part of the pot. The sanctioning body gets 10 percent, the tracks 65 percent, and the teams 25 percent, while race winnings come from each track's share. For example, the Coca-Cola 600 TV awards totaled $1,601,611. That paid $69,375 for first and $32,656 for 43rd, or last.
With wider exposure, historic ratings, new markets and the $2.4 billion deal, everybody should be happy, right? Yes, and well, not so much. Teams and track owners, naturally enough, want more. So, too, does NASCAR. And Brooks, the executive in charge of broadcasting, believes much more is possible.
The company's research shows unprecedented strength among young viewers. It is the only major sport that has shown significant growth in fans between 12 and 17 years old. It also has a growing audience among female teens. And as many as 58 percent of children between 7 and 11 are NASCAR fans, Brooks said. |
