Forget Football - NASCAR - Statistical Data Included

American Demographics, Feb, 2001 by Kemba Johnson

Are you ready for some NASCAR? Auto racing debuts on network TV this month, bringing with it a loyal fan base for marketers.

It's February and football season is over. Baseball is months away. Basketball is just heating up. Hibernation period for sports, right? Not if you're one of the loyal followers of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, more popularly called NASCAR.

For those in the know, stock car racing has been a silent, but growing, phenomenon over the past few years. This year, it marks a milestone by entering the radar of mainstream media. For the first time in its 52-year history, the sport will be aired mostly on network TV, as FOX and NBC have negotiated a six-year deal to televise 28 of 36 races each season. From its inaugural race, the Daytona 500, on February 18, through June 24, FOX will air NASCAR's premier Winston Cup Series, where each race earns drivers points that will decide the champion. NBC will pick up the season's second half, which ends in November.

It's a move that both NASCAR officials and network executives hope will finally push auto racing into the mainstream, bringing in more viewers, and with them, more advertising, sponsorships, and licensing deals. "We're confident that with FOX showing the first half, and NBC showing the second, we can grow the sport because the fans will know where to go," says Kevin Sullivan, vice president of communications at NBC Sports.

TV viewing of sports, in general, is on the decline. But NASCAR has been able to hold its own so far - even without the wide support of mainstream media. Until this year, fans had to figure out where to tune in to watch the races. That's because previously the 23 independently-owned race tracks, not NASCAR, brokered the TV rights with various networks such as TNN, ESPN, or CBS.

The move to network will give NASCAR a chance to recover some lost fans. In 1999, 83.9 million people identified themselves as motor sports fans, down from 95.1 million in 1996. Even with this decline, however, NASCAR remains one of America's most popular sports. These days, 38 percent of the population over the age of 12 say they are NASCAR fans. Auto racing ranks as the nation's seventh most popular sport behind football (66.5 percent of Americans say they're football fans), baseball (60.8 percent), college football (54.4 percent), basketball (50.6 percent), figure skating (50 percent), and college basketball (47.7 percent), according to the ESPN Sports Poll.

Other sports may boast a bigger fan base, but racing enthusiasts may be the most loyal. Instead of just saying they are fans, NASCAR lovers actually watch many of the races, at home and from the stands. Nielsen data shows that in 1999 the auto racing series was the second most watched sport after NFL regular season games and ahead of NBA and MLB games (see chart). According to a study commissioned by NASCAR, that same year 6.5 million fans attended Winston Cup races, and 17 of the 20 best attended sporting events in the country were in that series.

NASCAR plans to grow its fan base from both of those pillars. Going network will expose the sport to 30 million additional households. NASCAR estimates that 16 percent of the population are possible converts, who know something about the sport. The organization will also try to bring more people into the stands, with two new races, one in Chicago and another in Kansas City.

NASCAR estimates that 12 percent of the nation are hard-core fans, like Russ Harris, a 61-year-old retired entrepreneur from Williams, Arizona, who has been following the sport since the 1950s. Of those, about 7 percent of the population consists of die-hards who spend at least 6.5 hours a week following the racing series in person, on TV, in print, and on the Internet. Harris, for example, spends much more, considering that he and his wife, Maureen, run the fan club of famed driver Jeff Gordon.

These so-called "true believers" shell out $683 a year, on average, in merchandise and 47 percent of them see the races live. Another 5 percent of the country are considered "believers." They spend 5.2 hours a week following stock car racing, buy $301 in merchandise, and 25 percent of them attend races.

NASCAR knows it has to keep these fans content, primarily by maintaining the "family feeling" between the drivers and their followers. "Growing the fan base without alienating the core, that's huge," says Steve Boguski, vice president of marketing for NASCAR. "For every true believer we lose going after the casual new fan, we'll need five to six casual fans to replace them."

NASCAR is essentially about regular folks, watching regular guys drive souped-up cars. And that's the appeal - fans feel that they too could be racing the Daytona 500 (if they really wanted to, and could get a few million dollars in sponsorships). "A fan might be 160 pounds, they can't play football, or they are 5 foot 9, they can't play basketball," explains Harris. "But they feel they can drive a race car."