April 18, 2009
By Brenda Benedict
Loyal NASCAR fans. You know who you are.
Your weekend schedule is determined by when the ‘race’ is scheduled. If there isn’t a race like last Sunday, you face the weekend with dread. No race. How depressing! There are many other signs of fan devotion but recently I had to do some serious thinking about being a NASCAR fan.
My sister-in-law, who is also my running partner, recently questioned me about a column I had written while we were running. (I was touched because few people in family read what I write). She challenged the statement I made in a recent column that NASCAR fans are the most loyal fans in all of professional sports.
“Really, Brenda, are you sure?” Our family is full of sports nuts who are devoted to other sports with an intensity not seen in many families. “Did you think about Tom? He is such a loyal fan to other sports.”
So I have carefully thought about it this week. Are NASCAR fans the most loyal? And I have come to the same conclusion. Yes, NASCAR fans are a very loyal lot and they show their support in many ways and now I have the data to prove it.
This winter I took a cross-country trip that took me to 22 states while attempting to visit my children who are spread from North Carolina to Arizona. Everywhere I went, I observed people wearing apparel supporting their favorite driver. So I began looking for it. You would expect to see NASCAR apparel in North Carolina but I also saw someone with a NASCAR sweatshirt in Jerome, Arizona, a small mountain town north of Phoenix. Several weeks later, while sitting in Gelly’s Pub in Stockholm, Minnesota, a customer walked in sporting a Jeff Gordon shirt. Fans are everywhere. My streak of spotting NASCAR apparel was unbroken.
Jeff Burton addressed this subject in this week’s NASCAR press conference. He was asked about the attendance at recent races.
“Well, you know, it's no surprise I think to anyone that we've seen crowds that look smaller than what you've seen in the past. That's a part of the economy," said Burton. "There's no question. People are having to make decisions, there's not as much discretionary money to spend. People are going to buy milk rather than going to a race, and that's okay. That's a decision people should make.
"At the end of the day, what we do have is a lot of loyal fans. I can tell you the enthusiasm at the races is really high. There's no question there's a lot of excitement. There's a lot of enthusiasm. That's the great thing. What I look at, the fans we have are enthusiastic and excited. That's been really cool to see.”
But I wanted proof other than just my own observations. And there are numbers that back up Burton and my observations.
Marketing research has shown that NASCAR fans are much more likely to buy logo'd merchandise than fans of other professional sports. The Burning Taper blog recently wrote “Seventy-two percent of NASCAR fans say they buy products because they have the NASCAR name on them. Tennis fans are number two at 52%, followed by golf fans at 47%, NBA at 38%, Major League Baseball, also at 38%, NFL at 32% and the Olympics at 28%.”
Not only are NASCAR fans more loyal with their purchases, they also are more aware of the sponsors of the racing teams.
Larry DeGaris, Director of the JMU Center for Sports Sponsorship, studied fan sponsorship awareness and concluded that NASCAR fans know who the sponsors are. “Our study shows that NASCAR fans’ sponsorship awareness is both extensive and accurate. For example, 96% of self-described ‘big’ fans of NASCAR correctly identified Budweiser as a sponsor of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. What’s more impressive is that awareness remains strong among most drivers in the NASCAR SPRINT Cup Series. I’ve conducted similar studies for every major sport in the U.S. and nothing comes close.”
So there it is -- the data shows that NASCAR fans are extremely loyal and show that knowledge with their money and their knowledge.
I have been asking people this week if they see a difference in NASCAR fan loyalty compared to their particular fan passion. Someone summed it up like this, “I mean I am very loyal Detroit Red Wings fan, but I have no desire to put a sticker on my car or fly a flag in my front yard or name my kid Jarrett.”
Yes, we do have a friend who named their first-born Jarrett in honor of Dale Jarrett.
Larry McReynolds wrote a very interesting column this week about NASCAR fans. He believes that the sport has lost its passion. NASCAR has too many rules and needs to do some reevaluating soon.
“I relate it to my days as a crew chief. If I had one guy on our team who constantly complained about every detail -- hours, lighting in the shop, how we position our cars in the garage, etc. -- I'd listen to him but probably wouldn't do much," McReynolds stated. "But you know what? If I had 10 or 12 guys in my shop complaining about the same things, I better be smart enough to listen. And that's my point. We have got thousands of fans right now telling us that they don't like what they are seeing and we are not listening to them. We better be smart enough to listen.”
So NASCAR should not take this fan loyalty for granted. We are devoted but we want a sport with passion and competition. I’d like to see some cars passing others in a race.
How about you? Do you wear NASCAR apparel?
Has your loyalty to NASCAR been faltering because of the economy?
What does being a loyal fan mean to you?
How would you complete this statement? “You know you’re a NASCAR fan if …”
I would love to hear from you and I’ll share some of the responses in a future column. Thanks.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
