NASCAR ratings increase for ROVAL suggests schedule change could be good
By Nick Tylwalk
Rare good ratings news is the most obvious sign to date that fans are looking for something new.
It’s not clear if it’s a majority or just a vocal minority of NASCAR fans who feel this way, but there’s a perception that too many changes to the structure of races turn people off. That same feeling doesn’t necessarily apply to switching up track layouts or visiting new venues, and the NASCAR ratings news from the Charlotte ROVAL race is proof.
Everyone who follows the sport knows that TV audiences have been down all year, as they were in 2017 and the year before that. It’s hard to find even one example of ratings going up year over year unless it’s a case of a race being switched from cable to network TV, which always leads to a small uptick.
But lo and behold, the ROVAL delivered an honest to goodness apples to apples improvement over the same race from last fall, when the race was run on the usual Charlotte Motor Speedway oval.
This is one of the first, if not the first, natural ratings increases for a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race this year.
— Adam Stern (@A_S12) October 1, 2018
➖Last year's race earned a 1.8, while yesterday's earned a 2.0.
➖Other ratings increases in '18 came due to switching the race from cable to broadcast. pic.twitter.com/LbJNhzcTGS
It’s hard to concoct any other explanation for this bump other than curiosity about the ROVAL. It can’t be just because it was a playoff race, because that hasn’t shown to have any impact on viewership in the past — quite the opposite, in fact, since the NASCAR Playoffs races are in direct competition with NFL games every week but one.
The good news is that despite road course racing not being everyone’s cup of tea, enough people were intrigued that it led to a rare NASCAR ratings victory. The bad news is that even knowing that, there’s nothing much that can be done in the short term. The 2019 Cup Series schedule is pretty much exactly the same as the one we’re completing over the next month and a half.
Next. Charlotte recap: Blaney earns surprising ROVAL win after wild finish. dark
Beyond that, though, NASCAR should be pondering what it can do for the 2020 season. Company president Steve Phelps is already on record saying that he expects changes to the schedule, but no one knows exactly how willing the execs will be to do some serious tinkering. Based on the ROVAL numbers, they should be quite willing indeed.