May 14, 2009
By Brian Watkins
Brian Watkins
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NASCAR is asking questions, and it's time to give them some answers. Apparently ratings are down consistently this season- nearly 12 percent down as reported on the main page of Insider Racing News. If I didn't know differently, I would think that ratings would be higher this year because it's certainly much cheaper to watch a race on television than it is to travel to one- apparently it's not that simple. Fixing the problem won't be easy, but it seems as though NASCAR is taking logical steps t fix the problem, or at least find the root cause.
I won't begin to speculate as to why ratings are down. I know many readers have old me that they don't watch the races anymore because its not the NASCAR they grew up with; and that could be a contributing factor. Other issues raised by NASCAR include the rain shortened Daytona 500 as well as a lack of a big story line so far this season. I agree that there is no big story that carries from race to race. Two seasons ago it was Toyota and their freshman year follies. Last season it was the evil Darth Busch vs. Luke Earnhardt, Jr. This year it's just racing. The racing hasn't been bad this year, but it hasn't been overly dramatic either, save the Talladega catch fence incident. While I think it would be wrong for NASCAR to purposely generate a story line to draw viewers, it would be nice if one grew on it's own. Driver/owners getting suspended for failing random drug testing certainly adds a new wrinkle to the picture, but not exactly the attention NASCAR is after.
One of the factors NASCAR seems to be interested in finding more about is how fans feel about commercials. Obviously it would be great if there were none at all, but given the fact that commercials are a necessary evil of broadcasting, they (NASCAR) seem to be taking serious look at different ways to integrate advertisements into the event hat may have less impact on the action. This is where the fans come in.
We often complain about the commercials interrupting this or that. We moan about coming out of a commercial into a caution having missed the action. We get angry when they cut to commercial just as our driver is getting ready to make the pit stop that could make or break the race for them. Now is our chance to let NASCAR know what we think would be a reasonable solution t the situation. How would you do the commercials?
I personally liked it when the commercials played in the lower half of the screen while the race continued in the upper portion. You had to listen to the commercial, but you could do so while watching the action on the track. While it was a nice break, i think it might get a bit old after a while. Taking commercial breaks during pit stops seems like a logical idea at first- they do it during time-outs during televised stick or ball games. The problem is that during a hockey game or a football game, there's nothing going on during the time out. Pit stops, while not as thrilling to watch can often be an interesting and pivotal part of the race- one that many fans don't want to miss. The lack of an obvious place to run commercials leads me to wonder if NASCAR shouldn't try to arrange a TV time-out, in the form of a competition caution every so many laps.
I've decried the idea of yellow flags strictly for the sake of commercials in past columns, and I still don't love the idea- or even like it too much. But in an era of unprecedented economic woes in the TV and sports markets, I can understand the need for unconventional solutions. It would be interesting to see what drivers might think about the idea. If I were in charge, and there are many many people who should be happy I'm not, and I had to implement a "commercial caution" I wouldn't open pit lane, and I might even park the cars on the track for 5 minutes. The trick would be to have the caution at predetermined but unannounced times. You would have to decide before the race when you would call the cautions to avoid looking like you're trying to call them when it will favor one driver or one team, but you wouldn't want the teams to know they were coming so they couldn't factor them into their fuel plans.
I don't know enough about how well the cars deal with shutting down and restarting or the logistics of throwing the caution flag willy-nilly for the sake of another commercial break to know if a competition commercial caution would even be possible, let alone desirable.
But what do you think? How would you run the ads if it were up to you? Do the ads play into when/if/how you watch the race?
I'm guessing that later in the season when Digger goes away viewership will improve by at least 5%.
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.
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